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Building a Simple Search Engine That Works

karboosx.net

11–20 of 82 posts

Re: Building a Simple Search Engine That Works

#11

Good. Now please someone replace Google's search engine. I am always annoyed using it, how bad it is these days. Then I try the alternatives such as Duck Duck Go and they manage to be even worse. Qwant is semi-ok but it also omits tons of things that Google Search finds (and also is slower, for some weird reason). Google's UI nerf is also annoying - so much useless stuff. In the past I could disable that via ublock o…

Try kagi.com. I tried and stayed. It’s paid though.

Re: Building a Simple Search Engine That Works

#12
post #11

Good. Now please someone replace Google's search engine. I am always annoyed using it, how bad it is these days. Then I try the alternatives such as Duck Duck Go and they manage to be even worse. Qwant is semi-ok but it also omits tons of things that Google Search finds (and also is slower, for some weird reason). Google's UI nerf is also annoying - so much useless stuff. In the past I could disable that via ublock o…

Try kagi.com. I tried and stayed. It’s paid though.

I also used Kagi, but decided to cancel my subscription last year when it was revealed they pay Yandex for their search, which is a Russian company that ultimately fuels the Russian war on Ukraine.

Once Kagi stops transferring money to Russia, I’d be happy re-subscribe.

Re: Building a Simple Search Engine That Works

#13
post #12
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try kagi.com. I tried and stayed. It’s paid though.

I also used Kagi, but decided to cancel my subscription last year when it was revealed they pay Yandex for their search, which is a Russian company that ultimately fuels the Russian war on Ukraine. Once Kagi stops transferring money to Russia, I’d be happy re-subscribe.

Do you have a source how funding yandex funds the war? Yandex is a great search engine, so I would hate to find out that this is true

Re: Building a Simple Search Engine That Works

#14
post #6

Reminds me of reading Programming Collective Intelligence by Toby Segaran, which inspired me with a range of things, like building search, recommenders, classifiers etc.

I loved that book also, but saw him a few year later saying in some youtube video "don't use that book" because it is obsolete in his opinion.

Re: Building a Simple Search Engine That Works

#15
post #5

About a decade ago, I was working with a guy who was getting a PhD in search engine design, which I knew/know nothing about. It was actually a lot of fun to chat with him, because he was so enthusiastic about how searching works and how it can integrate with databases, and he was eager to explain this all to anyone who would listen. I learned a fair amount from him, though admittedly I still don't know much about the…

People who work on really obscure things love to talk about their work, heck if someone would listen to me I could talk for hours about what I do.

Unfortunately very few people care about the minutia of making a behemoth system work.

Re: Building a Simple Search Engine That Works

#16
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also used Kagi, but decided to cancel my subscription last year when it was revealed they pay Yandex for their search, which is a Russian company that ultimately fuels the Russian war on Ukraine. Once Kagi stops transferring money to Russia, I’d be happy re-subscribe.

Do you have a source how funding yandex funds the war? Yandex is a great search engine, so I would hate to find out that this is true

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yandex#Legal_issues_in_Ukraine
  https://www.zois-berlin.de/en/publications/zois-spotlight/the-sad-fate-of-yandex-from-independent-tech-startup-to-kremlin-propaganda-tool

Re: Building a Simple Search Engine That Works

#17
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also used Kagi, but decided to cancel my subscription last year when it was revealed they pay Yandex for their search, which is a Russian company that ultimately fuels the Russian war on Ukraine. Once Kagi stops transferring money to Russia, I’d be happy re-subscribe.

Do you have a source how funding yandex funds the war? Yandex is a great search engine, so I would hate to find out that this is true

It's based in Russia so it presumably pays taxes and salaries in Russia.

Re: Building a Simple Search Engine That Works

#18
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was the solution I was thinking about, but I thought, well that's the way someone would have done it 20 years ago

Alright but why do we not have more search engines that are actually good? I'd love to cut myself off from Google, including Google Search, but any alternatives manage to be even worse. Consistently so. It's as if Google won the war by being just permanently slightly better - while everyone is actually really crap. That wasn't the case, say, 10 years ago or so.

I use the '4get' proxy search engine, which lets you use pretty much every search engine under the sun, for both websites and images. It's really useful because it is faster than google, and if you need to find some pages you can just change the search engine quickly.

It is open source and there are many instances available, I use '4get.bloat.cat' or '4get.lunar.iu'

It is a better alternative to SearX for sure

Re: Building a Simple Search Engine That Works

#19
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was the solution I was thinking about, but I thought, well that's the way someone would have done it 20 years ago

Alright but why do we not have more search engines that are actually good? I'd love to cut myself off from Google, including Google Search, but any alternatives manage to be even worse. Consistently so. It's as if Google won the war by being just permanently slightly better - while everyone is actually really crap. That wasn't the case, say, 10 years ago or so.

These days I default to DDG. Not because it's improved but because Google's results are just that bad. Even a couple years ago I was reaching for Google with a lot more frequency.

Re: Building a Simple Search Engine That Works

#20

Good. Now please someone replace Google's search engine. I am always annoyed using it, how bad it is these days. Then I try the alternatives such as Duck Duck Go and they manage to be even worse. Qwant is semi-ok but it also omits tons of things that Google Search finds (and also is slower, for some weird reason). Google's UI nerf is also annoying - so much useless stuff. In the past I could disable that via ublock o…

Not quite independent as it’s a meta-search, but I developed a subscription based one at search.waterfox.net. Pays for the infrastructure costs and remains ad/tracking free.
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