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Brave Search beta

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Re: Brave Search beta

#351
post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean, DDG worked fine for 95% of time, but the remaining 5% failure often led to some extreme frustration that I just couldn't stand. Is 95% really not acceptable?My experience is quite different though. When I don’t get the results I hoped I just use !g. Easy. But the result are rarely any better

I used to do this, but at some point I just stopped. Google is not better than DDG. More SEO spam and much more hostile UX. Brave has a culture of user-hostile UX too so I don’t have any big hopes for this. I like the idea of paying for a search engine, though. I would seriously consider that if DDG offered it.

Why not try Neeva? They are going the route of a paid search engine.

Re: Brave Search beta

#352
post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Not true. https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/so... >In practice I've found their results to be basically identical to bing and other bing front-ends. This is anecdote. Countering my argument -- calling it misleading -- with anecdote doesn't work.

They pretty clearly only talk about instant answers there. When they say over 400 sources it even links to [0] a page about instant answers. What do you expect? That I hack into ddg and give you their source? Try some searches for yourself and see that the results [1] are basically identical to bing [2] and other engines using bing[3], when compared to different indicies[4][5][6]. [0] https://duck.co/ia [1] https://d…

> They pretty clearly only talk about instant answers there.

They talk about both, "traditional links" are not instant answers: "We also of course have more traditional links in the search results, which we also source from multiple partners, though most commonly from Bing (and none from Google)."

> Try some searches for yourself and see that the results are basically identical to bing

I disagree on your definition of "basically identical". Google and Bing results (in a private window) are more similar to me than DDG and Google:

Bing:

1. https://www.monkey.exchange

2. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=cool.monkey.an...

3. https://www.monkey.cool

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey

5. https://pt.surveymonkey.com/

(change page)

6. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=cool.monkey.an...

7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0hyYWKXF0Q (TONES AND I - DANCE MONKEY (OFFICIAL VIDEO))

8. https://www.britannica.com/animal/monkey

9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_(TV_series)

10. https://www.monkey.vision/

DDG:

1. https://www.monkey.cool

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey

3. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=cool.monkey.an...

4. https://www.britannica.com/animal/monkey

5. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/monkey

6. 2pchat.monkey.cool

7. https://www.livescience.com/27944-monkeys.html

8. https://a-z-animals.com/animals/monkey/

9. https://www.monkeyworlds.com/

10. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTrnSJLXGBg (Mokey's Show - Is Not Christmas - YouTube)

Google (after changing to english bc they don't respect browser prefs...):

1. https://www.monkey.exchange

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey

(Videos links)

3. https://www.motociclismoonline.com.br/noticias/honda-monkey-... ("localized" news bc I can't get rid of it)

4. https://www.linkedin.com/company/monkeyexchange

5. https://motor1.uol.com.br/news/515705/honda-monkey-125-2022-... (also localized)

6. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=cool.monkey.an...

7. https://hbr.org/1999/11/management-time-whos-got-the-monkey

8. https://www.britannica.com/animal/monkey

9. https://www.surveymonkey.com/user/sign-up/

10. https://www.surveymonkey.com/

DDG has more "monkey" definitions than both Google and Bing, all have Wikipedia, all have cool.monkey (in different ways), Bing + Google have monkey.exchange and surveymonkey, the video's the same on Google and Bing, all of them have some unique links (such as monkey.vision and monkeyworlds.com)

Also two of the results ("Mokey's Show" youtube video and 2pchat.monkey.cool) are not on the first 10 pages of Bing's results, if at all.

(Edit: formatting and the two results)

Re: Brave Search beta

#353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a browser with built-in cryptocurrency nonsense. That should tell you everything you need to know.

That, and anytime there's a critical comment on hackernews their employee's come flying in to do damage control.

Yes, it happens in every thread about Brave. Full-on damage control at the smallest mention, which says a lot.

Re: Brave Search beta

#354
I'm impressed. I've been using DDG for many years. Generally I don't need to revert back to Google; the last time I needed to was last year when looking for a particular GPX file for a walk I wanted to do called the Hebden 22.

The search query was 'hebden 22 gpx'. There are many pages out there with broken links, and I probably went through the top 20 or so on DDG with no success. When I tried Google, the 4th result returned a page with the GPX once you've registered for a free account.

That page appears at number one on Brave search!

Re: Brave Search beta

#355
post #116

Reminder that Brave has done some morally questionable things in the past: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_(web_browser)#Controvers... They've since corrected both of those things, but those are enough for me to choose not to trust them as an organization.

It's funny seeing all these folks nitpicking at Brave but who are fine using Google or Microsoft every day.

Citation needed.

Re: Brave Search beta

#357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Case in point.

The only issue you have left with BAT is user education, got it. So thankfully the tech is solid. Now just UX polishing and onboarding. Personally, I think you're just being obtuse and looking for a problem. -- edit -- @dang, go fuck yourself, seriously. Until this edit I haven't said anything offensive. I've simply been a contrarian for many topics: technical, social, political, agricultural, philosophical. It seems…

We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines and attacking other users. Seriously not cool.

Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27598433.

Re: Brave Search beta

#358
post #194
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bing is one of many sources from which duckduckgo derives its results; kind of like what's going on here with Brave's new search.

Do side by side comparisons. I haven't seen any of my searches (admittedly only the few I checked for this) differ from Bing's results in results or result positioning It's unfortunate really as the owner guy keeps saying they use multiple sources but in all of my tests.. they're all Bing. I don't care about using Bing, I do care about being deceived (slippery slope, thin end of the wedge, etc etc)

Interesting, in my tests (posted at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27598329), the results differ a lot.

Maybe its more about localization, I'm curious to see the same example from someone in the US, but there are two links which do not seem to be in Bing's results at all, making me believe it has been taken from somewhere else.

Re: Brave Search beta

#359
DDG search is fine for me, the thing I think Google still does better is all the searches like "what's the weather in X", "3.5 miles to km", "what's the next NBA game" etc

I found that Google still does these things much better.

Re: Brave Search beta

#360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a current news event. It's old news. Why are you so desperate to cancel him... again?

This is the last time I’ll mention this here as it’s getting not only repetitive but it feels like I’m the only one discussing in good faith: 1. I’m not trying to cancel anyone 2. I’m not trying to start a flame war 3. I haven’t actually stated any “sides” in this discussion at all 4. I’ve wondered about this for years now and hadn’t personally seen it brought up at all, thus prompting my question. Sheesh.

If you say you didn't mean to start a flamewar, I believe you, but it's such a classic flamewar topic and has been so done to death for so many years, that other users can't be blamed for thinking otherwise. The effect was to troll the thread even if was unintentional.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

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