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

you.com

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

#181
post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I avoid Chrome whenever possible. It's a battery and privacy killer. Search field worked fine in Safari.

Well, that's fine, but all the issues being reported here are due to Chrome users seeing the same thing - inability to use You.com unless you install an even larger potential privacy killer in the form of an extension. Otherwise it refuses to let you search using the on page bar.

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

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly second this. I immediately gave up on trying it out once I realized I had to download something. Your KPIs should be around how sticky your search features are, it seems like it is currently based on download counts.

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…

I agree with your sentiment about being the default engine to break people free of google, but do you have evidence that the browser extension is the way to get people to do that?

On the other side, you have a search bar on the page, so I'm not exactly sure what people are complaining about.

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

#183

I heard about "you" from one of my friends and wanted to give it a try and it forced me to install chrome plugin. This is a lot of friction for me to try a new search engine. Not sure why you'd force your user to install something just to give it a try.

Yea... Requiring the default was a tough choice. You actually can try it out in incognito mode and any other non-Chromium browser. But we found that without the convenience of a navbar search, most people won't give it a proper try either way. I hope we can drop this requirement even in Chrome when we become one of the default options. If you set your search engine default to http://you.com manually in Chrome with "…

Ok, after trying incognito, I do like it, but I'm not ready to switch my default from DDG yet. Maybe on the non-incognito chrome results page you could include a note that your search can be tested from incognito along with the prompt to install the extension?

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

#184
I had a go for a ‘dev’ related search. I just tried one trivial thing.

I searched for ‘jq modify value’ as it’s something I previously found hard to find skimming the enormous man page. I got:

1. A stack overflow question which implicitly answered the question but was actually about someone wanting to modify a file in-place.

2. A blog post from Monsanto. I clicked on it and I was greeted with a big model box that I didn’t read.

3. Something from w3 schools (which unlike stack overflow seems to get first class treatment in the results) about css and jquery.

4. Some “generated code” that was totally crazy looking python full of comments in Chinese.

5. A video that looked like it might contain the answer

6. A box asking me to sign into GitHub.

I clicked the G icon for Google and the first result was a stack overflow question about how to modify a field with jq. The top answer was sane but there were some weird comments on it (the answer to the question in the You.com results had good constructive comments). I didn’t look at the later results which is unfair as the first result from You.com also contained the answer.

It seems to me that it must be extremely hard to break into this space. Microsoft tried (including building entirely their own indexes and suchlike) and, roughly speaking, failed despite often producing high quality results that bettered Google. Any bad results from an upstart send people back to Google. Bad results from Google send them back to the search box to try again. I can’t blame them for wanting people to set the app as a chrome default with extra extension-powered abilities.

Personally I also find it weird to be connecting ‘private’ search with other accounts. I guess it is private+personalised but I’m not sure I really want personalised.

Maybe things would be different for other queries.

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

#186
Requiring a plugin to use a search engine is the dumbest thing I have seen in a while. It is insane. How did anyone think this was a good idea? How was this funded? This creepy and weird!

I was frustrated when this popup appeared and will never use this. Its left negative feelings, I will strongly resist you dot com forever.

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

#187

While this is a thing I'd very much like to try I make a point out of not using Chrome && badgering everyone who tries to force me to use it. Had to use it the other day to verify if a particular bug at a customer system was Firefox-specific (as usual it wasn't) but it meant a four months streak or so was wasted :-/ So no, while this is really interesting it still has to be even more interesting for me to allow that…

Hey there, Yea... You'd actually get rid of the biggest spyware - Google ;) Our extension is 33kB and has not other function than changing your default (and checking if the extension itself is installed). You actually can try it out in incognito mode and any other browser. But we found that without the convenience of a navbar search, most people won't give it a proper try either way. I hope we can drop this requireme…

> You'd actually get rid of the biggest spyware - Google ;)

Good point now that I realize that it works in other browsers.

My initial impression was that 1) it only worked in Chrome and 2) it required an extension to work even there.

I wish you luck and also think this is a good time to launch:

I feel I was an early adopter of Google and I have now more or less left Google behind (it is now DuckDuckGo.com by default, and even some search.marginalia.nu).

A few years ago Google was so amazing it was impossible to compete with them but these days they are making it easy for DDG which is kind of OK and search.marginalia.nu is coming up as the small but delightful alternative :-)

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

#189
post #26

The front page has multiple calls to action to install their Chrome extension but fails to describe what the extension does or why I need it to do a web search.

It sets you.com as your default search engine. ... we thought this was obvious but you're right. We should be more explicit and clear about that! Thanks for the feedback.

So why can't I do a simple search without setting it as my default engine?

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

#190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can remove "&fromSearchBar=true" from the address and it will show the results.

... Or you can just use Firefox. I'm not kidding. ><

Or you can just use Google and not bother with any of this
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