Search the pre-ChatGPT internet with the Slop Evader browser extension

ChatGPT's public debut on November 30, 2022, is widely seen by critics as the start of the AI-slop era online. Those yearning for a more human-written web can get some relief from a browser extension that filters Google searches to pre-ChatGPT results. Slop Evader, published in late October by Australian artist, environmental …

[Alien Doctor 1.1]

I wish someone would create a windows add-on to continuously remove all Absolutely Irritating bollocks from the m$ ecosystem.

[Tron]

Perhaps they could repurpose a key.

I've never found a use for Num Lock or Scroll Lock, and never used the Windows key.

Something that would kill all AI processes and endlessly send the lyrics from "Never Gonna Give You Up" back to LLM servers trying to scan your files and snaffle your stuff.

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean an "Install Linux Now" button?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't that what the format command is for?

:)

[captain veg]

other search engines are available

I've been using DuckDuckGo for some years, but it's been heading down the enshittification tube for the last several months and now shovels in unwanted and unneeded "ai" crap regularly. I suppose that the first time I saw it advertised on TV should have been a warning.

-A.

[Philo T Farnsworth]

Re: other search engines are available

Just for the record, you can point your search to https://noai.duckduckgo.com/ to avoid most of the AI rubbish. Depending on the search result, you may or may not see an AI summary but it's easily ignorable.

[captain veg]

Re: other search engines are available

Thanks for the heads up, but, to be honest, the insertion of AI rubbish isn't really my complaint here. It's that the search results no longer seem to be related directly to the search terms. I regularly get first page links to hotels that happen to be near where I am, irrespective of the fact that my search terms didn't mention, and had nothing whatsoever to do with, hotel accommodation.

I don't want my search engine to guess my intent. I certainly don't want it to respond to my search terms by completely ignoring them in favour of advertising income.

AltaVista was better than this shit.

-A.

[mrdalliard]

Re: other search engines are available

Kagi.- a good search engine.

I jumped to it from DuckDuckGo when the AI slide started. Yes you pay a little bit for it, but it's definitely worth it. It reminds me of when Google was actually a good search engine and is unpolluted with ads.

That is all.

[captain veg]

Re: Kagi.- a good search engine.

Maybe it is. I can't tell since, so far as I can tell, you can't try it without payment.. What I can state is that it's exhortations for payment major on its AI bollocks, so it doesn't exactly encourage me to pay money to find out. So I won't.

-A.

[sarusa]

This is counterproductive for me, unfortunately.

I often find myself limiting the search to the last month because in the tech world, especially the linux world, even stuff a year old can be wildly out of date and incorrect.

My solution for dumping all the AI slop has been switching to Kagi. Yes, it has an optional AI slop module in case you *want* it, but Kagi is fabulously configurable so you can completely eliminate it. They also aggressively try to remove AI slop sites up front. Which Google could do (sites suddenly popping up with thousands of slop pages are very obvious), but they don't want to because more bad results means more ads for them.

[Brave Coward]

Re: This is counterproductive for me, unfortunately.

I agree. Very irritating when the page you're landing on has no indication whatsoever of *when* the paper was written, *especially* for tech subjects.

Fairly common, alas.

[wolfetone]

Re: This is counterproductive for me, unfortunately.

Unfortunately, even pre-AI, this was a technique for SEO. You'd get penalised in the results if the content was "old". So if you don't put the date on it, it's not old.

The mindset of the SEO snake oil sales man.

[Occasional Comentard]

Seems a bit counter productive to ignore everything from the last three years (and counting). Most of it isn't going to be AI slop. I might as well go back to my 1911 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica.