The end of Google's usefulness
I'm attempting to develop an application for a Nokia 3660 cell phone, but there's one problem: the phone has a fairly notorious memory leak. Some sites reference the problem but say little about how I should fix it (e.g. "Don't load the same resource more than once and hope it all fits into the memory.")

I'm about more than just "hope", so I set about searching high and low for some other developer's fix for this problem. Lots of memory-intensive games work fine on the 3660: SoCom, DoomRPG, Tetris. Surely, somewhere out there, there would be a posted solution to this fairly common problem, right? I mean, according to the marketing meat at EA the 3660 is one of Europe's most popular phones.

So off to Google, (formerly) trusted companion of developer types everywhere. I can't tell you how many times I've fixed some development issue just by Googling the problem. I type "Nokia 3660 memory leak" into the box, click the button, and...

95% of the first 100 results are for places trying to sell me a Nokia 3660 phone. Or they're on review forums that do nothing to address the problem. I cannot find a single, worthwhile bit of information in the first 100 returned results.

What is the problem here? Is it unclear what I am searching for? I want to find pages which address the content of a memory leak in the context of the Nokia 3660. Instead, Google has sent me shopping.

And therein lies the crux of the problem: Google (nor any other search engine) can not be faithful to the context of the search because they're too busy selling off keywords to the highest bidder. When I search for "Nokia 3660" anything, I get chopped up and sold to advertisers instead of locating meaningful results.

Google, I'm sick and fucking tired of it. Where you were once an ally you have now become an impedance. Sure, I'll continue to use you, but know now that it is simply because I have no other choice. I'll use Google just like I used Microsoft--until something better came along.
- posted by frank crist @ 3:58 PM