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> The main problem with google is that it's too 'smart' for its own good (smart tool makes stupid users).

I don't think that's true; one, I don't think that Google's smarts are a problem with Google, and two, I don't think that allowing people to direct their intelligence other places than carefully crafting search queries to get useful results in most cases makes stupid users.

> If I search for something, I don't want it to by default include a massive list of other 'helpful' things up to and including antonyms or different word order that changes the meaning (e.g. how "foo guide for bar users" == "bar guide for foo users" according to google).

Altered word order in a query isn't equivalent to Google. I just tested with a bunch of pairs that differed in order, and got different results for each search in the pair.

Altered word order may be something Google things may be relevant to your search, but that's different than the equation you presented.

> So far, every single person I have explained filter bubbles to has been weirded out by the idea and thanked me for telling them about it.

Its possible to explain anything to people in a way that weirds people out, but I don't see why search personalization should. Most people, I think, understand that the same set of words from different people have different most-likely meanings: if you know one person is a cocaine addict and another is, to the best of your knowledge, drug-free but a heavy soda drinker, and each says to you "I need some coke!", you'll probably interpret those statements differently.

One thing I used to do quite a bit was go to a lot of shopping search sites (Amazon, The Find, Shopzilla, Nextag, Shopwiki...) and try some pathological queries to see who was doing stupid search and who was doing smart search. My favorite test queries where [apples to apples], [dress shirt], [shirt dress], and [+++++].

You have to realise you're in a minority there – at least, I think that's the case.

I expect most search engine users (i.e. non-tech-industry users) are interested in 'typing things into the internet to find stuff'. The ability to build a useful search query isn't something a lot of people can do – it's dependent on understanding concepts like verbatim strings, quotes, modifiers… not that complex, but equally not common knowledge. Instead, Google is going to use the vast resources at it's disposal to guess the intent of badly-worded queries, and unfortunately that's not going to benefit people who can word their queries well.

Here's a tip though – I've configured my browser to search using Google's 'verbatim' search mode by default. It's not perfect, but it's much closer to how it used to operate. Unfortunately, as much as I'd like to try using another search engine, they've been much less useful in practice.

>The ability to build a useful search query isn't something a lot of people can do

While true, that doesn't mean you have to neuter your entire search engine. Even if Joe Sixpack never uses +, "", boolean operators, etc (and Aunt Tilly outright asks 'The Google' "Please take me to Yahoo Mail"), it doesn't mean google should remove them.

By all means, have the advanced features mildly hidden so that they don't confuse/scare stupid people, but at least keep them available (in a non-neutered form) for those who do actually need them.

>I can't wait until in a year or two DuckDuckGo is as good as google (not as hard as it used to be)...

I would have to agree, Google is getting worse, while DuckDuckGo is getting better. I don't think that most users would switch though, but as long as I have an alternative I'm happy.

I think them becoming the default on iOS devices will help a lot. I know a lot of people don't know/care the difference between DDG and Google, but those that do will take notice. And maybe a few of them will make that their default on their desktop. What they really need to do is get something going with Mozilla to become the default on Firefox. Philosophically, Mozilla and DuckDuckGo are a match made in heaven, so I'm bummed this hasn't happened yet. I'd imagine it's a money issues because I seem to recall that Google was basically funding Firefox by being the default. Yahoo must have matched or exceeded that to become the default.

Yeah, google didn't renew the contract, so yahoo took over. IIRC, the search deal is something like 90% of Mozilla's funding :(

> I can't wait until in a year or two DuckDuckGo is as good as google (not as hard as it used to be)

It's literally never been harder. The idea that it's getting easier to wade through the crap on the Internet is so disconnected with reality I don't know what to say.

> Yahoo is definitely not good on privacy, but at least they fought as hard as they could before their hand was forced where google capitulated immediately.

Can you share a source for that?

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/07/yahoo-fight-for-users-...

> Of course, it's possible more companies have challenged this secret surveillance, but we just don't know about it yet.

And no other mention of Google in the article. Great that Yahoo fought them but it doesn't support your assertion that Google immediately gave in or cares less for privacy than Yahoo.

Even better, the same source you provided (EFF's Who Has Your Back report: https://www.eff.org/who-has-your-back-2013) gives this as Yahoo's only positive mark while Google is 5/6.