Is Fluther an easier way to get information than Google?

Easier? I don’t know about that.

With Google, results come up instantly and have the scope of pretty much the entire internet. While Fluther is great and provides many in depth answers to anything, you do have to search for or ask your specific question, then wait and look for an answer you’re satisfied with.

Google searching is straight to the point, while Fluther is descriptive and more specific.

What are you looking up that has no results?

Google is much easier than Fluther, but they aren’t really the same thing.

I can pretty much always find something on Google. But that’s always impersonal information. When I ask a question on fluther, I try to make it one that Google would have a hard time, but that doesn’t matter that much. What I get is personal answers. I get people’s experience with an issue or a problem. For me, that is far more valuable.

Personal experiences give me a range of answers, some of which I can relate to better than others. Even if it’s something like “how do I connect a this to a that,” people will describe different ways of doing it, even if they are talking about the same basic thing. They will mention different obstacles.

Google is pure information. No filtering. No assessment of the value of the information. Fluther is human beings who have thought about something or experienced something and they present that thinking or experience.

This is all to say that fluther is not an easier way to get information compared to Google. That’s because they answer in very different ways. They provide very different kinds of information. Fluther is human, and it speaks to questioners. Google is an algorithm and the largest database in human history. It finds stuff quickly, but it can’t tell you how good that information is. Only humans can do that.

Both have their place. But comparing them is like comparing sand to computer chips. I’ll leave it to you to decide which is sand and which is chip.

Surely if Fluther has the answer then Google would have the result for the Fluther question. Perhaps you need to improve your searching skills. I don’t think I’ve ever had a search result on Google with fewer than about 30 results.

Fluther is people-powered, Google uses robots.

Not really. Google often shows Fluther questions and answers as responses to a search, but it depends on what you are looking for.

I think Fluther is a good complement to Google sometimes but as @J0E points out, they’re not the same thing to me.

I don’t think it’s easier per se, but you can get some things on fluther that you can’t get using Google. For straight facts, product information, history, and other things that can be categorized and tagged for retrievability or that people are not apt to have in their heads, go to Google. For personal experience, opinions, specific applications of general information or principles, and quirky impossible-to-look-up information, come here.

I think Google is easier than asking on Fluther then interacting with those who take the trouble to answer. I tend to not answer questions that have easily Googled answers. Fluther is great for things Google can’t answer. And often if it’s already been asked and answered on Fluther, or any of the other Social Q&A sites like Yahoo Answers, Answerbag, Sodahaead and such,, Google will show that answer.

But for things that Google draws a blank on, Fluther is an excellent way to get an answer. And some questions can’t really be searched ina Search Engine because they are too complex, and require too much explanation and details. Those are perfect fits here.