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Old 10-10-2011, 12:05 AM   #1
Doppleganger
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Why Yahoo! sucks.

Recently I've become a tad too un-nerved by "Big Brother" Google increasingly asking me for more personal information, to the point of it linking my college mail account (which is powered by Gmail) with my regular one so it could send user-specific ads from my e-mail's scanned data contents to my other account while I use it. But when Google asked me for my cellphone number to create a new email address, I had enough. Fudge them.

So I converted to Yahoo!, and have promptly realized why "Google" has become a verb synonymous with web-searching: Yahoo! sucks.

Some examples of why using Yahoo! feels like a uterine Falcon Punch:

1. Poor filtering.

Yahoo! refuses to narrow certain criteria Google does, in the case of looking for something obscure. Check "Kansas City Chefs". I was looking for a video in which an old-man mis-spells the football team's name on the field. Yahoo! makes it virtually impossible to find this video by not filtering out what it feels is your "correct" search.

Case in point - Google search Kansas City Chefs, 178,000 hits. Yahoo!: 4,000,000+ hits, with "Kansas City Chiefs" included in the search. If you click "show only Kansas City Chefs" you get no change in the amount of hits.

2. The options don't work.

If you get a Yahoo! account you get some personalization options to cut down the features jammed by Yahoo! down your throat to appeal to casuals.

Spoiler: show




A pity it doesn't work.

Spoiler: show




3. Poor filtering!

Spoiler: show


4. AIDSAds

This is with the maximum minimization:

Spoiler: show


...

What a world, eh? I've stuck between a rock and the fire - Big Brother and Captain Capitalism.
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Old 10-10-2011, 12:10 AM   #2
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...Mortimer?
And yes, Google does whatever the eff they want because Yahoo! is in the corner eating paste.
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Old 10-10-2011, 01:10 AM   #3
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Mortimer Irons is just the pseudonym I used for Yahoo!.

Actually though, I disagree. Yahoo! is doing whatever it wants, because unlike Mozilla or Microsoft nobody is trying to imitate what Yahoo! is doing. I will admit Yahoo! Answers, Babelfish (which is really Alta-Vista) and Yahoo! Finance are superior services to what Google provides, but that's IT.
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Old 10-10-2011, 08:48 AM   #4
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Why would you use Yahoo as a search site, when that's not your beef with Google? It sounds like your beef is only really with Google's email.
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Old 10-10-2011, 09:00 AM   #5
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Google asks to link my school e-mail with my non-school e-mail: I say "No."

Google asks for my cell phone information "in case you lose your password!" : I say "No."

Google asks me to make a Google+ account with my main Gmail account which, for it to have any meaning whatsoever, means I'd have to change my main Gmail account's name from "John Doe" to my actual name. I say "No." I make a new Gmail account just for Google+. And then I never, ever sign into it since I'm too accustomed to my anonymous Gmail account. (Also, other reasons.)

They give you those options, Doppel. If you chose to link your two e-mails, that was your own fault. Still, I do agree with you that Google is becoming far too nosy these days. People accused Facebook of this kind of data mining on people, but Facebook is only as powerful as the information you feed it. Google can know many more things about you by sheer virtue of the fact that, if you use it as your primary search engine while logged into your Google account, and if they can connect your Google account to you, whammo: they know a shitton more about you -- including the stuff you were too embarrassed or afraid to ever talk about on Facebook. So yes, I would agree that Google's antics have become somewhat of a problem; but, I don't think we're at the point where we have to migrate away from Google to other services.

Or, as you point out in this thread, that we even can migrate to other services. 'Cause we can't. Google's been my search engine of choice since 1999. For (literally) 12 years, Google has won the search engine wars. None of these kids today even remember Lycos, Alta Vista, or Excite. They know about the new (and largely failed) ones like Bing. They occasionally know about an older one which was quirky (like AskJeeves) or has managed to stick around (like Yahoo). But to most of these kids on UPN right now, Google is and has "always" been the way you browse the Internet for information. That's just how good Google's search algorithms are. And the testament to that fact is that, 13 years later after Google was born, Microsoft still can't figure out how to write a good search engine. (Bing. Ugh.)

EDIT: I knew Microsoft more or less owned Yahoo now, but I didn't remember this. Doppel, this may explain some things ...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wikipedia
On July 29, 2009, Yahoo! and Microsoft finalized a deal in which Yahoo! Search would be powered by Microsoft Bing technology.

Last edited by Talon87; 10-10-2011 at 09:08 AM.
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Old 10-10-2011, 01:04 PM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Amras.MG View Post
Why would you use Yahoo as a search site, when that's not your beef with Google? It sounds like your beef is only really with Google's email.
When you're logged into your Google Account, and you perform searches, your search data is fed into your email service to target you with search-specific ads. Since my mail account is my secure account, and it's now linked to my slightly less secure regular Gmail account on top of my troll/trash ones, I don't want getting ads for something questionable while I'm logged into from university.

