[HN Gopher] Show HN: You.com, private search engine that summari...
___________________________________________________________________
Show HN: You.com, private search engine that summarizes the web -
built for devs
Author : richardsocher
Score : 161 points
Date : 2021-11-09 18:43 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (you.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (you.com)
| j0e1 wrote:
| Congratulations on the beta launch! I am all for privacy-friendly
| search engines.
|
| My 2-cents is default to the familiar list view for search
| results. The current card-view makes it cumbersome to navigate
| (horizontal and vertical scroll) and scanning screen-width end-
| to-end. And with my penchant to serially browse results, it can
| result in me over-spending time to find what I need. Also, it
| would force you to have a tighter ranking of results. The current
| view could still be an option.
| richardsocher wrote:
| Yea. We debated this one for a while. There's a "regression to
| the mean" type of thing going on where every other search
| engine in the last 20 years just looks like a Google knockoff.
| We found that many different types of users love the new
| layout. It allows you zoom into one dimension of your search,
| e.g. lots of Reddit results or Medium articles and then also
| quickly skip to the next. It will work well on mobile too
| (though we're focused on desktop for now) where many users are
| used to scrolling left/right and up/down in e.g. Instagram.
|
| Depending on your input device, it can be more or less
| intuitive:
|
| Worst case is folks with a single scroll wheel mouse. There you
| need to use shift+scroll wheel to move horizontally (that
| actually works in every app and OS). With trackpads and touch
| screens it's a lot easier.
|
| For some the layout is busy but especially developers told us
| they like the higher information density a lot and can avoid
| opening 20 different tabs to find what they're looking for.
|
| That being said, I understand that it will take some time to
| adjust to something new and a less-Google-y future.
| Fauntleroy wrote:
| The problem is that the majority of users will likely bounce
| right off of such a foreign interface and never come back.
| Personally, I won't even consider this search engine until
| there's a less chaotic way to view the results.
| techbio wrote:
| I understand the concept, but there have been several search
| engines that return a richer UI, the name "Clusty" comes to
| mind among others, and Google did not invent the relevance-
| sorted list, just [famously] improved relevancy.
| somenewaccount1 wrote:
| I installed the plugin and it instantly mucked up my chrome
| profiles. It felt very disconcerting and I instantly removed it.
| I imagine most users might not have multiple chrome profiles and
| so wouldn't notice, but for me it was an instant stop. What are
| you doing with profiles? Why does it need to be installed as a
| plugin?
| marban wrote:
| You should strip the ?ref= from indexed Urls [for multiple
| reasons].
| kreeben wrote:
| Why? Please enlighten me. Also, what else should be stripped
| out?
| dgut wrote:
| Shameless plug: https://okeano.com is a search engine that
| respects your privacy, doesn't require an extension and aims to
| spend 80% of profits to purchase river interceptors and deploy
| them to the most polluting rivers in the world.
|
| We have !waves (similar to !bangs) and support natively domain
| blocklisting.
| onychomys wrote:
| https://www.ecosia.org is a similar project if you're a
| landlubber, they spend the money planting trees.
| jccalhoun wrote:
| if they are pushing an extension then they are probably trying to
| monetize by putting their affiliate code on the url when you go
| to places that have affiliate programs like Amazon.
| richardsocher wrote:
| You are right to be skeptical of extensions. There are a lot of
| sketchy ones out there but...
|
| Nope. We aren't doing that and not planning to.
|
| All the extension does is change one setting. If you set your
| search engine default to http://you.com manually in Chrome with
| "https://you.com/search?q=%s" you will not need the
| extension... but for most people convenience wins and well...
| It's tough to go up against a monopoly that controls the
| browser too?
| dmitriid wrote:
| > We aren't doing that and not planning to.
|
| Yes. Yes you are. You've spent unspecified amounts of money
| (likely millions if not tens of millions) on acquiring the
| you.com domain. Investors will be very interested to get that
| money back.
| throw8383833jj wrote:
| I for one am just glad there are more competitors entering this
| space. Google search has been getting worse over the last several
| years to the point where I can't find what I'm looking for with
| non-technical searches. Google always tries to figure out my
| intent, and in doing so, fails miserably 1/2 the time.
