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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

#321

Post by detaro »

foerbert wrote: post #269
richardsocher wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yea.. why? the truth is that most users have no other easily accessible way for them to switch away from a monopoly that sells them, their data and privacy to the highest bidder and requires all companies to pay a tax to exist in the online economy... if you are an expert, you can change your settings manually and hence not require the extension.

Edit: I now believe the website was, in fact, changed. Original comment below, most individual bits still relevant aside from the overall conclusion that the pieces added up to accidental confusion. Apparently concluding HN folk were bad at understanding even poorly displayed tech was not wise. Who knew? I probably should have realized that was not a good bet. At this point I consider the apparent lack of understandi…

Which browser are you using? Firefox appears to be not getting the agressive prompt to install the Chrome extension, they were clever enough to check for that.

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

#322

Post by bigwavedave »

VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #299
bigwavedave wrote: post #284

Just to be sure we're on the same page here: * You're pitching this search engine specifically "for devs". * You're pitching it on HN, a community which (correct me if I'm wrong, @dang) is largely composed of your target audience. * When given feedback, you're responding very defensively in almost 100% of your comments with something akin to "an extension takes 5s to install and uninstall, just do it, no one cares, w…

This guy is going to blow the 20 mil trying to get people to download his browser extension instead of actually making a search engine or whatever it's supposed to be

The saddest bit is that when it does end up failing, he will have convinced himself it's because:

1) "competing with a $2tr company is hard"

2) "people were too dumb to be able to immediately make it their default navbar search engine"

3) "We made a super easy extension to let people install it before trying it! We even open sourced it! Clearly, people don't care enough about privacy yet. It's not my philosophy or my PR approach, it's the users that suck. I hope the target audience for my next genius idea isn't as stupid and lazy as this one was!"

Insane. Absolutely insane.

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

#323

Post by 3np »

bigwavedave wrote: post #284

Just to be sure we're on the same page here: * You're pitching this search engine specifically "for devs". * You're pitching it on HN, a community which (correct me if I'm wrong, @dang) is largely composed of your target audience. * When given feedback, you're responding very defensively in almost 100% of your comments with something akin to "an extension takes 5s to install and uninstall, just do it, no one cares, w…

Especially (from their intro comment, which I can’t reply to for some reason):

> We believe in superior privacy choices without losing convenience.

Their replies in this thread contradict that - both privacy and convenience are compromised in favor of sticky user acquisition, with the founder doubling down on how this is somehow not contradictory, just “unfortunate”.

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

#324

Post by hartem_ »

fractalf wrote: post #217
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…

DuckDuckGo seens to have been able to do this just fine, even with the weirdest name for a company ever. Their growing by word of mouth from geeks like us. I set DDG as default on all of my family/friends browsers. Focus on making a good search and users will come

Gabriel (the founder of DDG) wrote a fabulous book (called Traction) on growth.

Tl;dr is that it was much more than just word of mouth. They have been very deliberate and methodical about growth from the very beginning and employed many different growth tactics throughout the lifetime of the company.

Edit: typos

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

#325

Post by prawn »

not2b wrote: post #185

Nope. Not if there's no way to even try it out without installing an extension.

I assumed people were exaggerating about the extension being pushed too strongly, but I couldn't even test a simple search to check the results or see how it looked. Incredible.

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

#326

Post by eikenberry »

icelancer wrote: post #168
eikenberry wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused. If you go to you.com there is a search field right there just like every other search site. No extension is needed to try it. Why do you say you aren't allowed to search without the extension?

Try it in Chrome. It blocks you after you try to search.

Thanks, that explains it as I use Firefox. That is surely a very odd decision to have it fail to with Chrome/Chromium without a plugin. I can see why it'd make people a bit suspicious as there is no reason for it other than to force the use of a plugin when it isn't necessary.

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

#327

Post by gbourne »

I tried it out and not bad. I like there are no cluttering ads like some search engines. The side scrolling is a little tough to quickly see the results.

And as most said, the forced extension needs to go. It is basically saying if you use Chrome go away.

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

#328

Post by bigwavedave »

bryans wrote: post #290
bigwavedave wrote: post #284

Just to be sure we're on the same page here: * You're pitching this search engine specifically "for devs". * You're pitching it on HN, a community which (correct me if I'm wrong, @dang) is largely composed of your target audience. * When given feedback, you're responding very defensively in almost 100% of your comments with something akin to "an extension takes 5s to install and uninstall, just do it, no one cares, w…

Spot on! The OP appears to be so obsessed with taking down a monopoly that he forgot to make a good product, or a good onboarding experience, or to just be a respectable human when interacting with others. He came here to convince the startup and dev community that he's our savior against Google, and then repeatedly told us we're just too stupid to understand what he's trying to accomplish. I find it disgusting.

> [snip] or to just be a respectable human when interacting with others. He came here to convince the startup and dev community that he's our savior against Google, and then repeatedly told us we're just too stupid to understand what he's trying to accomplish. I find it disgusting.

100% agree. Considering how poorly he handles feedback, user concerns, and basic human interaction, I'm very glad I don't work with him. With the quality of his comments and behavior all day, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that he was bragging about not having a PR person, either.[1]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29169583

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

#329

Post by pcmaffey »

lol this guy sounds like he fought the hard fight against vcs, raised his 20m, and now is so exhausted he can’t bear the weight of actually talking to *customers*.

In truth, we've all been there right? We haven’t spent 7 figures on a domain name, but we’ve thought we’ve crossed all the t’s dotted all the i’s etc. It’s just everything changes (your expectations) the moment the boat hits the water…

Happy sailing.

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