Tack “&udm=14” on to the end of a normal search, and you’ll be booted into the clean 10 blue links interface. While Google might not let you set this as a default, if you have a way to automatically edit the Google search URL, you can create your own defaults.
I actually don’t think its a “bad” idea to have an AI helper like a copilot or a Gemini on my computer. But I don’t want it integrated into every system. I don’t want it to have any more access than I choose to give it each time I use it.
I can see myself making use of a sandboxed AI, installed kind of like a flatpak or an appimage. I can call it up, ask it to do something for me and if it needs access to something temporarily in order to do it, it can ask nicely and I say sure on an as hoc basis and then shut it down again.