Show HN: You.com, private search engine that summarizes the web

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

#111

Post by spiderice » Tue, Nov 09, 2021, 9:17 PM UTC

helloguillecl wrote: post #83

I generally don't like when technology gets itself in the way to solve a problem. Why would you need the user to make your search engine the default one before even trying it? This is red flag at least for me, far from convenient and I doubt that installing an extension can be justified by privacy. If your search has better value to me than say, Google, why don't let me make the decision of putting it as my default?…

I'm really not sure what you are talking about. Go to you.com and type a search query. No need to make anything the default. No need to install an extension.

Edit: Ah, now I see. It's because I'm a Safari user. If you go to you.com in Safari it works fine. However, if you go to it in Chrome it does indeed work as you described, asking you to install the extension and whatnot. My mistake.

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

#112

Post by simonebrunozzi » Tue, Nov 09, 2021, 9:17 PM UTC

Great.

I tried to build an open-source search engine back in 2007. I utterly failed, but it was a great experience.

I also tried to launch a Chrome extension to summarize interesting web pages [0].

I wish you luck! Ping me if you'd like to chat ($HN_Username at gmail)

[0]: https://github.com/simonebrunozzi/MNMN/tree/master/Weekly-Su...

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

#113

Post by howmayiannoyyou » Tue, Nov 09, 2021, 9:18 PM UTC

Hard pass. Not installing a CE to test this out. Not changing my default search engine straight away. Not convinced based on what I see there is value added here. Fix those things and I will give it whirl.

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

#114

Post by kmarc » Tue, Nov 09, 2021, 9:18 PM UTC

If I recall correctly, Google was very successful at the beginning because of their instant results coming back in a dead simple list of links and some details.

When I searched on you.com, I got these ugly pulsating placeholders, and then could smell the oily engines in my device whirring up to send that damn heavy AJAX query to let me wait another 2 seconds to get something displayed.

I like the idea, and wish a lot of luck to this project, but the UX is just bad, sorry.

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

#115

Post by cabalamat » Tue, Nov 09, 2021, 9:21 PM UTC

spiderice wrote: post #111

helloguillecl wrote: post #83

I generally don't like when technology gets itself in the way to solve a problem. Why would you need the user to make your search engine the default one before even trying it? This is red flag at least for me, far from convenient and I doubt that installing an extension can be justified by privacy. If your search has better value to me than say, Google, why don't let me make the decision of putting it as my default?…

I'm really not sure what you are talking about. Go to you.com and type a search query. No need to make anything the default. No need to install an extension. Edit: Ah, now I see. It's because I'm a Safari user. If you go to you.com in Safari it works fine. However, if you go to it in Chrome it does indeed work as you described, asking you to install the extension and whatnot. My mistake.

It says on the front page "Add you.com to Chrome to get started" which to my mind implies that in order to get started you have to be using Chrome and add the extension to it.

You don't have to, you can just use it as a web page, the text is misleading and should be changed.

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

#116

Post by arcticfox » Tue, Nov 09, 2021, 9:21 PM UTC

helloguillecl wrote: post #83

I generally don't like when technology gets itself in the way to solve a problem. Why would you need the user to make your search engine the default one before even trying it? This is red flag at least for me, far from convenient and I doubt that installing an extension can be justified by privacy. If your search has better value to me than say, Google, why don't let me make the decision of putting it as my default?…

Incognito mode seems to work for testing FWIW

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

#117

Post by asaq » Tue, Nov 09, 2021, 9:21 PM UTC

spiderice wrote: post #111

helloguillecl wrote: post #83

I generally don't like when technology gets itself in the way to solve a problem. Why would you need the user to make your search engine the default one before even trying it? This is red flag at least for me, far from convenient and I doubt that installing an extension can be justified by privacy. If your search has better value to me than say, Google, why don't let me make the decision of putting it as my default?…

I'm really not sure what you are talking about. Go to you.com and type a search query. No need to make anything the default. No need to install an extension. Edit: Ah, now I see. It's because I'm a Safari user. If you go to you.com in Safari it works fine. However, if you go to it in Chrome it does indeed work as you described, asking you to install the extension and whatnot. My mistake.

I get "To see results and get the convenience of you.com, you’ll need to add the you.com Chrome extension"

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

#118

Post by rfxap » Tue, Nov 09, 2021, 9:22 PM UTC

noduerme wrote: post #107

Question about a key UX decision: Why do all the search results open in a new tab with target="_blank"? This is the only search engine I can think of that has this behavior. I find it pesky from a user's point of view. If I want new tabs I can command-click the link. As it is, the UI doesn't provide the user any way to navigate away from You.com when opening a search result. I've always viewed new-tab links to be a k…

I can see it both ways. From what I've learned, Google does open results in a new tab by default in some countries, and they recently added the option to choose the new tab behavior. Adding that as an option could be a way to solve it.

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

#119

Post by cabalamat » Tue, Nov 09, 2021, 9:22 PM UTC

globalise83 wrote: post #85

mthoms wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to use the plugin, just search at the top of the page. The text around the plugin is misleading. Strike 1 IMHO.

On Chrome desktop I just see a blocker message: "To see results and get the convenience of you.com, you’ll need to add the you.com Chrome extension"

I'm using Firefox and don't get that message. Obviously if you do get it on Chrome, that's a bad user experience and needs to be changed.

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

#120

Post by nozepas » Tue, Nov 09, 2021, 9:23 PM UTC

It does strike me as odd that is private but I need to install a chrome extension to use it and there is a prominent 'Sign up' button on the top right corner.

I am also struggling to understand why the need to install a chrome extension to see search results. Feels like a lot of users will get lost on this first funnel step.