[PLUG-TALK] Is there an alternative to Google?

[Bill Barry]

On Sat, Oct 15, 2011 at 11:21 PM, John Jason Jordan <johnxj at comcast.net> wrote:
>
> Bing has another advantage in allowing me to set my location to
> Afghanistan. Google took the instruction, but the first time I used it
> after changing my location I noticed that it had changed me back to
> Portland, Oregon. Dammit Google, where I am located is none of your
> business. If I want sites for Portland businesses I'll add "Portland"
> to the search. And Firefox has an option in about:config where you can
> disable geolocation. I did so, restarted Firefox, and Google still says
> I am in Portland.

Google does  insist on customizing based on location, but apparently
you can specify a broad location such as United States.

From
http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?answer=179386

Can I turn off location-based customization?

The customization of search results based on location is an important
component of a consistent, high-quality search experience. Therefore,
we haven't provided a way to turn off location customization, although
we've made it easy for you to set your own location or to customize
using a general location as broad as the country that matches your
local domain.

If you find that your results for a particular search are more local
than what you're looking for, you can set your location to a broader
geographical area (such as a country instead of a city, zip code, or
street address). Please note that this will greatly reduce the amount
of locally relevant results that you’ll see.


Bill