Even if you say, "log out, search on Google, log back into your email" that's a really tedious process, and the authentication for my college account is longer than a regular Gmail account. The password is longer and there's more steps involved. It becomes too much of a hassle to deal with, but the loss of privacy isn't worth it either.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
Google asks to link my school e-mail with my non-school e-mail: I say "No."
It wasn't that simple.

In order for me to regain use of my e-mail service, I had to link it to all my other Gmail accounts. Once upon a time, you could have two mails services open in different windows, but in order to do that now you have to enable a "switch" so only one service is being accessed at one time. And that requires linking. You can say no, but you are also denied the service. Google took something away from me and demanded I yield information to get it back.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
Google asks for my cell phone information "in case you lose your password!" : I say "No."
That works for pre-existing Gmail accounts but not registering new ones.

http://i52.tinypic.com/33e4lsh.gif

Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
Google asks me to make a Google+ account with my main Gmail account which, for it to have any meaning whatsoever, means I'd have to change my main Gmail account's name from "John Doe" to my actual name. I say "No." I make a new Gmail account just for Google+. And then I never, ever sign into it since I'm too accustomed to my anonymous Gmail account. (Also, other reasons.)
Oh yeah, there was that bit about no longer having separate accounts for YouTube and Gmail. My YouTube account is a troll account and I don't want it connected to my regular accounts at all, and plus, it uses a different disposable email from the one I use on my main YT account. I couldn't simultaneously be on e-mail, my regular account and the disposable YT one simultaneously, I had to switch or sign out to browse YouTube!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
EDIT: I knew Microsoft more or less owned Yahoo now, but I didn't remember this. Doppel, this may explain some things ...
Guh, I had even forgotten Bing existed and now I find that out?

For a brief time back in the Y2K era Yahoo! was also powered by Google, at the time I'd thought it portent to Google buying out Yahoo! a la Costco buying out Price Club to become Price Costco, then just Costco. I wonder what happened to that?
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Old 10-10-2011, 01:23 PM   #7
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I don't remember Yahoo! ever being powered by Google, but would you look at that. Man, that's pretty crazy.

Even crazier is that screencap of Google saying you need to provide a cell phone to make new accounts. This totally did not happen a month or two ago when I made my new Gmail account, so either:
(a) Gmail accounts made from pre-existing e-mails do not require cell phone authentication, or else
(b) this is a very new change in Google policy

IIRC I used my school e-mail to make my Gmail account for Google+. The one I never, ever use. But I could be wrong. *shrug* Still, that's pretty frightening to see Google strong-arming people into providing their cell phone information. If they do that with my existing Gmail accounts (none of which have the cell phone or other IRL contact information provided), it'd be enough to push me off to new shores, certainly. Who does Google think they are? They became who they are because we empowered them. We made them the People's Search Engine. And we can take that away if they start trying to Big Brother shit up. Not cool.

As for the Davismail thing, Doppel, that still sounds like it's your fault. It sounds like (no offense) you were too lazy to sign out and then sign back in between different e-mails and instead insisted upon being able to be co-logged into both your Gmail account and your Davis e-mail account. I admit, I enjoy that luxury with my academic e-mail accounts, but even if I didn't -- even if I were in your position -- I still wouldn't have linked the two accounts. You made the choice to, so that's your bed to sleep in, I would say.

But still ... the mandatory cell phone thing ... that's pretty outrageous. Are the days of anonymous e-mail accounts vanishing? (One can argue that they were never truly anonymous provided the e-mail account provider was in bed with your ISP and could obtain your private information from them via simply naming an IP address used to access the e-mail account, but still. That was one large~ish hoop for the e-mail clients to have to jump through: a hoop which protected user privacy.)
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Old 10-10-2011, 09:58 PM   #8
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Yeah I've been meaning to get a non-troll account at Google for a while and the phone number requirement keeps making me have second thoughts. Google is not to be trusted with that information even if they are the least likely to pummel me with CAPTAIN CAPITALISM, at least in the short term. It does, however, reveal a key weakness -- an Achilles heel -- the fundamental flaw that allows us to turn Google's own meddling against it.

Google assumes the majority of data it collects is true.

They've already announced that they started Google+ because of the amount of information it would grant them, and this is repeatedly suggested by their insistence on real names, real phone numbers, and real categorization (such as "family" or "coworkers").

I think that if Google had mountains of data on me, but most of it were false, it probably wouldn't be a big deal. So, to go with the lunatic tinfoil hat approach, just keep feeding them bad data, and make sure you never rely on only one company for search, email, and other internet consumption.
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Old 10-11-2011, 12:51 AM   #9
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You can't feed them a fake phone number if they plan to call that number to authenticate your account. No more so than you can use a fake e-mail address to get the password to an account whose password you've forgotten. I'm pretty sure that when Google asks for the phone number, they intend to place a call to it, tell you a number, and then you enter that number into an authentication field in your browser. Alternatively, it may be as simple as "Press 1 to confirm, Press 2 to cancel, Press 9 to talk to the operator," one of those kinds of deals. Either way, they'll want a real phone number out of you and they'll get it by holding your new account with them hostage until you supply the goods.
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Old 10-11-2011, 05:59 PM   #10
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Yeah, they require confirmation via phone now, so I can't give them a false number. I can, however, use someone else's phone for the confirmation step, if I'm really desperate. As far as confusing their data mining, I'm thinking a bunch of irrelevant email correspondences and search queries should do the trick.
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Old 10-23-2011, 07:55 PM   #11
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Wow. I've always just used Yahoo for my email and Google for the searching, but now I have a few good reasons to not switch the roles.
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Old 10-23-2011, 08:28 PM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Missingno. Master View Post
Wow. I've always just used Yahoo for my email and Google for the searching, but now I have a few good reasons to not switch the roles.
Same here, I use yahoo, and hotmail for my e-mails, but never their search, I always google. I never link accounts either, and if a website requires registration, I always create a new registration from e-mail instead of linking it to an account on some other site, or signing in from your e-mail. If that's not available, I let the site rot.

