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

What If Google Wasn't the Default?

matt-rickard.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 55 posts

Re: What If Google Wasn't the Default?

#31

Post by nicky0 »

tuyiown wrote: post #26
linza wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried kagi with the free trial offer and liked it a lot. However, i was not converted to a paying customer. I don't actually really know why. There is nothing technically that makes me hesitate. When my trial was over, and I stared at the form for my credit card I kinda went "nah I'm good. I'll go back to google for now, i can switch when i really need to". I never really needed to.

I converted to paying on kagi the promise that the first tier was enough for most users. It was not, and I didn't considered I would be a heavy user before hand. 2nd tier price is not acceptable to me since the UI/UX is not polished enough (search input reset is not something that should slip in production ever). I also had to revert to google for shopping results, kagi is suppose to have some, but not for me apparen…

They recently changed the pricing. It's now $5/mo for 300 searches or $10/mo for unlimited searches.

I'm on the $10 because it seems I do about 600 searches a month.

For me it's a bargain, I could never go back to Google.

Re: What If Google Wasn't the Default?

#32

Post by pierat »

rightbyte wrote: post #21
SllX wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Apple has the resources to go into a lot of businesses they don’t necessarily want to be in and they seem happy enough with the Google arrangement. They like to own and control the technologies core to their products, but even they have to draw a line otherwise they’d be building and running their own fabs. Plus Microsoft also has a lot of money and talent and have been in the search business a very long time…

> Bing still sucks If I were to form a search habit today I don't think I would grade Bing lower than Google. Google has gotten way worse and Bing way better. Bing seems to respect the user's querries more too.

Try Yandex next time.

It searches exactly what you look for, and has no 'removed for piracy' search deindexes.

Re: What If Google Wasn't the Default?

#33

Post by hosh »

SllX wrote: post #5
mrweasel wrote: post #2

The fascination with Apple developing their own search is a little weird. That is not direction we'd want to go in. It seems that we'd be better of if the companies providing search was different from the device maker or operating systems and browser developers.

Agreed. Apple has the resources to go into a lot of businesses they don’t necessarily want to be in and they seem happy enough with the Google arrangement. They like to own and control the technologies core to their products, but even they have to draw a line otherwise they’d be building and running their own fabs. Plus Microsoft also has a lot of money and talent and have been in the search business a very long time…

I am increasingly finding myself using ChatGPT powered Bing over Google (or rather, DuckDuckGo) for my daily driver.

Re: What If Google Wasn't the Default?

#34

Post by chrismorgan »

> Gmail works best on Chrome.

Is this true, and if so, in what way?

> Google Docs uses cutting-edge features first (or only) found on Chrome.

Such as?

(I haven’t been a Google user for over six years, but back then neither of these were true, to my knowledge—if anything, Gmail worked better on Firefox due to significantly lower resource usage—and I can’t imagine what could have changed. Google Meet I’d understand, working properly depends on I think it’s WebRTC stuff Firefox still hadn’t shipped last I heard, but nothing that would be relevant for Gmail or Google Docs leaps out at me.)

I know I’ve heard at times of Google doing inappropriate user-agent sniffing and sending a degraded experience unless your browser claims to be Chromium, but I don’t think that’s reasonable grounds for saying it works best on Chrome, when it’s deliberate/malicious (organisational malice even if no other form) and works just fine in other browsers if they just pretend to be Chromium in their UA string.

Google has pestered and bullied and underhandedly bundled people into installing Chrome, but through most of the time they’ve made any claims about it, they’ve simply been lies, plain and simple. (Most commonly, they made a claim that was true at first, but were still making the same claim years later when it was no longer true but rather the converse in some cases.)

Re: What If Google Wasn't the Default?

#35

Post by offices »

ralfd wrote: post #6
mrweasel wrote: post #2

The fascination with Apple developing their own search is a little weird. That is not direction we'd want to go in. It seems that we'd be better of if the companies providing search was different from the device maker or operating systems and browser developers.