| richardsocher wrote:
| Hello All,
|
| My name is Richard Socher, and I'm the founder of you.com, the
| world's first open search engine platform that summarizes the web
| for you. We launched our public beta today, and are excited to
| share it with you.
|
| If you're a developer, we have several "search-apps" such as
| StackOverflow (with code snippets), W3Schools, MDN, Copilot-like
| Code Completion, json checkers, and more. All of them geared to
| help you code faster. Let us know if you have other app ideas for
| how to make your coding life better.
|
| We believe in superior privacy choices without losing
| convenience. Our private mode is the most private experience - we
| don't store your queries or track your clicks or share IP, etc.
| And even in our personalized experience, we'll never sell your
| data or follow you around the web and we'll never offer privacy-
| invading targeted ads.
|
| We wanted to create a search engine that delivers relevant
| content, not ads or SEO'd pages, and do it in a whole new
| interface that puts you in control through personalized
| preferences. We hope you'll be able to search less and do more.
|
| Looking forward to your feedback and will be here to answer any
| questions.
|
| Thanks! -RS
| jccalhoun wrote:
| I will give it credit for working on firefox with javascript
| turned off.
| richardsocher wrote:
| Thanks. Trying to be as accessible and simple as possible and
| still provide a cool new experience :)
| lunch wrote:
| I get a blank page in Firefox with JavaScript turned off :(
| Content Security Policy: The page's settings blocked the
| loading of a resource at inline ("script-src"). Loading
| failed for the <script> with source "https://you.com/cdn-
| cgi/scripts/7d0fa10a/cloudflare-static/rocket-loader.min.js".
| nozepas wrote:
| It does strike me as odd that is private but I need to install a
| chrome extension to use it and there is a prominent 'Sign up'
| button on the top right corner.
|
| I am also struggling to understand why the need to install a
| chrome extension to see search results. Feels like a lot of users
| will get lost on this first funnel step.
| helloguillecl wrote:
| I generally don't like when technology gets itself in the way to
| solve a problem. Why would you need the user to make your search
| engine the default one before even trying it?
|
| This is red flag at least for me, far from convenient and I doubt
| that installing an extension can be justified by privacy.
|
| If your search has better value to me than say, Google, why don't
| let me make the decision of putting it as my default?
|
| You're asking me _upfront_ to grant you privileges (access to
| Chrome API 's that are otherwise not available to you) by
| installing an extension? That is a no-go for many security minded
| people.
|
| Also: Opening an extension link after clicking on the "search"
| input field looks pretty much like a dark pattern to me. This is
| something to avoid when it comes to a friendly UX.
| arcticfox wrote:
| Incognito mode seems to work for testing FWIW
| spiderice wrote:
| I'm really not sure what you are talking about. Go to you.com
| and type a search query. No need to make anything the default.
| No need to install an extension.
|
| Edit: Ah, now I see. It's because I'm a Safari user. If you go
| to you.com in Safari it works fine. However, if you go to it in
| Chrome it does indeed work as you described, asking you to
| install the extension and whatnot. My mistake.
| cabalamat wrote:
| It says on the front page "Add you.com to Chrome to get
| started" which to my mind implies that in order to get
| started you have to be using Chrome and add the extension to
| it.
|
| You don't have to, you can just use it as a web page, the
| text is misleading and should be changed.
| jayknight wrote:
| I think that's only if you're using Chrome. I'm in firefox
| and just did some searches like you'd do on any other
| search engine. That's a really weird design choice
| regardless.
| asaq wrote:
| I get "To see results and get the convenience of you.com,
| you'll need to add the you.com Chrome extension"
| flowerbreeze wrote:
| Congratulations on the launch! I think am getting better results
| than on any other engine I've tried using experimentally. Nice
| and sneaky job ad too in the console.
|
| As for some downsides I felt that:
|
| 1. The page is too heavy for my everyday use. On my phone initial
| load is 10 seconds, searches are 15 seconds. During that time the
| screen is just blank, so at first try I thought it doesn't work
| on mobile. It almost seems like it loads all the results at once,
| summary, image, video etc?
