Google has definitely changed in the past few years. I've noticed that it ignores quotes when it feels like it, and is very aggressive at "synonymous" substitutions (which in many cases aren't - e.g. I've seen it replace "FreeBSD" with "Linux"). It's making it harder and harder to make queries for something specific.
I thought I am the only one! Last week, I was trying to find something with the quotes and it completely ignore it. It took me a few queries to find what I am looking for.