Yes, it also would misaligns their incentives. I like (love) that Apple is NOT in the advertising business and fewer phd engineers obsess about how they can make me click/view more ads. Maybe Kagi proofs that "search" could also be financed by a premium subscription? Or being a system service which is subsidized like Siri? But I think the ad-model is the most easiest/profitable for search so there is always a pull to…

Kagi is still fundraising & most of your subscription fee goes to sourcing results from Google. We don't know yet if it will be a sustainable business model.

Re: What If Google Wasn't the Default?

#36

Post by sshine »

chrismorgan wrote: post #34

> Gmail works best on Chrome. Is this true, and if so, in what way? > Google Docs uses cutting-edge features first (or only) found on Chrome. Such as? (I haven’t been a Google user for over six years, but back then neither of these were true, to my knowledge—if anything, Gmail worked better on Firefox due to significantly lower resource usage—and I can’t imagine what could have changed. Google Meet I’d understand, wo…

> > Gmail works best on Chrome.

> Is this true, and if so, in what way?

I don't know about Gmail, but Google Translate won't let me use speech functionality in Firefox.

Tangential: Microsoft Teams mostly works in Firefox, but they have some arbitrary limitations: I can't call someone via Teams or pick up the phone if someone calls me via Teams. But I can make a video conference with someone who isn't at work, and the person I need to speak to. Or just use the iPhone app.

I'd expect similar things to be "broken by design" in Gmail.

Re: What If Google Wasn't the Default?

#37

Post by hnbad »

rightbyte wrote: post #21
SllX wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Apple has the resources to go into a lot of businesses they don’t necessarily want to be in and they seem happy enough with the Google arrangement. They like to own and control the technologies core to their products, but even they have to draw a line otherwise they’d be building and running their own fabs. Plus Microsoft also has a lot of money and talent and have been in the search business a very long time…

> Bing still sucks If I were to form a search habit today I don't think I would grade Bing lower than Google. Google has gotten way worse and Bing way better. Bing seems to respect the user's querries more too.

I'm angry that I have to agree here. I use DDG and Bing primarily and Google as a fallback. Increasingly since I started doing so, Google's results were just as bad as what DDG or Bing would provide. I've downright given up on trying to search certain things because I know exactly how search engines will misinterpret what I'm asking for no matter how much I clarify because the thing they try to find is more popular (in terms of number of results) than what I'm actually asking for.

Re: What If Google Wasn't the Default?

#38

Post by gorbachev »

mrweasel wrote: post #2

The fascination with Apple developing their own search is a little weird. That is not direction we'd want to go in. It seems that we'd be better of if the companies providing search was different from the device maker or operating systems and browser developers.

The Big Tech companies all seem to follow the same pattern. They create a killer product, become successful and print money for a while, and at some point they all make the same decision...they all start creating the same suite of products: mail, instant messaging, video hosting (long-form and short-form), video conferencing, search, etc.

I guess I kind of understand the motivation, but it seems so wasteful.

And if their founders become multi-billionaires, they all also start a space rocket company.

Re: What If Google Wasn't the Default?

#39

Post by gardenhedge »

gorbachev wrote: post #38
mrweasel wrote: post #2

The fascination with Apple developing their own search is a little weird. That is not direction we'd want to go in. It seems that we'd be better of if the companies providing search was different from the device maker or operating systems and browser developers.

The Big Tech companies all seem to follow the same pattern. They create a killer product, become successful and print money for a while, and at some point they all make the same decision...they all start creating the same suite of products: mail, instant messaging, video hosting (long-form and short-form), video conferencing, search, etc. I guess I kind of understand the motivation, but it seems so wasteful. And if t…

We've all benefited though - we've gotten awesome free email and maps

Re: What If Google Wasn't the Default?

#40

Post by llamaInSouth »

pierat wrote: post #32
rightbyte wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bing still sucks If I were to form a search habit today I don't think I would grade Bing lower than Google. Google has gotten way worse and Bing way better. Bing seems to respect the user's querries more too.

Try Yandex next time. It searches exactly what you look for, and has no 'removed for piracy' search deindexes.

and their reverse image search is way better
Post reply on HN