The world needs more search engines • Hacker News Board

Re: The world needs more search engines

#511

Post by bransonf » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 6:18 AM UTC

jacobsenscott wrote: post #494

mrweasel wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When DDG doesn't yield the results I'm looking for, I will frequently try Google, but more and more I find that if DuckDuckGo can't find the results that I want, then neither can Google. What Google can do however, is annoy me with results that it knows to be wrong, because it is excluded the most specific part of my query. Google will remove the bit that absolutely had to be in the query, to get more hits on the maj…

In my experience DDG's results are mostly 10+ year old "yahoo answers" posts, while google searches tend to be up to date and relevant.

I remember a time when Google would turn up countless Yahoo answers posts. Now it’s all Quora.

Re: The world needs more search engines

#512

Post by slowenough » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 6:23 AM UTC

solso wrote: post #259

slowenough wrote: post #100

This is cool. But some criticism. UI seems a bit janky. Results are good but visually presented in a way it's hard to tell each result card from the next. Cliqz is a bad name, even tho you may want the world to be a cyberpunk dystopia where renegade hackers control the outposts of civilization, Google has not fallen yet, pick a name the 99% can relate to. And get Machiavellian ... if you're really gonna beat Google,…

[disclaimer I work at Cliqz] We are all ears on ideas on how to beat Google :-) But on a serious note; i do not think that the aim is to beat Google because of Google but because on the monopoly they have on the access to the information. And that's why we are building a potential alternative there. Attacking from a different domain, might beat Google on that area, or let's go wild here, perhaps even on revenue, but…

well I like your crazy idea. why not offer me a job?

Re: The world needs more search engines

#513

Post by dang » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 6:24 AM UTC

green1 wrote: post #509

crispinb wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find exactly the opposite. I use adblockers, privacy badger, allow no third party cookies, and segregate google logins. It's pretty obvious from my google & youtube searches that they have no idea who I am or where I've been. Funnily enough, it wouldn't occur to me however to use my own experience to make a sweeping judgement about what Google does in the large, because I just don't know. Even if I suspected, I'd b…

So your personal experience does nothing less than illustrate Google's tracking to an "obvious" degree, but my personal experience is simply "making a sweeping judgement" and "confusing this with knowledge for the sake of my own cognitive hygiene". Thanks for clearing that up. Edit: Flagged and downvoted within seconds of posting (obvious bot is obvious)? While the snide, passive-aggressive post I replied to is still…

Your post was downvoted and flagged by legit users. Would you please review the site guidelines and stop breaking them?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: The world needs more search engines

#514

Post by Mirioron » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 6:46 AM UTC

saagarjha wrote: post #286

Mirioron wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google can keep Search, but Ads, Doubleclick, Analytics, Waze, GCP, Google Home - all of that needs to be broken up. > Some of the resulting businesses may have to update their model or may not remain profitable, but historically break-ups have resulted in an increase in value for the new businesses. All of this teaches one lesson: be more like Apple. Treat your customers poorly and massively overcharge them. Make…

> All of this teaches one lesson: be more like Apple. Treat your customers poorly and massively overcharge them. Make sure you are never the biggest in your field. Essentially, don't offer products that are too good for the price. You’re wrong on both counts: Apple has its own share of potentially monopolistic behavior, and there are billions of people worldwide who disagree with you on how the company treats them.

>Apple has its own share of potentially monopolistic behavior

But I rarely see Apple being included in these calls for breaking up the tech companies. Also, I'd be surprised if Apple even has a billion customers, let alone a billion who are happy with Apple.

Re: The world needs more search engines

#515

Post by green1 » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 6:53 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #513

green1 wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your personal experience does nothing less than illustrate Google's tracking to an "obvious" degree, but my personal experience is simply "making a sweeping judgement" and "confusing this with knowledge for the sake of my own cognitive hygiene". Thanks for clearing that up. Edit: Flagged and downvoted within seconds of posting (obvious bot is obvious)? While the snide, passive-aggressive post I replied to is still…

Your post was downvoted and flagged by legit users. Would you please review the site guidelines and stop breaking them? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive

You think the post I replied to doesn't break (at the very least) that rule? Perhaps if you came down harder on the in-crowd high karma posters, other people wouldn't have to sarcastically thank them for their abuse.

> Your post was downvoted and flagged by legit users.

It was downvoted and flagged as soon as it was posted. So legit users with enough karma to downvote are sitting reloading page 2 threads for new posts half way down the page?

Re: The world needs more search engines

#516

Post by dang » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 6:58 AM UTC

close04 wrote: post #444

jefftk wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source: I work on ads at Google, and if we were doing this I'm pretty sure I'd know. If it was being used for targeting it would be practical to run an external study demonstrating that.

> external study demonstrating that I hope you understand the reticence of taking any statement coming from a Google employee defending Google with a grain of salt. You have defended Google in the past only to fall silent when presented with the actual study contradicting you. [0] It not that you aren't/can't be right, just that the "source" suggests some bias and Google's track record does not work in their favor. […

Please don't bring up old arguments in order to harangue a fellow user, no matter how wrong they were or you feel they were. That kind of thing quickly gets bitter and nasty. We want good conversation here. That requires a collegial spirit and the ability to let some things go.

