I just did 3 searches on there and 2 times I got a server error. I will try Qwant now as default, but it already feels bad.
Qwant, a European search engine that respects your privacy
81–90 of 125 posts
Re: Qwant, a European search engine that respects your privacy
#82Privacy loving European here. I want to like it, but it gives off a bad vibe. First of all it's too loaded and it doesn't seem to work at all without Javascript enabled. Give me a text field, I don't care about the news. Second, no easy way to add it in my Firefox search engine list. This is really something obvious they should fix, come on. Third, they want you to install an extension that will indeed set qwant as d…
> First of all it's too loaded and it doesn't seem to work at all without Javascript enabled. Give me a text field, I don't care about the news.
I genuinely don't understand this hostile statement. Why do you complain that a website isn't functional in pure html in 2017? do you want the web to look like it's 1998?
Re: Qwant, a European search engine that respects your privacy
#83Privacy loving European here. I want to like it, but it gives off a bad vibe. First of all it's too loaded and it doesn't seem to work at all without Javascript enabled. Give me a text field, I don't care about the news. Second, no easy way to add it in my Firefox search engine list. This is really something obvious they should fix, come on. Third, they want you to install an extension that will indeed set qwant as d…
> First of all it's too loaded and it doesn't seem to work at all without Javascript enabled. Give me a text field, I don't care about the news. I genuinely don't understand this hostile statement. Why do you complain that a website isn't functional in pure html in 2017? do you want the web to look like it's 1998?
Why is it a problem to have page functional without Javascript? It's the number one tools for spying on users, so especially if you're a privacy focused search engine, you should except people to have Javascript disabled, until they choose to trust you.
There's no real need to javascript on search engines or news sites. There might be some additional features, like polls that will require Javascript, but the base functionality should work.
I'm still a firm believer in progressive enhancement, even if it's no longer trendy. Modern Javascript framework however seems to be firmly in the "Javascript or die" camp.
Re: Qwant, a European search engine that respects your privacy
#84Looks promising, but my initial searching for Dart lang didn't return any results in News and Social, and unrelated images in the Images search.
Re: Qwant, a European search engine that respects your privacy
#85Privacy loving European here. I want to like it, but it gives off a bad vibe. First of all it's too loaded and it doesn't seem to work at all without Javascript enabled. Give me a text field, I don't care about the news. Second, no easy way to add it in my Firefox search engine list. This is really something obvious they should fix, come on. Third, they want you to install an extension that will indeed set qwant as d…
The https://lite.qwant.com/ seems to work without Javascript.
Re: Qwant, a European search engine that respects your privacy
#86Too busy design wise at the moment and lacking back end details but the results seem decent at first glance.
No one can deny competition in search is desperately needed. Without that Google inevitably becomes more emboldened and seeks to further normalize and expand their creepy behavior.
An approach for a new engine should be both privacy which is a strong message that will resonate and also the technical details so people don't just assume its consuming another backend. That's what will make it interesting.
Re: Qwant, a European search engine that respects your privacy
#87How does qwant pays it bills? How do you do business? I didn't see any advertising, and there are no paid subscriptions, is the project funded by the EU?
This is an important question, I was wondering the same for very long with DDG. The answer seems to be ads, like everybody else: https://help.qwant.com/help/overview/how-does-qwant-make-mon...
They say: "When you use Qwant, no personal information whatsoever is neither captured or transmitted to advertisers.", but then they also say: "We believe we now have designed a simple and efficient offering by working with the Microsoft Bing ad network."
Is it just me, or are these two statements oxymorons?
Re: Qwant, a European search engine that respects your privacy
#88Privacy loving European here. I want to like it, but it gives off a bad vibe. First of all it's too loaded and it doesn't seem to work at all without Javascript enabled. Give me a text field, I don't care about the news. Second, no easy way to add it in my Firefox search engine list. This is really something obvious they should fix, come on. Third, they want you to install an extension that will indeed set qwant as d…
>First of all it's too loaded and it doesn't seem to work at all without Javascript enabled.
with noscript turned on, quant.com redirects me to lite.quant.com
>Second, no easy way to add it in my Firefox search engine list. This is really something obvious they should fix, come on. I see a green plus in the corner of the magnifying glass icon in the search box and when you click it, at the bottom of the search engines I have installed I see "Add quant."
Re: Qwant, a European search engine that respects your privacy
#89Privacy loving European here. I want to like it, but it gives off a bad vibe. First of all it's too loaded and it doesn't seem to work at all without Javascript enabled. Give me a text field, I don't care about the news. Second, no easy way to add it in my Firefox search engine list. This is really something obvious they should fix, come on. Third, they want you to install an extension that will indeed set qwant as d…
> First of all it's too loaded and it doesn't seem to work at all without Javascript enabled. Give me a text field, I don't care about the news. I genuinely don't understand this hostile statement. Why do you complain that a website isn't functional in pure html in 2017? do you want the web to look like it's 1998?
Because a search engine must run on the widest array of web browsers possible. For being a European search engine and based in France to boot, they should very well be aware of platforms which have minimal or no JavaScript support in their web browsers, like for example the classic AmigaOS. If someone with a platform like that tries to use their search engine to perhaps find a JavaScript enabled client, they couldn’t. Lots of TV sets nowadays have built-in web browsers with no or incomplete JavaScript support, as another example.
However the worst offense is that JavaScript is utterly unnecessary in a web search application, so that would be introducing an artificial dependency, one of the worst crimes in software development. Software should be designed with minimal dependencies it needs to do the job and the extras should be the users’ choice. Developers who made this choice for users historically lost their user base as soon as a competing application which had less dependencies showed up; there is a lesson to be learned from that.
Re: Qwant, a European search engine that respects your privacy
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
The thing is, Google improves its results THANKS to its privacy invasion. To understand "poe" as path of exile, it helps to know that you at least once searched for path of exile. After it has seen a few hundreds users do that, it will make the connection. To know that "poe shavs" refers to the game and not Edgar Alan Poe, it probably had to provide a link to a relevant author's name and to the game's page and watch…
This privacy invasion is a two edged sword too. Google is getting very good at searching for stuff you use daily, especially if it's gaming or some other media in fashion. However, it's becoming useless for infrequent searches. Try googling any random error message and notice 90% of the results don't even contain it.
Can you give an example of a random error message where the results do not match?