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

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

#381

Post by richardsocher »

shkkmo wrote: post #89
richardsocher wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea. It's not like we're tryin to block users :) We just found that without the convenience of a navbar search - you're ngmi (not gonna make it) as a search engine. We hope we can drop all restrictions in the future.

This sort of attitude that prioritizes your own growth over the experience of your customers does not bode well for a company that is trying to sell itself as committed to user privacy.

yea. we didn't realize this extension install would make for such a terrible experience for some folks.

but we listen, so we dropped the requirement entirely.

happy open searching

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

#382

Post by richardsocher »

ulber wrote: post #124

I found your pitch really interesting, I'd love to try it. I, however, refuse to install an extension and change my default search engine just to be allowed to type in a search query. I'm sure you have some "growth hacking" reason for this that is compelling to you. Maybe you hope that the slight annoyance of switching back will outweigh the inevitable annoyances with a new product like this. It does come off as user…

Sorry it came off as hostile. Lots of bad extensions out there. Ours only has write access to one setting field. No read access. Chrome tells you. But we dropped it entirely so you can try it out any way you like :) Thanks for your feedback.

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

#383

Post by richardsocher »

corobo wrote: post #289
richardsocher wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> We also found that many people will just do a quick search for "asd" or "weather" and then leave How do you know this? Privacy and that

They told us when we interview them or wrote it publicly.

You can see our privacy vs convenience thoughts here: https://youdotcom.notion.site/Privacy-and-Data-Protection-at...

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

#384

Post by richardsocher »

dwohnitmok wrote: post #199
pedalpete wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you open it up in Chrome, then first off the main search bar in the middle of the screen turns into a button to install the extension. There remains a search bar in the upper left hand corner of the screen, but if you actually search, no search results are given. Instead the result page is replaced by a link to install the Chrome extension. So effectively, as far as I can tell, on a normal Chrome browsing session…

And now it also doesn't happen in Chrome anymore. We dropped the requirement there too.

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

#385

Post by TekMol »

richardsocher wrote: post #377
TekMol wrote: post #370

This makes a really bad impression. Built for devs? It looks like the exact opposite to me. The layout has a focus on flashy design and no focus on content. Devs like content. They talk about "superior privacy" but when you open the network tab you see their serps send queries all over the place. Just on my first serp, I see queries to serpapi.com which is owned by "SerpApi, LLC", to bing.com which is owned by Micros…

Interesting you feel like with all this content, there's not enough. Usually we hear there's too much content. Can you elaborate? What's too flashy? Yap, we have to use some APIs but the searches come from our servers... Which search engine doesn't call any APIs and has great privacy? We dropped the extension requirement. The extension has no read access. No social trickery, I just posted?

    Which search engine doesn't call any
    APIs and has great privacy?
This question seems strange to me and makes me think you don't know the difference between API calls on the backend and sending http requests from the users browser?

Go to https://duckduckgo.com/ and open your network tab. You will never see any requests to non-DDG owned websites.

Your site sends requests to all kind of companies. Which exposes data about your users (IP, UserAgent, that they use you.com ...) to those companies.

Maybe you should talk to your devs about it.

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

#386

Post by richardsocher »

ivanalejandro0 wrote: post #248
richardsocher wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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). This is an interesting point, I've seen other apps tackling this issue providing different pre-defined use cases that you can just click to use them. For example, online apps where you can upload a photo and get a somehow tweaked version of…

Thanks. Great idea.

We tried sth similar a while back and it confused some people who thought that the entire site could only be used for the 3 examples we provided. Other users just clicked out of it. Maybe we can find a way to bring that back without interrupting any flow :)

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

#387

Post by richardsocher »

codegeek wrote: post #206
ulber wrote: post #124

I found your pitch really interesting, I'd love to try it. I, however, refuse to install an extension and change my default search engine just to be allowed to type in a search query. I'm sure you have some "growth hacking" reason for this that is compelling to you. Maybe you hope that the slight annoyance of switching back will outweigh the inevitable annoyances with a new product like this. It does come off as user…

Yea it is weird. It claims privacy and then wants you to install an extension just to do a search ? No thanks.

An extension that only has write access to one field won't hurt privacy, but we dropped the extension requirement entirely :)

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

#388

Post by richardsocher »

dcx wrote: post #359

For goodness' sake, there's a middle ground for making your product sticky that doesn't need people to commit to stop using Google Search without trying your product once! Let me repeat that - you're asking me to give up Google Search, one of the seven wonders of the online world! Yes, I know, you can still go to google.com. But based on your messaging you clearly understand that a search engine that isn't in the sea…

Hey. Good ideas! Thanks a bunch. Happy to hear and we listened to you and have now dropped the requirement for the extension entirely. Excited to hear more of your feedback.

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

#389

Post by richardsocher »

TekMol wrote: post #385
richardsocher wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting you feel like with all this content, there's not enough. Usually we hear there's too much content. Can you elaborate? What's too flashy? Yap, we have to use some APIs but the searches come from our servers... Which search engine doesn't call any APIs and has great privacy? We dropped the extension requirement. The extension has no read access. No social trickery, I just posted?

Which search engine doesn't call any APIs and has great privacy? This question seems strange to me and makes me think you don't know the difference between API calls on the backend and sending http requests from the users browser? Go to https://duckduckgo.com/ and open your network tab. You will never see any requests to non-DDG owned websites. Your site sends requests to all kind of companies. Which exposes data abo…

Right. Have you tried the private mode (top right dropdown)? Like DDG we proxy everything in that mode. It's a bit slower so we haven't done it in default mode yet.

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

#390

Post by richardsocher »

paxys wrote: post #189
richardsocher wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yea. We listened, and adjusted and you now can do a search in all browsers and settings and without the extension :)
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