Edward Snowden: Google Search Is Totally Unusable

Edward Snowden, former computer intelligence consultant who leaked highly classified information from the National Security Agency, has said it is a fact that Google Search is “totally unusable” in a post on Twitter. Snowden is not a fan of Google’s privacy efforts and ad network.

Edward Snowden went to Twitter to say that “search results become absolute garbage for basically every site? It’s nearly impossible to discover useful information these days (outside the ArchWiki).” I then kind of wanted to see if this statement was directed at Google and Snowden said not only Google but yes.

Snowden said he “definitely meant search engines (among others),” adding that “Google is the worst by far, even without poor results.” Why is it the worst? He said:

  • inaccessible to anyone who cares about their privacy (improper Tor blocking)
  • hostile, scripts-required captchas
  • page redirect for mandatory, scripts-required cookie

He then laid out four things Google can do to improve things for users: They include: A) All scripts disabled, hardened browser. (B) Via Tor (and after, via highly-shared VPNs). (C) Not logged in and (D) Definitely not using Chrome.

Snowden then ended his Twitter thread on Google saying “the fact that Google is totally unusable is no skin off my back, because I can work around it.”

Here are those tweets:

Danny Sullivan of Google did respond asking for examples:

I thanked Mr. Snowden for responding:

I am sure many of you agree with this sentiment. Oh, if you do not know who Edward Snowden is for some reason, read his Wikipedia entry.

Forum discussion at Twitter.

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