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The next Google

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Re: The next Google

#191

Post by einpoklum »

> DuckDuckGo and Bing are not true alternatives – they’re just worse versions of Google.

Bing - maybe. DDG - it used to be much more of an alternative, now a little less, with their decision to actively censor their content. Still, they - supposedly - don't collect and store information about you. That's the sense in which they're an alternative. And in Google, there is massive, manipulation of results with all sort of commercial biases. In DDG we don't know that that is the case.

> For this new generation, privacy is necessary, and invasive ads are not an option.

Hmm. I notice they didn't didn't say search results manipulation is not an option.

> Why should everyone have the same search experience?

As far as search results are concerned - so that you don't get to play games with what's more and less visible on the Internet? For the sake of fairness?

> We all have our own preferences about how things should look and work.

Oh, so you want to _flaunt_ how you'll manipulate people's search results to fit your interests? I'm sorry, I mean "the default preferences"?

Re: The next Google

#192

Post by eitland »

chewz wrote: post #132
mostlysimilar wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a simple box where you put a question in and it gives you answers Google is very good at this, but this is exactly what I _don't_ want in the "Next Google". I want a _search engine_ for the web, not an answers engine that tries to know what I want better than I do. Search the web. Give me links to websites. This seems obvious to me, but everyone is trying to be like Google. I'm convinced the death of the web and in…

> Give me links to websites. There are no more websites worth linking to anymore... If you filter out all SEO spam there is barely few webpages left... Google is desperately trying to hide that fact. Most of the web 1.0 can nowadays fit into small town telephone directory... You do not need mulitibilion dolar business to run web directory...

Try search.marginalia.nu (especially https://search.marginalia.nu/explore/random but try some searches for git commands or history too, just remember it is a search engine, not a conversation partner so only include words that should be in the article you search for) and come back to me afterwards.

I thought like you that if even Google couldn't find anything it was not there, but after discovering marginalia I now know it is just Google that has become unusably bad.

For day to day searching I now use Kagi and for me it is easily worth 10 or maybe 20 dollars a month since it "just works" unlike Google and has a larger index than Marginalia.

For now though Marginalia gets the money since Kagi is still in beta.

Re: The next Google

#194

Post by planb »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #138
rdiddly wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All you have to do to improve on Google at this point is to do less, make it less bad, i.e. a process of removals, not additions. Just do the same thing, but without all the shitty extra stuff. But then what's the business model? (Since that is in fact most of the shitty stuff. Oh sure there's still the SEO spam, and you're in that arms-race, like it or not, even if you're not a successful search engine, so you do th…

100% agree. Want a search engine that is better in every way than Google? Give me Google from 2010 or so: 1. Much clearer delineations between ads and organic search results. 2. For anything remotely commercial it wasn't the case that literally the first 4 or 5 results were ads, pushing organic results below the fold. 3. No AMP carousel 4. There wasn't a vomitous amount of those "tidbit" sections - there were only a…

Those 4 points can be solved by ad blockers or other browser extensions. The real problem is that the results below the ads are also ads, seo spam and clickbaity stuff.

Re: The next Google

#196

Post by jtbayly »

chewz wrote: post #132
mostlysimilar wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a simple box where you put a question in and it gives you answers Google is very good at this, but this is exactly what I _don't_ want in the "Next Google". I want a _search engine_ for the web, not an answers engine that tries to know what I want better than I do. Search the web. Give me links to websites. This seems obvious to me, but everyone is trying to be like Google. I'm convinced the death of the web and in…

> Give me links to websites. There are no more websites worth linking to anymore... If you filter out all SEO spam there is barely few webpages left... Google is desperately trying to hide that fact. Most of the web 1.0 can nowadays fit into small town telephone directory... You do not need mulitibilion dolar business to run web directory...

If so, then where can I search this small place? I’d love to.

Re: The next Google

#197

Post by [deleted] »

ouid wrote: post #185
idiotsecant wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The death of the web is because most people don't want what you want. They don't mind walled gardens, so long as they are easy to use and have the content and connections that they want to see. The audience of HN is extremely skewed towards preferring systems that allow tinkering but that's not what the market wants.

What the market has produced is not ipso facto what the people want. The market is simultaneously optimizing many things. Walled gardens are much better explained by companies benefitting from not having to allow their competitors access to their customers than by "being what the people want".

[deleted]

Re: The next Google

#198

Post by jimmygrapes »

chrisshroba wrote: post #120
legohead wrote: post #98

I just went on a mini vacation to Vegas, and was thinking how nice it would be to just call up someone and ask for some simple advice. I did a bunch of online research before I booked things, but man was it painful. There are so many copy-cat blogs who just throw together a bunch of basic information with no real research done in order to get those clicks/adwords. For example: best hotel pool in vegas. Seems simple e…

I find reddit works remarkably well for this. I've gotten great actionable recommendations within an hour or two for: - good coffeeshops - tacos - Korean grocery stores - places that have traditional style al pastor tacos - finding a specific coffee brand at a local grocery store - finding EDM songs similar to a particular song (dullscythe) - hot chicken - canolis and a bunch more similar things. I would think if you…

I have found that this only works if you take recommendations with the understanding that you're almost always getting "the reddit answer". Every sub has theirs, and their reasoning might be because they agree with some entirely unrelated thing, and have bonded over that to the point that other recommendations between each other are heavily weighted and rapidly creates a "go to" response.

Example: check r/sandiego for [insert type of taco] suggestions. There should be thousands of options if you're actually from San Diego but you'll get 5 or 6 at most that stand out a lot, and 1 or 2 that get the most up votes or responses.

Now that may in fact be the "best" (depending on your and their definition) but you might also find that it's just the restaurant that has the most interesting social media presence, or the one you go to in order to signal that you're "one of us". Maybe that's exactly what you want, maybe it's what you want to avoid, but either way it's important to know the mood and trends of the subreddit as well as general reddit culture (and don't tell me it doesn't exist).

Re: The next Google

#199

Post by polote »

dannywarner wrote: post #112
polote wrote: post #96

None of the examples explained here impress me (with maybe the exception of Goggles by brave search). - The first example is not much more than Google with a styling chrome extension - The second doesnt bring anything more than Google when you are searching about webcontent. Some ideas on filters are interesting but this is not user friendly - You is powered by AI, so it is basicaly giving not what you want except wh…

Did you try Andi search? It returns full search results alongside the answer and has full preview content for many of the websites, and the content is from the websites not Google or Bing's snippets. It's completely different to the way you described it. My biggest problem with it is that the alpha version still has errors and is weak for searches like local businesses. Also, big problem is I'm in Australia and every…

It feels like the engine understand well the query, but for test searches it didnt show better results than Google, it actually gave me almost the same answers. So if they use their own index thats pretty good. But not the Next Google

Re: The next Google

#200

Post by smk_ »

fallat wrote: post #88
sillysaurusx wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A paid search engine? Bold. I'd pay if it could do anything close to what the old google code search could do. I miss it every day.

It's actually so good I plan to pay when they start charging.

I’ll do the same as well. Kagi has literally improved my life a significant degree.
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