[acranox]

I know gmail is different than search, but if you do a quoted search for a string in gmail that has zero matches, it will return a few "close" matches.

This really confused me, because I was trying to find something specific, and it found a few emails, so I read them, and then was confused that they didn't actually take about the specific thing I was trying to remember. Then I realized that they I included one of the words from my string.

In this case, a close match was completely useless, and ended up wasting my time reading irrelevant results. A message saying "we didn't find that, but here's a few close matches" would have been more helpful and avoided wasting my time.

The reasons in this thread about non precise search results are half the reason I stopped using Google Search about a year ago. I get why they've done it, but I don't like it.

[0xADEADBEE]

I try to wean myself off Google search every few months but I've never managed to stick. What do you like for an alternative? I'm probably due another attempt.

[smileypete]

I just added www.google.com###main to my uBlock filters, to remind me about falling down googling inspired rabbit holes :)

I either use duckduckgo or google in another browser that I don't normally use.