|
| 2. On desktop it's snappier, but still 3-4 seconds despite having
| good connection/system.
|
| 3. Skeletal loaders are everywhere. I know they are popular these
| days, but for me searching multiple times in a row to narrow down
| results started to feel a bit dizzying with them popping up each
| time and swirling. Same thing bothers me on Qwant search engine
| for example and is the main (although shallow) reason I don't use
| it.
| dang wrote:
| Related ongoing thread:
|
| _Is there any point in launching a search engine in 2021? Marc
| Benioff thinks so_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29161545 - Nov 2021 (18
| comments)
| jasonpeacock wrote:
| If it's free for users, then that usually means you're selling
| user data to create income.
|
| How is You making money without Ads and without selling user
| data?
| syncerr wrote:
| This is the problem. When ads are your primary revenue stream,
| you're up against facebook and google, who are both highly
| efficient at turning marketing dollars into conversions.
|
| How would you complete with this? Why would anyone spend 10x on
| you to get the same conversions?
| Invictus0 wrote:
| Are you new to the whole startup thing? They aren't making
| money, they're just burning VC cash.
| RattleyCooper wrote:
| Brave browser seems to have figured out a way to make money on
| ads without sacrificing user data/privacy. If you opt in to
| their ads they basically sync ad campaigns to your browser and
| then use local browsing profiles that don't get sent to any
| servers to decide which ads to show you. It all happens on your
| computer and it doesn't send your profile to anybody, so the
| only user data involved is "user looked at an ad, but we have
| no idea who actually looked at it".
| m-i-l wrote:
| According to https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/you-
| com-523e they have received $20M in funding, so as long as they
| have a sensible burn rate, they could last for years before
| having to think about how to make a profit. Although the
| projects that don't have a plan at the outset always seem to
| either turn bad or fail.
| jjulius wrote:
| To your point, this is why I would avoid them. Give me faith
| that I won't see you end up monetizing/selling user data or
| doing something dumb to your user base when that cash runs
| out. Otherwise I'm inherently not going to trust you.
| ulber wrote:
| 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 hostile though - you're trying to badger
| me to switch rather than selling me on the merits of you.com.
| somenewaccount1 wrote:
| yeah, i installed the extension and it immediately mucked with
| my chrome profiles. thanks, but no thanks. glad i'm not the
| only one that felt this way.
| eikenberry wrote:
| I'm confused. If you go to you.com there is a search field
| right there just like every other search site. No extension is
| needed to try it. Why do you say you aren't allowed to search
| without the extension?
| icelancer wrote:
| Try it in Chrome. It blocks you after you try to search.
| dhosek wrote:
| I avoid Chrome whenever possible. It's a battery and
| privacy killer. Search field worked fine in Safari.
| icelancer wrote:
| Well, that's fine, but all the issues being reported here
| are due to Chrome users seeing the same thing - inability
| to use You.com unless you install an even larger
| potential privacy killer in the form of an extension.
| Otherwise it refuses to let you search using the on page
| bar.
| version_five wrote:
| Yeah, I've been playing with it all day, and this thread was
| is only place i heard about an extension- it sounds like its
| if you want to make it the default on chrome when you type
| search terms into the navigation bar
|
| It's also pretty telling that all of these complaints are
| coming based on what appears to be a workaround for Google's
| attempt to lock you into their search when you use their
| browser.
| richardsocher wrote:
| That's right. It's tough competing with a 2tr$ monopoly :)
| Glad you like it. Join our slack group if you want to give
| more feedback :)
|
| https://you-privatebeta.slack.com/join/shared_invite/zt-
| vtrf...
| Bilal_io wrote:
| I tried it on Chrome and it blocked me. But worked fine on
| Firefox.
| vonnik wrote:
| I've had access to You.com and I can attest that the initial
| experience is good. The search results are on point, the layout
| of those results is flexible and fresh.
|
| In contrast, when I use an engine like Google, the ads often
| cover the first five slots, or the totality of my phone's
| screen...
