I wanted to block Google's shitty AI results. Ok it looks like I can add &udm=14 to the url to do that.
Let me just add a custom search engine in Firefox... oh wait apparently you can't add custom search engines anymore. You have to install an extension for that.
Ok I found an extension that does it but it makes Firefox say "search with [extension name]" instead of "search with Google" and the icon is different which is annoying.
Should be an easy fix, just download the extension's source and modify the manifest.json to name it "Google" and change the icon to Google's.
Alright now let's install it and... "This add-on could not be installed because it has not been verified." Wtf I have to sign my own add-ons just to use locally?
Fine whatever download the shitty npm program to sign the add-on (it downloaded 400 dependencies btw). Oh wait I need an API key to sign the add-on to use it locally. I'm not getting a fucking API key to run local code.
Oh good there's actually an about:config setting to disable add-on signing... and it doesn't work anymore.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Is there a good Firefox fork that undoes this bullshit but otherwise keeps up with the main codebase and isn't a pain to switch to?
I don't know why Firefox makes you do it this way but you do not need an extension. For example, go to Yandex.com then click on the address/search bar. On the bottom of the pop up you will be able to add Yandex as a search provider.
It's dumb. But it doesn't need any extensions or config changes.
As far as I can tell that doesn't let you make it the default, just add it as a keyword.
part 2 of the dumbness. then you go into firefox settings under the search section and rearrange the search providers. the top one is default, and the rest appear in order.
Change
browser.urlbar.update2.engineAliasRefreshtotruethen go to Settings -> Search -> Search Shortcuts (at the bottom) -> Add. No extension needed. :)Show
Cool that worked. I had to name it with Cyrillic о though since it couldn't be named "Google" even after I deleted the default Google.
And it looks like there's no way to edit it should I ever need to change it. I'd have to delete and recreate. wtf
Honestly, I'd just take this as a chance to move away from Google. Find some public SearxNG instance and use that instead, much more private, better search results since it uses multiple search engines under the hood, and you get to keep results from Google if you want.
Firefox-dev lets you run custom extensions. They just updated the GUI tho. It's all customizable now.
Wow, I hadn't realized it's gotten so bad. I use duckduckgo and just tried it. I also got some of these. A little fewer though.
i haven't seen the AI stuff at all, idk if it's just not a thing in my region or maybe ublock just blocks it by default?
I've seen it once. It may be a random test selection or limited to queries it arbitrarily decides that it has a good (always 100% wrong) answer for.
Doesn't need an extension. Just add it and then put it at the top of the list.
waterfox (current, not classic) is pretty good for running custom unsigned addons, and said addons don't have to be restricted by the webextensions API either if you really wanna go ham on customizing
No, but I'm not sure, it would help. I'd really like to dns block made-for-advertising sites. They have exploded because of AI. One would need to create an index of them like there already are for ads, pornography and gambling. I'm talking about the blogs full of long AI articles and pictures on every conceivable obscure topic.
it's amazing how much worse the experience of using a phone or computer is than just 5 years ago (when it was already pretty bad compared to 5 years before)
we're on an exponential doom curve, the only winning move is to pitch your gizmos into the sea
