Add "fucking" to your Google searches to neutralize AI summaries

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Trick: Swearing to Disable Google AI Overviews

  • Adding “fucking” (or similar profanity) to queries often prevents Google’s AI overview from triggering.
  • Using it with a minus sign (e.g. -fuck, -fucking) or in a nonsense quoted phrase (e.g. -"fuck 5823532165") can suppress AI while minimizing impact on results.
  • Some note this also changes SafeSearch behavior, surfacing unrelated explicit content or hiding entire sites unless an explicit term is included.

Other Technical Workarounds

  • Appending &udm=14 to the search URL (or using udm14.com / tenbluelinks.org / “Web” tab) restores mostly plain “10 blue links” and removes AI and rich modules, but also hides useful infoboxes (weather, calculators, etc.).
  • Some use CSS/uBlock/AdGuard rules or browser extensions to hide AI overview blocks.
  • Adding -ai to queries can also suppress overviews, though it fails when “ai” is legitimately part of the search.
  • Verbatim mode (tbs=li:1) and site-specific operators sometimes help but are reported as increasingly unreliable.

Degradation of Search and E‑commerce Search

  • Many describe Google as ignoring quotes, - exclusions, and other Boolean tools, making precise search difficult.
  • Similar complaints target Amazon: it rewrites queries, ignores negative filters, and pushes ad-optimized results, making it hard to find items without common attributes (“non-latex”, “not dimmable”, etc.).
  • Some resort to custom Google site-search for Amazon, or alternative search engines (Kagi, Yandex, DDG).

Mixed Views on AI Summaries

  • Critics: summaries are often confidently wrong, obscure original sources, and reduce incentives to publish. Some call them “stolen” from publishers.
  • Supporters: find them fast and usually accurate “good enough” overviews, with visible source links they click when information matters.
  • Confusion exists about disabling them: Google’s own text says they can’t be fully turned off, only reduced via Labs/settings or workarounds.

Desire for “No AI” Modes Across Services

  • Multiple commenters say they’d pay for a “No AI” toggle in search, productivity tools, Gmail, Spotify, Instagram, and others.
  • Complaints extend to recommendation systems (e.g., Spotify’s sticky taste profile, removed “dislike” buttons; image search polluted with low‑quality AI art).

Corporate Incentives and AI Hype

  • Many see AI push as driven by KPIs, ad revenue, and hopes of reducing labor costs, not user demand.
  • Others argue AI is already highly valuable for many users, with large spend and strong adoption, even if visible consumer features (like Google’s overviews) are unpopular.
  • There’s debate over whether this is a normal hype cycle or a deeper “enshittification” of core tools.

Broader Cultural Notes

  • Profanity is seen as both a cathartic protest and an emerging “human signal” to distinguish text from AI.
  • Underlying sentiment: frustration that users must develop hacks and extensions just to get simple, accurate search results again.