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Comment by krono | Hacker News Reader

Not denying that. However, unless I'd be blocking new domains on a weekly basis, I just don't think it's worth installing an additional extension for something that's so easily achieved without.

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I've started blocking results using ublock last year after it has been mentioned here, and I've got to the point where I have a script I can use to generate the relevant filters for google/bing and a few other search engines.

When I spot any domain which has been squatted by SEO and useless comparison-alike websites I immediately block it. This has brought up the quality of results IMMENSELY.

I'm blocking domains on a _daily_ basis.

The interesting thing is that Google could do this easily if they wanted to, but for some reason they don't. After all, if you can do it as an end user and in a low enough amount of time that it is worth it for you then surely Google can do it, they get to amortize that time across many more users.

They actually used to offer this feature years ago but removed it.

Yes. I remember that feature. I was displeased when I noticed that it had been removed.

Google in general has an aversion to giving users control. Their product vision is an omniscient AI that gives you enough of what you want that you'll tolerate the ads. The removal of user control is aided in many cases by justifications around security and UX design simplicity ("users don't know what they want"). But really it's about keeping control on the AI side.

I concur.

I suppose eventually Google's search results in many countries/jurisdictions (such as the EU, USA, etc) will be regulated like a public utility.

As a result, I expect Google will be forced to allow users to ban search results from particular URLs with a single click.

Hey, could you post a gist? I'm currently using uBlacklist to block exactly that type of shitty site you mention.

Would you mind sharing your script? I'd be glad to use it.

…have you used Google lately? I’m blocking junk results daily.

Been using this method to build on my blocklist for a few years, it's quite long by now ;)

Any chance of sharing it?

That’s the ticket. “Many intelligent people go out of their way to silence this site” is EXACTLY the kind of signal I want to pump into my information retrieval system.

Should be possible to crowd source this and publish the result as a list that’s consumed by uBlock origin…

That would be awesome.

I've found one other immediate and huge improvement to my mood was to remove all graphical elements from the news sites that I visit.

Yes, please! But I guess we'd need some form of web of trust?

There's too much personal stuff on there for me to be comfortable sharing it as is, and I'm afraid I don't have time to distil the list this weekend either.

I'd be happy to create you some ready-made filters for any specific sites or other types of results that you'd like to get rid of though, just let me know!

No, no problem, if it is just for me, I figured that if this can be crowdsourced effectively it would really clean up the search results and that is worth it if enough people start using it.

It might even be enough to stick it on github or gitlab and start accepting pull requests against a starter list.

I mean I definitely would be: I block YouTube channels pretty aggressively now, and there's a lot of websites I'd like to get rid of.

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