| jamestanderson wrote:
| I might install an extension. I have the DuckDuckGo Privacy
| extension for instance, and use DDG as my primary search
| engine. But I use Firefox, and it doesn't seem like this
| company provides a Firefox addon.
|
| It's an interesting choice to launch a search engine, give
| reasons for using it instead of Google, but also play into the
| Google quasi-monopoly by not providing a Firefox addon.
| Hopefully it's coming soon.
| richardsocher wrote:
| Yea, we'll definitely support more platforms, including
| mobile soon. It's on the roadmap :)
| richardsocher wrote:
| PS: You can easily change your settings in Firefox manually
| also: https://youdotcom.notion.site/Make-You-com-your-
| default-sear...
| richardsocher wrote:
| Yea... Requiring the extension for navbar searches was a tough
| choice.
|
| You actually can try it out in incognito mode and any other
| browser. But we found that without the convenience of a navbar
| search, most people won't give it a proper try either way.
|
| I hope we can drop this requirement even in Chrome when we
| become one of the default options. We will implement an a/b
| test and see if we can get rid of the requirement even earlier.
|
| If you set your search engine default to https://you.com
| manually in Chrome with "https://you.com/search?q=%s" you will
| not need the extension... but for most people convenience wins
| and well...
|
| It's tough to go up against a monopoly that controls the
| browser too?
|
| You can find more details for every browser setup here:
| https://youdotcom.notion.site/Make-You-com-your-default-sear...
| smoldesu wrote:
| Is there a way for me to use it _without_ omnibar
| integration? I 'd really prefer to leave my search engine as-
| is...
| richardsocher wrote:
| yes, you can just go into incognito mode. we care a lot
| about privacy so we didn't want to mess with that. it
| should just work when you're in incognito mode. if you then
| also go into private mode - you'll have the MOST privacy
| preserving search experience that we know of, certainly
| even better than DDG:
|
| Here's our blog post about how we think about the privacy-
| convenience tradeoff:
|
| https://youdotcom.notion.site/Privacy-and-Data-Protection-
| at...
| smoldesu wrote:
| That's indeed unfortunate, I hope you reconsider.
| Arnavion wrote:
| Type the URL manually? Your browser might even auto-URL-
| encode the search terms for you so you don't have to bother
| doing it yourself.
| DrammBA wrote:
| I tried, all roads lead me to the message prompting me to
| install the extension.
| djfdat wrote:
| add &fromSearchBar=false to the end of the search, so the
| search string looks like this:
|
| https://you.com/search?q=%s&fromSearchBar=false
| richardsocher wrote:
| that's it. very easy if you're technical. of course, we
| don't want to block our users. we are just trying to make
| it convenient and easy to have navbar searches - we found
| that if you're not in the navbar yngmi..
| [deleted]
| primitivesuave wrote:
| I strongly second this. I immediately gave up on trying it out
| once I realized I had to download something. Your KPIs should
| be around how sticky your search features are, it seems like it
| is currently based on download counts.
| cududa wrote:
| If they published the extension source that might be more
| reasonable. I assume the extension is so a lot of heavy
| lifting on hitting individual apps/ API's happens locally to
| alleviate costs or rate limiting
| richardsocher wrote:
| 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 and has no other features. It's easy to
| see the source so you can see that it does nothing
| interesting or sketchy. It changes the setting. You can
| change that setting manually and get the same effect and
| usage after. But most users don't know how to change a
| setting and you got some large 2tr$ monopoly that doesn't
| want you to change...
| Matthias1 wrote:
| In my opinion, the fact that all your extension does is
| change the setting is worse, not better. It's purely a
| user-hostile choice.
| pedalpete wrote:
| 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.
| dwohnitmok wrote:
| 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
| there is no way to actually use the search functionality
| without installing the extension.
|
| This does not seem to happen on other browsers or in
| incognito mode.
| [deleted]
| skinkestek wrote:
| While this is a thing I'd very much like to try I make a point
| out of not using Chrome && badgering everyone who tries to force
| me to use it.
|
| Had to use it the other day to verify if a particular bug at a
| customer system was Firefox-specific (as usual it wasn't) but it
| meant a four months streak or so was wasted :-/
|
| So no, while this is really interesting it still has to be even
| more interesting for me to allow that piece of modern spyware to
| run on my machine.
