Robo web pages, who to complain to?

[7milesup]

I was recently looking at purchasing a new sliding compound miter saw for my shop. When I searched for reviews of that particular saw (Makita LS1219L), the Google search came up with several sites that were basically "glossed over reviews." It is hard to describe, but they were "written" by taking bits and pieces of consumer reviews and consolidating them into an article. They appeared to be "written" by a person, or at least the info was gathered and overseen by a person, because the "author" was listed at the bottom of the page with a short bio. It was very evident, however, that the author had never touched a saw in his/her life and could probably only point to a picture of a saw.

I use Firefox exclusively and have been using it for years. You can easily customize it with add-ons and sync across devices. I currently have AdBlock Plus installed and Sponsor Block for YouTube. It eliminates all of the annoying ads that run before or during a YouTube video. I tried DuckDuckGo for a little while based on recommendations from users here on H-M but found that it missed a lot of results, so I switched back to Google.
The one annoying issue I have is that notifications for websites, especially H-M, seem to taper off after a while until they stop. Once I revisit a site, they may start appearing again or not. It also occasionally will not let me log in until I clear the cache, but I am not sure if that is a Firefox issue or something else.

 

[terry_g]

I use brave browser and the brave search engine. I highly recommend them.

 

[RJSakowski]

There is / was a program called "Edge Deflector" that would take care of that for you.

You left out a 'feature' of those sorts of sites - they usually run to 5 pages to answer the simplest question. Try typing in "how many threads per inch in a 1/4"-20 bolt"... There is never a direct answer.

GsT

I tried your suggestion using Google and the very first sentence stated 20 threads per inch. At least the next ten entries all gave that information. I also tried"Hey Google on my phone and it came right back with the answer.

 

[GeneT45]

I tried your suggestion using Google and the very first sentence stated 20 threads per inch. At least the next ten entries all gave that information. I also tried"Hey Google on my phone and it came right back with the answer.

I pulled that suggestion out of hat, without actually trying it. Here's an example of what I mean. Let's say you wanted to weld an angle iron frame and do so in the 'correct' order to minimize distortion. Search "angle iron welding order".

My top two results:

How to Weld Angle Iron? Perfect Your Skill with These Tips

How to Weld Angle Iron? Discover the best techniques and achieve brilliant results with our detailed guide. Ready to perfect your welding skill?

weldingclarity.com

How to Weld Angle Iron - Welding Headquarters

Angle iron is also called an angle bar and is a structural iron or steel piece that has an L-shaped cross-section. Though angle iron is made of the same

weldingheadquarters.com

I needn't post more, but it's more of the same. Not only is the question not answered, the answers are verbose beyond belief - padded like a high schooler trying to make a 10-page essay out of scant knowledge of the subject.

GsT

 

[matthewsx]

Use multiple browsers, my choices are Chrome (for websites I want to have remember me), Firefox (for general browsing but I have it flush all cookies on close so generally no ongoing tracking), Opera (for it's built in VPN, also set to flush all cookies on close), and Edge (for work, where I live in a Microsoft environment).

You can also set the default search engine on each of these, I use DuckDuckGo and Startpage but may look into OpenSearch.

Have been using the WWW since 1994 and long ago realized the trade-off's involved. You can ignore stupid stuff if you like but there are strategies to minimize your exposure.

Don't even get me started on FB....

John

 

[brino]

It takes a bit of time to manually make another browser the default for all the usual file extensions. You can select another browser as the default but to get all the file types to use it is a manual process.

Here's a solution for that:
https://www.d7xtech.com/default-programs-manager/

Simply set up your defaults once, hit the save button, then anytime later hit the restore button to get back to your defaults.

I need this at work as their push OS updates always reset default browser, pdf viewer and more to that dreaded Edge BS.

Brian

 

[David2011]

Those useless wordy responses are just one of the downsides of AI.

It’s virtually impossible to avoid Google completely regardless of the browser that you use. Most websites use Google Analytics and Google Ads, Beyond that, I go out of my way to avoid using Google for anything. My perspective is 25 years of business IT with over 20 years in a Fortune 100 Enterprise environment.

IMO Chrome was developed by Google to make their data collection/theft easier.

 

[C-Bag]

Those useless wordy responses are just one of the downsides of AI.

It’s virtually impossible to avoid Google completely regardless of the browser that you use. Most websites use Google Analytics and Google Ads, Beyond that, I go out of my way to avoid using Google for anything. My perspective is 25 years of business IT with over 20 years in a Fortune 100 Enterprise environment.

IMO Chrome was developed by Google to make their data collection/theft easier.

Yeah, we truly are living in the Matrix.

Who would have ever thought our rummaging around on net would equate to big $$$$.

 

[Aaron_W]

I keep seeing people who claim the AI programs are a great thing, but all I see is terrible ad driven crud.

Some is so bad that it is kind of amusing. I ran across an article that combined the Civil War era Henry rifle, the 1880s British Henry-Martini rifle (no relation), and the modern Henry Arms company that makes reproduction Henry rifles. It was almost a coherent article, but entirely bogus information.

 

[C-Bag]

I keep seeing people who claim the AI programs are a great thing, but all I see is terrible ad driven crud.

Some is so bad that it is kind of amusing. I ran across an article that combined the Civil War era Henry rifle, the 1880s British Henry-Martini rifle (no relation), and the modern Henry Arms company that makes reproduction Henry rifles. It was almost a coherent article, but entirely bogus information.

I’ve listened to different podcasts where they do deep dives on AI with people who are involved with them and over and over I hear them say that “hallucinations “ are a problem. I take that as it doesn’t matter how real it is it just needs to sound good. Sounds familiar.