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Ask HN: Which feature would make you switch away from Google search?

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Re: Ask HN: Which feature would make you switch away from Google search?

#11

Post by wackro »

alexmingoia wrote: post #10

User interface. I'd prefer search results to appear above the fold. A few years ago Google started putting ads and contextual widgets above search results. Sometimes on mobile not a single result makes it onto the screen due to ads and other content appearing first. I already switched to DuckDuckGo, and I'm happy with it.

I recommend an ad blocker. Haven't seen any of that kind of thing in years

Re: Ask HN: Which feature would make you switch away from Google search?

#14

Post by jqpabc123 »

peakaboo wrote: post #4

Umm I switched away years ago to Duckduckgo but currently trying out Kagi which is even better.

>Kagi

$10 per month minimum after beta.

I wish them luck but DDG for the win at that rate in my opinion.

Search is a good and much needed example of how simple, context based advertising can be applied in an effective and user friendly, privacy respecting manner.

Re: Ask HN: Which feature would make you switch away from Google search?

#15

Post by MikeDelta »

Sometimes when returning results, the page shifts down after a few seconds because a top result is refined with sub links.

By that time I already moved to click on a link somewhere in the results, and the page shift makes me click on the wrong link.

Re: Ask HN: Which feature would make you switch away from Google search?

#16

Post by kioleanu »

thesunkid wrote: post #8
Hard_Space wrote: post #3

Complete discounting of geo-IP on request. Not currently possible: https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/179386

just curious. Are you willing to forgo relevant results when searching for "restaurants near me" to preserve your IP addr?

not OP, I live in Germany and 2 things happen with Geo-IP:

1. When I look for English words on Google, it prioritizes german dictionaries, sometimes for many pages instead of a) English dictionaries OR b) actual English pages relevant for that word

2. When I search for programming stuff, it prioritizes german pages, such as blog entries to the english documentation/english blog entries, which I find in any case more complete and diverse. Some peope prefer reading everything in German, but that is just not my cup of tea

Re: Ask HN: Which feature would make you switch away from Google search?

#17

Post by detaro »

thesunkid wrote: post #8
Hard_Space wrote: post #3

Complete discounting of geo-IP on request. Not currently possible: https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/179386

just curious. Are you willing to forgo relevant results when searching for "restaurants near me" to preserve your IP addr?

can't remember I've ever searched for "restaurants near me" instead of using a map app or a self-choosen identifier. (And given e.g. Google Maps (on web) doesn't even reliably get the state right for my initial position, why would I rely on geoIP for that?!)

Re: Ask HN: Which feature would make you switch away from Google search?

#18

Post by climb_stealth »

Hard_Space wrote: post #3

Complete discounting of geo-IP on request. Not currently possible: https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/179386

For what it's worth you can set the language and region in Duckduckgo and it stores it with a cookie.

I mostly use it when I do second language searches and it is like using search in that country.

Re: Ask HN: Which feature would make you switch away from Google search?

#19

Post by drakonka »

For me, it is mostly the feature of getting the results I expect when I input a search term. Over the years I've been conditioned to Google, and have learned to intuitively formulate search terms in a way that gets me what I want almost immediately when I use Google. When I tried switching to DuckDuckGo, suddenly the way I formulate my queries no longer resulted in the results I expected. This resulted in my falling back on `!g` over 50% of the time.

I've recently started trying out the Kagi beta and it is the first time I'm not `!g`-ing constantly. It seems to give me what I want with the queries I expect. At first I was a bit worried that it might not find my perfect balance of news-vs-older-content, but I was pleasantly surprised. Searches seem to result in a nice ranking of current events vs other information. It also brings back the "Discussion" search feature that Google used to have in a good way.

If the result quality continues to live up to my expectations I can see myself paying for the service down the line, but will see how it goes over time; as well as how the privacy stance of the devs progresses in regards to both privacy and data ownership of subscribing users _and_ of the subjects of queries (in relation to RTBF requests and such).

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