[HN Gopher] Google Images Restored ___________________________________________________________________ Google Images Restored Author : alphabet9000 Score : 105 points Date : 2021-01-16 19:16 UTC (3 hours ago) (HTM) web link (github.com) (TXT) w3m dump (github.com) | tiagod wrote: | Great work. It's usable again, finally. | a2tech wrote: | Is there something similar for safari? | gchokov wrote: | Someone in Google's UX and Design department, really needs go out | and breathe some fresh air. Is it only me, who dislikes 95% of | the design decision of Google products in the recent years? | clintonc wrote: | The main changes this extension addresses were made because of | a settlement with Getty Images. | | https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/02/internet-rages-after... | Lammy wrote: | The worst part of the settlement isn't even the UI changes | but how the image search results now seem to favor showing | Youtube video frames above showing regular images from non- | Google websites. | | I guess they get to pass the buck to the video uploaders who | have asserted (truthfully or not) that they have a right to | upload whatever they're uploading and that they "grant to | YouTube a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, | sublicensable and transferable license to use that Content | (including to reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative | works, display and perform it) in connection with the Service | and YouTube's (and its successors' and Affiliates') business" | fuzzy2 wrote: | They're in good company though. UI/UX in general is going to | hell. Not just in $big_corp, but nearly everywhere. | | I think that's mainly because we have UI/UX as a dedicated | function now. It's a job that seems to attract people that | don't know how software _works_. This results in "uncanny" UX | that looks similar enough but just doesn't work the way it | should. | | Maybe I'm just getting old though! | 101008 wrote: | I am interested in your point of view. Care to expand? | _underfl0w_ wrote: | I'm not the parent poster but I see where they're coming | from - form used to purely _follow_ function in computer | UI/UX (as in most engineering fields) but now it's been | delegated to "creatives" who, by virtue of their skill set, | put form first. | | Overall "betterness" is subjective, but speaking as someone | who uses a computer as a _tool_ I can honestly say I 'd | prefer it to function pragmatically than look pretty, if | the prettiness requires sacrificing of pragmatism in some | way. | NoSorryCannot wrote: | I'm not sure I see any reason to expect or believe that | engineers would make good ui/ux decisions. It's not clear | to me that choices that are simple for engineering are | necessarily even aligned with ultimately being | functional. | | A good ui/ux specialist will be interested in reducing | error rates and improving ease of discovery and use | through affordances and good organization of information | and actions. Obviously other business interest may | conflict with those goals but those same interests are | capable of corrupting engineering as well. | | And I don't think ui/ux work is as recent as this is all | making it sound. Perhaps it is more common now even for | orgs where their bread and butter isn't software but | ultimately making tools useful and safe and accessible | predates software entirely. | catillac wrote: | I am a designer and my opinion is that they're micro optimizing | with A/B testing to such a degree that they miss other | significantly different paths that would be better overall. | grenoire wrote: | It really does seem a local/global maxima problem with the | way they're trying to improve. I think they've been locking | themselves into the local maxima, and at their scale it's | probably really hard to expand the search beyond what's 'safe | and known.' | toper-centage wrote: | Google is data driven and AB tests the hell out of their | features, so I would assume these changes make them money | somehow. Your personal preferences or anyone else's is merely a | very small data point in their design process. | thotsBgone wrote: | Yes, companies are profit-driven always. Not customer- | satisfaction driven, unless that's what will bring them the | most profit (especially true for newer, smaller companies). | | This makes me wonder if there is some structure similar to a | corporation which would maximise something besides profit, | without either being out-competed by a corporation or turning | into one. | ghaff wrote: | Competition ("out-compete") implies competition on some | metric such as profitability. So, if that's the metric, | then they'll be profit-driven. Of course, profitability can | be optimized for over different time horizons--even if | speculatively. For public companies, time horizons tend to | be relatively short, or at least quarter-to-quarter | profitability is important. | | A private company, however structured, can define out- | competing however its owners want to so long as it can pay | its bills and employees. | fbelzile wrote: | I wish it was money they optimized for. It's probably | engagement or some other obscure marketing metric. | | The problem with that is if they introduce a bug that | requires you to refresh the page more often. All they'd see | is an up-tick in "engagement" and keep the change with the | bug. I think it happened to me with Facebook page | notifications and not being able to clear them properly, at | least on Firefox... | michaelmrose wrote: | Doctors used to believe that basic hygiene was unnecessary | despite having enough information in theory to figure out | this wasn't so. | | The presumption that someone in theory has access to lots of | information and therefore is making the best or even good | decisions on some dimensions by virtue of the their access to | data is poorly considered. It is entirely possible to be | smart and possessed of good data and still use it poorly. | People are flawed so companies made of of people are also | flawed. | | Google image search is a poor product not worth using | compared to bing. | Triv888 wrote: | The only thing that I like about gmail.com is the search | feature and the fact that most of my accounts are tied to it. | But I use Thunderbird for getting my emails... | kungito wrote: | I'm pretty sure that the big corps are changing the design | based on some toxic metrics where they don't really care if we, | a small demographic of power users, get annoyed all the time | userbinator wrote: | "Not everything that counts can be counted, and not | everything that can be counted, counts." | 6357357457 wrote: | Just use the Yandex image search. | | Yandex hasn't yet removed or crippled its face recognition- | enhanced image similarity search capability like Google and Bing | did (probably because women complained that it turned up their | old nudes/ludes), and Yandex doesn't exhibit bizarre racial | biases like this: | | https://archive.rebeccablacktech.com/g/thread/76372135/ | | Sad that Americans have to use a Russian search engine to get | away from Google/Bing censorship, bias, and politicization. | zkmon wrote: | Forget UX, the image search itself _doesn't_ work. Search for | some known person's name. 90% of the image results will be from | the side bars on LinkedIn page of that person, which have no | relation to the search key words. | flokie wrote: | This including no results from Pinterest is a great combo | michaelmrose wrote: | I really like this in theory but if an adware company someday | buys your addon I could be compromised. It's easier to use bing | image search which has been better than google for images for a | while now. | _underfl0w_ wrote: | TFA is a github page, friend. If you truly care about | compromise as stated, just build the add-on from source. No | reason to point to nonexistent future threat vectors. | michaelmrose wrote: | Do you remember Stylish? It was a very popular firefox/chrome | addon with 2 million users which was sold to an ad company | that started using it to siphon off users data. | | https://arstechnica.com/information- | technology/2018/07/styli... | | The threat isn't nonexistent and having the source doesn't | help as much as you might imagine. Most people can't read the | source in any meaningful way and those that can might still | trivially miss something malicious. In practice its only as | safe as the meaningful analysis by skilled hands makes it in | actuality. Realistically you would be lucky if someone | notices several months after it started siphoning off your | data and only if its egregious enough to get it kicked off of | the extensions store. | gpmcadam wrote: | This is good but what annoys me most about Google lately is that | all searches turn out to be product searches instead of images of | a thing. Just makes me trust the results less and less. | meibo wrote: | Nice! The current image search is still a great product, with | some filters, especially with the "find by image" stuff - this | takes it to another level. | | Can't fathom how Getty was able to make them remove the "view | image" button. Thanks copyright. | errantspark wrote: | Fuck Getty Images. Fuck IP law. Fuck copyright. All that shit | needs a massive refactor. I can't bear to think about how much | harm has been done to software and human reality in general by | lawyers and MBAs seeking to extract the maximum amount of value | from things. | | I'm glad things like this exist, but so sad that they need to. | | EDIT: and as one commenter astutely pointed out, fuck Pintrest | too, a perfect example of the hubris of SEO focused trashes with | no morals or sense of personal responsibility; degrading the | commons for their own gain | amelius wrote: | You forgot to mention Pinterest. | gkoberger wrote: | What's wrong with Getty? They spend a lot of money to take | pictures, and other people pay money to use them. How would you | change their business model? | | EDIT: I hadn't realized that Getty is the reason for the | removal of the view image button! I stand by my comment in | general, however I do think removing that button is crappy. | markdown wrote: | Getty charges $1000 for public domain photos. Fuck 'em! | | EDIT: They also fraudulently claim to own public domain | photos and legally threaten people who use them, demanding | payment. | gkoberger wrote: | I don't understand your point. If you hate copyright and | IP, then you inherently also have to believe Getty should | be allowed to take public domain photos (or someone else's | photos) and sell them. | markdown wrote: | > If you hate copyright and IP | | Are you responding to someone else? Wrong thread? Because | I haven't expressed that sentiment here. | | > you inherently also have to believe Getty should be | allowed to take public domain photos (or someone else's | photos) and sell them. | | Are you responding to someone else? Wrong thread? Because | I never said they shouldn't be allowed to profit off | public domain photos. | | There is profit, and then there's just fucking people | over. $1000 for a photo they didn't take and didn't pay | for is just disgusting. All it does is restrict access to | historical photos to 99% of the world, allowing only the | very rich access to this window into our past. | matttb wrote: | I'd never heard of this before so I searched it and the | first result turned up this[0] (see lines 2-4/Exhibit A). | Big jump from selling public domain images to seeking out | payment for public domain images. | | [0] | https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3001353/Filed- | Com... | Xelbair wrote: | What's worse - instead of fixing their shit, they bloody sue | google. | therealmarv wrote: | Just use Yandex Image search. It also has a reverse image | functionality and it does not censor as much as Google Images. | ZoomStop wrote: | It also allows for searching by size which of course Google | removed with updates but helps greatly when searching for | icons, wallpapers, etc. | ubercow13 wrote: | But why that version? It wasn't much different from the current | version. I preferred the version before, when the page didn't | automatically expand and collapse and scroll around in a | disorienting way. | hartator wrote: | At SerpApi, we'll be happy to sponsor this! Reach to me via email | julien _at_ serpapi.com. | kyriakos wrote: | Really missed that view image button especially for Pinterest | images that are pure spam | javawizard wrote: | That button was removed in response to a lawsuit from Getty: | https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/02/internet-rages-after... | tzfld wrote: | Is there anything good done by Getty since its existence? | kyriakos wrote: | They keep buying off smaller stock image platforms as well | killing competition | natch wrote: | Would love to see somebody make an image search site that | lets you filter all that stuff out. It would be fine with me | as a user if it respected no-hotlinking policies too. But the | filter could just omit paywalled / registrationwalled sites | and those that do trickery like obnoxious watermarks or | showing one image to the search crawler and another one to | site visitors. | | I have nothing against sites trying to make money. But | sometimes I want to see just the stuff that is straight out | there and isn't wrapped up in dark patterns. | poisonborz wrote: | There were multiple scripts and extensions popping up to | restore the feature right after it was removed. Eg. | https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/view-image/jpcmhce... | ffpip wrote: | Just right click the image and press 'I'. | kyriakos wrote: | I don't think you get the full size original image | forgotpwd16 wrote: | You are. But wait for the image to load or you'll get the | thumbnail. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-01-16 23:00 UTC)