Let's Ditch Google (Verb)

I've been doing this since I started using Kagi since it sounds weird to say "I googled it and..." when I didn't actually use Google. I'm also not saying "I kagiied it" since half the people I talk to don't know what it is and for the rest it still sounds awkward so I've been going with variations for "I searched for it", "I did a web search", "I looked it up"...

While "google" may end up like the "kleenex" of web search, it seems more likely that people stop searching the web at all and just ask AI instead.

There's no good verb for "I asked ChatGPT", is there? "I slopped it"?

edit: maybe I'll bring back "bing it" since nobody would actually assume you're using bing for it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrEHTd_3vD0

Also, ungoogle the browser: https://github.com/ungoogled-software

Say what you will, but using "google" is just the fastest way to say "search the web." Unless a better, equally convenient phrase comes along, it’s not going anywhere anytime soon.

I have no problem with this person choosing to use different language to describe this.

But I do have a problem generally with attempts to impose language changes on others (in the case of this post you only see that tendency in the title).

This sort of linguistic prescriptivism seems in vogue for political reasons lately, most saliently in the hordes of people who insist that you must not use natural anthropomorphic language when talking about LLMs, but that’s far from the only political attempt to control language we’ve seen recently. Let people talk how they want! Langauage is an evolving thing that shouldn’t be controlled by scolds!

English is a great language precisely because it listens to no one preaching "we should do this or that". It just evolves organically

Around here "google it" has been replaced by "spørg botten" which means "ask the bot" or "spørg GPT". I've been putting an effort into saying "look it up" and stuff like it instead of "google it" for a couple of years now. Looks like it'll probably be wasted effort soon though.

I'm not anti-Google by any means. But their products just aren't as essential in my life like they were 10 years ago. I'm not in the majority but ...

Google Photos -> Immich (better)

Google Search -> Claude (better)

Google Calendar -> Apple Calendar (better)

Google Chrome -> Safari or Firefox - someone please make a basic browser that can handle 30 tabs without needing gigs of memory

Google Maps -> .... I've been seeing if MapQuest is "good enough"

GMail -> .... I think Fastmail is "good enough" - GMail's bells and whistles aren't as important anymore

Brave search is the best alternative to Google. They have an independent index and good UI. Very rarely do I switch to another engine. Brave does well at surfacing forum threads and the AI summary has been surprisingly good for a while.

https://www.privacyguides.org/en/search-engines/

Just google it with Bing.

It pains me that DuckDuckGo has the name that it has, since you can't even pretend to want to use that as a verb. You can use generic terms, and that's what I tend to do (usually just 'look it up (on the web)', alternativly 'search the web'), but there's good reason google entered the common lexicon and functionally replaced those terms, and finding a replacement that is as good is very, very hard.

There's already articles saying younger people are already doing this: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/23/magazine/google-it-search...

I've been doing this as well. Though ubiquitous brand names die hard, like "kleenex" and "saran wrap".

i "altavista'd it.

You could use the Andalusian Spanish word for looking up something, "bichear" :D

I've been doing this for a couple of years now and sometimes am That Guy and brings it up if someone keeps saying "google."

It's also way past time to ditch Google (Noun), though that's an even harder sell. But, you should still do it.

Fun fact - Companies dont like their product name becoming a verb.

Been correcting my kids on this for the last 10 years. It works.

This was triggered by my mother Googling something on Bing.

I guess if you use kagi, you can say "I'll kag it" instead

I think this is focusing entirely on the wrong thing.

Non-Mac computers are still called "PC's", but IBM has nothing to gain from this. Similarly, copy machines at least in my country are called "Xerox's" but it's very rarely a machine from the Xerox company.

If you want to de-throne Google, you cannot do so by policing language. You have to build a better search (not more private! better!).

This site is just foreign state actor propaganda now. Regardless of how you feel about US tech monopolies, they're doing their best to undermine them.

Happy to ditch Google, full stop.

I hear “ask GPT”/“ask Claude” much more often these days.

I have some triggers that make me stop reading or watching something. Using "google" as a verb is one of them. I perceive people doing that as blindly following a sort of cult, and I am not interested to learn anything from this kind of people.

If you regularly google things on Kagi, making google a generic term for search, Google loses its trademark protection. https://hallboothsmith.com/the-ninth-circuit-rules-google-is...

Searching is dying. I mostly hear "ask Claude/ChatGPT" these days. Googling will most of the time result in wall of slop on the first page unless you search with the exact source or site hint.

Searching for webpages, at least on google, have died like 10 years ago. Even if you knew the exact domain and words, it wouldn't be able to find it somehow. Always pushing "fresh results", changing your words (quotes or not), translating languages, etc... I tried to be smart and ruined everything that was good about it. On top of that web changed a lot and loads of content moved to private platforms. And now "AI".