I was never really interested in a gmail account, and now I'm glad I never registered one. I just hope they didn't link youtube with googlemail (making youtube accounts into googlemail accounts), I know they did some kind of merge, but I'm not sure of the extent.

All we can do really though is boycott them and petition if they get out of hand.
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Old 03-11-2012, 05:28 PM   #13
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http://www.mercurynews.com/business/...ce=most_viewed
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Old 05-26-2012, 07:34 PM   #14
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Also, It's haunted. My default search engine used to be Google. I log on the computer one day, POOF its Yahoo. O_o
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Old 02-28-2013, 11:12 PM   #15
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More Google bashing:

A recommended article for me (why?) brought up a beauty pageant girl who resigned from her crown as "Miss Delaware" because she did a porn video that was released online. I found that hilarious, so being curious so I browsed for pictures to compare, but Google wouldn't show anything.

I noticed that SafeSearch was enabled, so I went into Preferences to remove it...and Google won't allow it.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Google
Lock SafeSearch This will apply strict filtering to all searches from this computer using Firefox.
Basically...Google is now punishing users of competing browsers by restricting what one can do. I can have moderate SafeSearch or strict SafeSearch, but so long as I use Firefox, my searches will be filtered.

No thank you, Big Brother.
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Old 02-28-2013, 11:16 PM   #16
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I don't know what you're talking about. I turn it off/on all the time on Firefox. Are you on a work computer or something?
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Old 02-28-2013, 11:18 PM   #17
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Doppleganger View Post
More Google bashing:

A recommended article for me (why?) brought up a beauty pageant girl who resigned from her crown as "Miss Delaware" because she did a porn video that was released online. I found that hilarious, so being curious so I browsed for pictures to compare, but Google wouldn't show anything.

I noticed that SafeSearch was enabled, so I went into Preferences to remove it...and Google won't allow it.



Basically...Google is now punishing users of competing browsers by restricting what one can do. I can have moderate SafeSearch or strict SafeSearch, but so long as I use Firefox, my searches will be filtered.

No thank you, Big Brother.
To be clear, are we talking Google Images searching or Google web searching? Because I don't know about whether they've bumped me up to a SafeSearch filter on Images or not (I do know that, without my permission, they have done so periodically in the past), but I tend to appreciate it, actually, if only because it means less pr0n when I'm trying to find worksafe happy fanart of video game or anime characters for a thread or Skype chat. ^^; But with regards to web searching, I'm preeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetty sure that Google hasn't touched my SafeSearch settings there. Or that if they have, they are terrible at doing their job.
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Old 02-28-2013, 11:20 PM   #18
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It's image searching. I was able to get the montage I wanted through the websearch, although it was a bit trickier than "click link, get picture".
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Old 02-28-2013, 11:31 PM   #19
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So was this another space pigeon?

You don't even have to go into settings menu. They have a drop down tab that checks on/off the filter.
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Old 02-28-2013, 11:53 PM   #20
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Raptor Jesus View Post
So was this another space pigeon?

You don't even have to go into settings menu. They have a drop down tab that checks on/off the filter.
I have JavaScript permanently disabled, so I have no way of confirming/denying this.
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Old 03-01-2013, 12:02 AM   #21
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Apparently they (recently) changed it?
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Old 03-01-2013, 12:34 AM   #22
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I don't know how you can be any more explicit than "Melissa King Porn".
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Old 03-01-2013, 08:03 AM   #23
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"Melissa King daddy issues"
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Old 03-04-2013, 04:26 PM   #24
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To people freaking out about Google+ trying to grab all the info it can get about you: information stealing, storage and selling has been going on for a long time through all sorts of means. You shouldn't be too shocked about it.

But at least Google doesn't make stuff like this happen - yet anyway.
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Old 10-29-2013, 08:48 AM   #25
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Google, bastards.

They've removed the "send a text or IM to get a Gmail account" but in an effort to curb the misinformation individuals such as myself love to sow with fake accounts, they've made it so that logging in is keyed to your location. If you sign in from a place outside of your designated zip code (mine for all dummy accounts is Brooklyn, 11211) they'll force you to use the text and phone number verification whenever you use your account. Analysis shows me that this applies to any place Google considers to be a "distant location", although it still seems to think that the same state is alright. It might simply be different states that trigger it.

Still, it's a dick move. And it sure makes me mad!
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