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Hi all, I made this in literally an hour after I saw a very strong response to my original blog post about the URL code: https://tedium.co/2024/05/17/google-web-search-make-default/

The problem I was attempting to solve here was one of convenience, really. I think Google is intentionally trying to make its AI search look better by burying more traditional results in a way that is not easy to find. Given how widely used Google is, I just do not think it’s fair to end users that there’s a lightweight option that gives people 90% of what they want from Google results, and they’re hiding it for what appear to be business reasons. I guess in a way, it’s a simple protest dressed up as an easy-to-use tool.

I trust that most HN users are likely smart enough to figure out how to work around the Google issue without this site, but I think the solution is ultimately for the people who can’t or won’t make those changes themselves, or just want an easy starting point.

My other goal with this was an attempt to make the code “famous,” by making it something that people knew about. On that count, it appears successful, as the &udm=14 fix has been covered broadly in media and has been frequently shared on social media.

This link has gone pretty viral in the last four days, well beyond the tech sphere, and at current count has seen more than 100,000 visitors since Wednesday. Not bad for a site that is literally a few Tailwind classes and a simple HTML page built by hand.



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