Also, people are more knowledgeable about the field in which they work, so it makes HN strictly worse if the environment becomes so poisoned that they're disincentivized to participate.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: The world needs more search engines

#517

Post by dang » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 7:10 AM UTC

green1 wrote: post #515

dang wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your post was downvoted and flagged by legit users. Would you please review the site guidelines and stop breaking them? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive You think the post I replied to doesn't break (at the very least) that rule? Perhaps if you came down harder on the in-crowd high karma posters, other people wouldn't have to sarcastically thank them for their abuse. > Your post was downvoted and flagged by legit users. It was downvoted and flagged as soon as it was posted. So legit users…

The GP comment was teetering on the edge of that rule, and maybe toppled onto the wrong side. But your comment was way over from the beginning.

I'm not aware of high karma affecting how we do HN moderation. We ask people not to break the rules when we see them breaking the rules. Sometimes we reply to everyone in a thread who did that, but not always—perfect consistency isn't possible. Nor is it necessary, because someone else breaking the rules doesn't make it ok for you to break them: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que....

Not every downvote or flag comes from reading the thread. There are also pages like https://news.ycombinator.com/newcomments and https://news.ycombinator.com/noobcomments.

Re: The world needs more search engines

#518

Post by seektable » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 7:18 AM UTC

biasedOpinion wrote: post #457

seektable wrote: post #443

We don't need more search engines like google, we need a new kind of engines that will supersede google/bing/etc and break the following axioms: * search engine is a cloud service, which is not controlled by user of that engine * search gives final results in milliseconds (why? because google cannot spend many seconds/minutes for you, that's why) * search creates information bubble (that user cannot control) because…

Disclaimer: I work at Google so I'm 100% biased. All opinions are my own. Edit: formatting >search engine is a cloud service, which is not controlled by user of that engine So is hacker news. >search gives final results in milliseconds (why? because google cannot spend many seconds/minutes for you, that's why) Do you want latency to be larger?? >open source, because user should trust the code That would make it easie…

> Do you want latency to be larger??

Instant results are good for sure, however very often few more seconds - in addition to instant results! - is not a problem if late, more carefully processed results can save minutes of my time - for now I spend it for opening the links and scanning the content with my eyes.

The same is about not very often but important searches that may be described as 'research about something', in this case I'm ready to make complex, well detailed query and wait even hours - then back and get well organized and intelligent results.

> Do you mean users should keep their own index of the whole web by themselves?

oh no! Users should keep only their personal data - in wide meaning, this includes all history of searches, search results, refinements, anything that ML currently uses to bring personal search experience. In addition to that, relatively small index of important content may be saved. For internet search this 'personal search' will use API of anything that can be used manually for now - google, bing, consume direct API of Twitter/FB/Medium/WolframAlpha and hundreds of connectors to other cloud services. It is important to say, that this 'delegated search calls' may be anonymized.

It will be important that search results are not limited only by what google decided to be 'top results for this user'. At this moment I can do all this manually - open N tabs, query many services, compare results, open most 'relevant' (from my human point of view, not google) links and scan them for most interesting information. I believe that all this can be automated.

> First I think you greatly overestimate how useful information about you can be. Second if that worked then it would make they problem you mentioned before (information bubble) worse...

As for now, all this just thoughts. I'm a programmer with almost 20YOE; I have understanding about how google works in general, how lucene works, how WolframAlpha works, modern approaches to NLP and search-driven queries processing, and I think - without a MVP that works, this is more belief, of course - that value of this 'personal computation engine' combined with modern ML approaches might be ultimate. Challenge, but nothing impossible!

Re: The world needs more search engines

#519

Post by crispinb » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 7:32 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #517

green1 wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive You think the post I replied to doesn't break (at the very least) that rule? Perhaps if you came down harder on the in-crowd high karma posters, other people wouldn't have to sarcastically thank them for their abuse. > Your post was downvoted and flagged by legit users. It was downvoted and flagged as soon as it was posted. So legit users…

The GP comment was teetering on the edge of that rule, and maybe toppled onto the wrong side. But your comment was way over from the beginning. I'm not aware of high karma affecting how we do HN moderation. We ask people not to break the rules when we see them breaking the rules. Sometimes we reply to everyone in a thread who did that, but not always—perfect consistency isn't possible. Nor is it necessary, because so…

> You think the post I replied to doesn't break (at the very least) that rule?

I'm not sure whether it did or not - quick responses (which surely we all make at least sometimes?) aren't always very carefully considered. I'm pretty sure though if challenged I would typically try and make my response to the challenge more thoughtful than my first attempt. I take it this is at least part of the point of the rule: escalation avoidance.

I had no snarky intent, but I can see my expression was (at least) ambiguous. This:

> it wouldn't occur to me however to use my own experience to make a sweeping judgement about what Google does in the large

was intended as a counter to this:

> It's pretty obvious from my ...

ie. I'm saying that what appears 'obvious' from my experience is no guide to what's actually true about the intentions & practises of an enormous and (unhelpfully) opaque organisation like Google. In my haste I didn't express that particularly well, so I'm happy to acknowledge a mea culpa on that score.

Re: The world needs more search engines

#520

Post by tarsinge » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 8:05 AM UTC

lolinder wrote: post #478

lucb1e wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, that example query is more of a personal assistant kind of question. If I want to know who played in that movie, either I know which site has that information (IMDB) and go there directly, or I search for something like "actors spiderman movie ". If you want DDG to understand natural language queries, I think their privacy policy may need to be adjusted so that our queries can actually be used to develop…

Like it or not, NL queries are exactly what most internet users want. Without them, any search engine is doomed to remain a niche product used exclusively by the very privacy-conscious.

Any sources? What I see is the majority use the search bar to input the name of a website or a brand.