For starters, I regularly have to first convince Google that I don't want to do just a local search in my country or my language. Simply setting my preferences (which are hard to find and confusing) once won't do it.
If I do happen to go along with Google's insistence in making my world a smaller place, I get confronted not having my options at the usual place, or under the usual labels (Google still can't keep interface language and local search apart), or worse: features that are missing completely.
Try to find something that has to do with software development but that happens to contain one keyword that also has meaning in the local language on a localized version of Google. It's a fucking joke. Gets even worse if Google assumes you misspelled the technical term in question.
Not really. Google's autocorrect regularly 'corrects' my search term to something else. Or Google suggests a similar search, where by "similar" they mean "the same search but with the most important term missing".
Sometimes Google instant stops working and I can't search anymore. I have to reload the page before I can enter new search terms.
Google used to be so simple, predictable, and it always worked. Now it is a complex, intransparent mess.
Google Search is becoming more and more like Altavista and Yahoo were like when Google started.
It definitely isn't. I do a lot of searches at Bing now just because just entering one character will bring up a whole list of my previous searches, so I can re-use them. This is incredibly useful.
Google used to do that too, but killed the idea so it could provide crappy "instant" results.
Another thing that makes Google's search dramatically worse nowadays is the way it prioritizes "freshness" and de-prioritizes quality. It's now almost impossible to find any high quality results because the majority of the first few pages are taken up by rubbishy blog posts. Most of which are 5-line knock-offs of other blog posts.
The display of adverts on top of search results -- which deceives a lot of people -- is another example. When you look at the adverts and results that promote Google's own properties, there's less and less room for the organic search results that might actually be useful.
tl;dr -- Google search is significantly worse than it was three or four years ago.
Things that go wrong with Google searches for me on a weekly basis:
* I search from Firefox and my browser spends 30 seconds in the middle of the redirection from .com to .co.uk
* I click a search result and my browser spends 30 seconds waiting for the redirection/click tracking script, and there's no easy way to get the actual URL you are going to any more, so you have to wait
* I type in a query and the auto-refresh kicks in, but it lags, and I (unnecessarily, because I am not used to the auto-search feature) hit enter on the keyboard as well, which leaves Google in a completely broken state where updating the query and hitting enter or the search button has no effect
* I make a new search from Firefox and then perform a second search from inside that page, and the whole page locks up in the greyed out "I am loading more results" state. I hit refresh but the URL is still that of my original query, so I end up looking at that again instead
* The search-as-you-type feature is enabled, despite me having disabled it over a dozen times now (and yes, I am signed in)
For one reason or another, I have to wait several seconds to see my Google search results multiple times per day. That's a pretty low barrier for complaining, but it's also enough time to open a new tab, go to Bing.com, type in my original query again, and click the results - all before my Google query finishes loading.
Other than issues with the unnecessary number of HTTP requests between my clicks and actually getting to the page I want, the obvious sticking factor is the search-as-you-type feature: It's reimplementing too much of the normal browser cycle, but isn't implemented well enough to not fall over, and these types of solutions don't integrate well with the tools I have to control page loads (the stop and refresh buttons).
Edit: Also as a programmer I realise I am not in their 99% use case, but it is incredibly difficult for me to find the information I need these days. The auto-correct feature is in overdrive compared to how it worked a few years ago, and frequently 'corrects' technical terms to totally useless queries. Aggravating the issue is the removal of the '+' operator, and the fact that even quoted search terms now allow synonyms and corrections. There are lots of other issues with the search results in recent times, such as the predilection to give me 10 results all from the exact same website, but I drilled down on the technical issues because frankly the search results are still better on Google than their competitors. But the technical implementation and user experience? They are falling behind in those areas.
Concerning the click tracking thing, there's a browser extension for Safari that replaces the tracking links with the real links. This extension has made Google search a more reliable for me. Maybe there's a similar extension available for Firefox?
For starters, I regularly have to first convince Google that I don't want to do just a local search in my country or my language. Simply setting my preferences (which are hard to find and confusing) once won't do it.
If I do happen to go along with Google's insistence in making my world a smaller place, I get confronted not having my options at the usual place, or under the usual labels (Google still can't keep interface language and local search apart), or worse: features that are missing completely.
Try to find something that has to do with software development but that happens to contain one keyword that also has meaning in the local language on a localized version of Google. It's a fucking joke. Gets even worse if Google assumes you misspelled the technical term in question.