Google search failed to even find a hollywood movie, even after 1 hour of attempts. I don’t really care about the movie, but I am terrified by the prospect that google now ceased to function on this basic level. Why is this happening?

I understand the explanations of seo and other stuff like spam content. But why are there NO relevant results at all.

I wouldn’t mind having to start wading through results at page 2 or even 10 but now it utterly fails to find even the most basic things.

Things you found on the first attempt even just a year ago. Now they are effectively hidden.

To me functionally the entire internet has now vanished. I cannot access anything that I am searching for. Might as well not exist at all.

Has anybody found a way around this?

Is this on purpose? Is this an attack on the free internet, herding people to just the top 5 sites like facebook, youtube, tiktok, and so forth?

Are there search engines that still work?

  • caseyweederman@lemmy.ca
    931·
    9 months ago

    Reddit keeps asking me to use their app and they are very clearly making the mobile browser version worse and worse.
    Just last week I couldn’t view a thread I found on Google without signing in. It wasn’t adult content and didn’t require verifying my age. The reason given was very vague and had something to do with the content not being vetted (despite being old).

    The Reddit garden wall is already here and is currently being rolled out. For your own good, of course.

    • brbposting@sh.itjust.works
      22·
      9 months ago

      Probably this:

      “Unreviewed Content
      This community has not been reviewed and might contain content inappropriate for certain viewers. View in the Reddit app to continue.”

      Knew I could find it by searching for an in-theaters film followed by “DVD rip reddit”. Behold / old reddit link.

      The sub exists to funnel people to a single TinyUrl. Checking the preview instead, I expect it (123movieshd dot club) is a malware distributor.

      While reddit’s tactic is coercive, it also functions as a lazy way to fight the reach/effectiveness of spammers.

        • Juvyn00b@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          9 months ago

          Agreed, but it’s been working now for longer than I originally expected. I wonder if some part of their choice base totally relies on that being available…

    • AWittyUsername@lemmy.world
      41·
      9 months ago

      Use Firefox and there are extensions that block the app request popup. Or you could use tampermonkey or something similar to do it.

        • SolOrion@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          3·
          9 months ago

          The page still loads behind it, usually, there’s just a popup keeping you from accessing it. So I don’t see how they could stop you from just… removing the popup.

          • caseyweederman@lemmy.ca
            1·
            9 months ago

            Sure, to see a few top-level replies. That’s another part of it, you’ve got to click “see more” several times in order to see every branch of the conversation. None of that is hidden behind the overlay element.