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Show HN: You.com, private search engine that summarizes the web – built for devs

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Re: Show HN: You.com, private search engine that summarizes the web – built for devs

#221

Post by richardsocher »

dan-robertson wrote: post #184

I had a go for a ‘dev’ related search. I just tried one trivial thing. I searched for ‘jq modify value’ as it’s something I previously found hard to find skimming the enormous man page. I got: 1. A stack overflow question which implicitly answered the question but was actually about someone wanting to modify a file in-place. 2. A blog post from Monsanto. I clicked on it and I was greeted with a big model box that I d…

Glad you got some relevant and useful apps. You're right. When people dont find sth on Google, they blame themselves for "being bad at Googling".

You can be in private mode without being logged in though nothing gets saved either way on our side when you're in private mode.

We talk about the privacy and convenience trade-off here:

https://youdotcom.notion.site/Privacy-and-Data-Protection-at...

Re: Show HN: You.com, private search engine that summarizes the web – built for devs

#222

Post by muhammadusman »

ulber wrote: post #124

I found your pitch really interesting, I'd love to try it. I, however, refuse to install an extension and change my default search engine just to be allowed to type in a search query. I'm sure you have some "growth hacking" reason for this that is compelling to you. Maybe you hope that the slight annoyance of switching back will outweigh the inevitable annoyances with a new product like this. It does come off as user…

I closed the tab when I clicked the search bar and it took me to the chrome web store ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: Show HN: You.com, private search engine that summarizes the web – built for devs

#223

Post by smoldesu »

richardsocher wrote: post #216
smoldesu wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a way for me to use it without omnibar integration? I'd really prefer to leave my search engine as-is...

> I'd really prefer to leave my search engine as-is That's a tough start for trying out a new search engine :) But yes, you can go into incognito mode or manually set your navbar, or try a different browser.

Who exactly are you replying to?

Re: Show HN: You.com, private search engine that summarizes the web – built for devs

#224

Post by richardsocher »

newbie789 wrote: post #218

1. Who are the folks behind this? 2. How is this funded? 3. The You.com domain must have been an incredibly expensive purchase. The folks that wrote the check for that were cool with never selling user data at any point down the road? 3a. Did the people that wrote the check for you.com make the money they put into it from investing in companies that do sell user data? 4. I’m actually supposed to believe that they don…

Hey 1 It's me, Richard Socher and my cofounder Bryan MacCann. Stanford, MetaMind startup, then Salesforce. Plus a bunch of other incredible and wonderful humans :)

2 We raised a 20m seed from Marc Benioff, Jim Breyer and a few others.

3 the you.com has never been for sales.

4 yea. we haven't really thought about it too much but have some creative ideas we want to explore together with our community. in private mode, we may need to have private ads like DuckDuckGo since that mode is hard to monetize any other way. Whatever we'll explore, will align with our values (trust->privacy, facts and kindness).

5 Not sure how that's the most important one? :D we're not sharing that right now but if you know venture investing and know we raised 20m... you'll get in the ball park?

Re: Show HN: You.com, private search engine that summarizes the web – built for devs

#225

Post by richardsocher »

pedalpete wrote: post #182
richardsocher wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey. Yea. We struggle with the extension -> navbar search requirement also. We have found that if you're not the default engine that is easily accessible from the Navbar, you will not be able to break the Google monopoly. We also found that many people will just do a quick search for "asd" or "weather" and then leave because those searches aren't really differentiated (and just can't really be). Our extension is 33kB…

I agree with your sentiment about being the default engine to break people free of google, but do you have evidence that the browser extension is the way to get people to do that? On the other side, you have a search bar on the page, so I'm not exactly sure what people are complaining about.

It is a 5 second install or uninstall. Tbh, the browser extension is the best method for now but it's clearly not where we want to stay. Even after you install it and make a search from the navbar, Google will encourage you to change it back to Google and make the default button change the setting back.

We hope to eventually be an option in the default search engines list.

Eventually, maybe antitrust will encourage browsers to provide a randomly ordered list of search engines to choose from.

Re: Show HN: You.com, private search engine that summarizes the web – built for devs

#226

Post by richardsocher »

cududa wrote: post #170
primitivesuave wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly second this. I immediately gave up on trying it out once I realized I had to download something. Your KPIs should be around how sticky your search features are, it seems like it is currently based on download counts.

If they published the extension source that might be more reasonable. I assume the extension is so a lot of heavy lifting on hitting individual apps/ API's happens locally to alleviate costs or rate limiting

Working on it right now :) Extension changes your navbar setting. It's 33kB. All the heavy lifting happens on our servers so as to not slow browsers down for users.

Re: Show HN: You.com, private search engine that summarizes the web – built for devs

#227

Post by richardsocher »

radicalriddler wrote: post #152

Just from a webdev perspective, please add titles to your links and icons. I should be able to hover over those up and down arrows and know they're for voting. I should be able to hover links and see the full link text even it's clipped in the card. These are basic accessibility things that any good web developer should be adding in by default.

Great feedback. We'll add those. THanks :)

Re: Show HN: You.com, private search engine that summarizes the web – built for devs

#228

Post by yusufnb »

Few things I have always wanted in a search engine -

- Filter out news/SEO'd sites. Better if by default. - Specialized categories - software dev, real estates, travel, garden, finance, .... - More weight on verifiable authors. Eg. blogs, publications, good quality social media posts (quora, reddit, linkedin), etc. - Geo-temporal-social context in search. Able to navigate results by time and space easily.

Also, might be good to have search engine interface be like an app than a website. The secret search features should be upfront and interact-able.

Re: Show HN: You.com, private search engine that summarizes the web – built for devs

#229

Post by amelius »

richardsocher wrote: post #173
primitivesuave wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly second this. I immediately gave up on trying it out once I realized I had to download something. Your KPIs should be around how sticky your search features are, it seems like it is currently based on download counts.

Hey. Yea. We struggle with the extension -> navbar search requirement also. We have found that if you're not the default engine that is easily accessible from the Navbar, you will not be able to break the Google monopoly. We also found that many people will just do a quick search for "asd" or "weather" and then leave because those searches aren't really differentiated (and just can't really be). Our extension is 33kB…

Best growth hack: add a link to Google below your first results page. That way, more people will use your engine as their first choice, because they can easily fall back on their previously preferred search engine.

Re: Show HN: You.com, private search engine that summarizes the web – built for devs

#230

Post by DennisP »

richardsocher wrote: post #213
DennisP wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having the extension and letting people try it on the web seems like a more reasonable choice. People need to try it out. That said...there is a search textbox at the top of the page and it worked for me in Firefox and Chrome. Did people just miss it? If so, it should probably be in the middle with the big blue button.

it takes 5 seconds to install and uninstall an extension. we will open source it also so people can see how simple and benign it is. It feels like 5s to help move the internet away from a privacy invading monopoly isn't too bad? If you like privacy and agency of your information diet, or saving lots of time while coding, or Reddit results always accessible to browse for most queries, etc. Then the 5s install will be…

I already have privacy from Startpage and DuckDuckGo. What I don't have is personal knowledge of whether your search engine is any damn good. Until I find out, I'm not likely to install your extension.

(And fwiw, I use Startpage every day without needing an extension for it.)

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