Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The next Google

dkb.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 561 posts

Re: The next Google

#271

Post by nuancebydefault »

emsixteen wrote: post #263
eitland wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 k…

> search.marginalia.nu This is just retrieving articles when I search, not actual websites. Interesting if you're looking for article related to search keywords I guess, but genuinely unusable for actually finding something specific.

Gave it another try with "ssh scp". Google's first result explains me how to use scp (ssh provides a hint about the context), which was what i would be looking for. Marganilla... not so much it seems

Re: The next Google

#272

Post by Nition »

Barrin92 wrote: post #45

I think 'more customization' which is a theme with a lot of these alternatives is a fundamental dead end. I don't know where this persistent myth comes from that people love choice and tinkering, because they clearly don't. There's a huge cost associated with having to make choices, and one feature of successful modern apps is that they're frictionless. That's why TikTok is so successful. There's no login, no user ch…

I've been using Kagi for a little while. The customisation isn't really necessary - the defaults work fine - but it's quite nice to have when you want it. I've banned Pinterest from the search results.

Re: The next Google

#273

Post by advael »

You lost me at "Duckduckgo is a worse version of google"

Privacy aside, I find the results much more helpful on average these days, and weeding past sponsored links is enough of a hassle within google search results to consider it a UX QOL downgrade

Re: The next Google

#274

Post by Nition »

jimmygrapes wrote: post #198
chrisshroba wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fo…

I think this is a really good observation, and "bonded over" is a good term. At the extremes, people will even recommend the thing and disparage other options when they haven't tried either one themselves. They're just trying to be part of the group.

Edit: A couple more real examples off the top of my head:

- In some circles, everyone recommends getting a Shure SM7B + a Cloudlifter for recording voice. It's not a terrible option but not really better than many other mics (many of which are higher gain, removing the need for the separate preamp), and even if selecting an SM7B, depending on your audio interface you may not need the Cloudlifter. It's just a preamp, not magic.

- On Reddit's /r/NewZealand, everyone loves Whittaker's chocolate and hates Cadbury. Whittaker's is locally owned and honestly is better than Cadbury, but from reading the discourse you'd think Cadbury was completely disgusting. Any sort of moderate opinion (e.g. liking both) is not allowed.

Re: The next Google

#275

Post by zie »

anticristi wrote: post #108
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…

When I visited my mom in Romania, I was amazed that hair dressers filled *exactly this purpose*. It almost felt like you were "Googling" for 30 minutes and getting a haircut as a side-effect. Customer: How is the newly opened Spa? Hair dresser: Other customers said the water was cold.

Not limited to Romania. Librarians are also pretty fabulous for local information and free.

Re: The next Google

#277

Post by masswerk »

I'd like my search engine to be not too intelligent. Sometimes, humans suppose to know what they are meaning.

So

- optional verbatim and prioritized terms (like Google once did it)

- optional logical operators (and, or)

- a separate input box for context (either, specific terms like "product", "shopping", "legal", or some assorted terms to indicate a field of meaning and/or associated concepts, time span, etc)

It's the latter, where the search engine may shine and users may evoke its sophisticated intelligence, but, please, don't reinterpret the principal search terms to concepts that maybe just related. I do understand that this may not be for everyone, nor may it be the sole interface, but there should be a niche for this.

Example, wanting to find something about the early press coverage of System/360:

- Search term: (IBM || "big blue") && System/360

- Context: news 1965,1966 computer

Re: The next Google

#278

Post by marginalia_nu »

nuancebydefault wrote: post #271
emsixteen wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> search.marginalia.nu This is just retrieving articles when I search, not actual websites. Interesting if you're looking for article related to search keywords I guess, but genuinely unusable for actually finding something specific.

Gave it another try with "ssh scp". Google's first result explains me how to use scp (ssh provides a hint about the context), which was what i would be looking for. Marganilla... not so much it seems

https://search.marginalia.nu/search?query=scp&profile=yolo&j... tho

Re: The next Google

#279

Post by marginalia_nu »

nuancebydefault wrote: post #268
eitland wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 k…

Just searched for "linux users" in marginalia and google. Google's first answer seemed spot on. (users command usage); Marginalia provided me with in comparison _marginal_ results. Maybe it is because google knows me better then i am aware of. I really don't notice google results getting worse, while i read so several times in HN comments...

Yeah it's not a search engine for answering questions, but for finding documents. You'll get along with it better if you see it as something like grep for the web. This is something I'm very intentionally trying to accomplish, as it's something I feel Google has gotten worse at.

Re: The next Google

#280

Post by ezekg »

bsparker wrote: post #250
egeozcan wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Give me relevant links to my term, with no SEO spam I think achieving this would be worth billions, at least? We really tend to underestimate the amount of spam on the internet. Google does badly here: it overcorrects and you get only super safe results. Yandex? Unless you get lucky, lots of spam.

This is one of the reasons I love working for You.com. SEO is killing Google and it needs to be addressed before it kills the internet. Having the opportunity to build an app that solves a search, instead of perpetuating a spam system, has been really rewarding... and we're just getting started.

It's crazy how quickly I got quality results for "java ed25519 bouncy castle" on both You and Kagi. I literally spent all day on Monday using Goog and DDG trying to find implementation examples of Ed25519 and AES-256-GCM in Java, trying every variation of keyword, verbatim quotes, and site scope I could think of, and ended up using GH gist search instead to find what I was looking for. The results on Goog/DDG were literally all SEO spam sites copying content from SO or the Bouncy Castle docs that I had already read.

I've been trying out Kagi as my default search engine, but will give You a try next.

Post reply on HN