|
| (Some might think I'm to harsh here but my understanding is
| Chrome is almost as much spyware as much as the famous Bonzibuddy
| that we struggled with earlier this millenium, only somewhat less
| buggy ;-)
| swethmandava wrote:
| You should be able to use you.com on other browsers - let us
| know if you have issues! :)
| skinkestek wrote:
| Yes, it just confused me.
|
| The big blue "install Chrome extension" got all my attention
| and it also didn't help that the placeholder text in the
| search field came off as decoration, but in the end I admit I
| didn't read carefully.
| ManBlanket wrote:
| At least Bonzai Buddy was cute. Also I thought I was the only
| weirdo who sorta kept track of my not-using-chrome streak. If
| we met for lunch I'm sure everyone else at the table would find
| themselves staring off into space as our conversation became
| increasingly difficult to relate to.
| eitland wrote:
| If anyone else here has a not-using-chrome streak and work in
| Oslo, Norway feel free to message me to get a free lunch so
| we can try :-)
|
| (Offer valid for the first three to answer ;-)
| richardsocher wrote:
| Hey there, Yea...
|
| You'd actually get rid of the biggest spyware - Google ;)
|
| Our extension is 33kB and has not other function than changing
| your default (and checking if the extension itself is
| installed).
|
| You actually can try it out in incognito mode and any other
| browser. But we found that without the convenience of a navbar
| search, most people won't give it a proper try either way.
|
| I hope we can drop this requirement even in Chrome when we
| become one of the default options. We will implement an a/b
| test and see if we can get rid of the requirement even earlier.
|
| If you set your search engine default to https://you.com
| manually in Chrome with "https://you.com/search?q=%s" you will
| not need the extension... but for most people convenience wins
| and well...
|
| It's tough to go up against a monopoly that controls the
| browser too?
|
| You can find more details for every browser setup here:
| https://youdotcom.notion.site/Make-You-com-your-default-sear...
| skinkestek wrote:
| > You'd actually get rid of the biggest spyware - Google ;)
|
| Good point now that I realize that it works in other
| browsers.
|
| My initial impression was that 1) it only worked in Chrome
| and 2) it required an extension to work even there.
|
| I wish you luck and also think this is a good time to launch:
|
| I feel I was an early adopter of Google and I have now more
| or less left Google behind (it is now DuckDuckGo.com by
| default, and even some search.marginalia.nu).
|
| A few years ago Google was so amazing it was impossible to
| compete with them but these days they are making it easy for
| DDG which is kind of OK and search.marginalia.nu is coming up
| as the small but delightful alternative :-)
| LittlePeter wrote:
| It is a terrible name... It takes several scans of a sentence to
| determine if you refers to me or the search engine...
| pid-1 wrote:
| > But may have private ads I the future
|
| So, in the long run, how is your app not becoming Google?
|
| Anyone who makes money with ads has rational incentives to not
| respect your user's time and privacy. That's even worse for
| search engines.
|
| I would gladly pay for search engines that have community curated
| content, I want business that have incentives aligned with me as
| a customer, free stuff with ads is horse shit.
| splch wrote:
| I don't like requiring a chrome extension to search, and giving a
| 404 error on uninstall (https://you.com/chrome_uninstall_survey)
| is suspicious. If the developers aren't checking links and
| testing their product, then I don't want to use it.
| richardsocher wrote:
| Yea... Requiring the default was a tough choice.
|
| You actually can try it out in incognito mode and any other
| browser. But we found that without the convenience of a navbar
| search, most people won't give it a proper try either way.
|
| I hope we can drop this requirement even in Chrome when we
| become one of the default options.
|
| If you set your search engine default to http://you.com
| manually in Chrome with "https://you.com/search?q=%s" you will
| not need the extension... but for most people convenience wins
| and well...
|
| It's tough to go up against a monopoly that controls the
| browser too?
|
| Regarding the uninstall error. We are waiting to get approval
| from the Chrome store to update the extension.
| gremlinsinc wrote:
| Personally, I think 'know your market' might come into play,
| at least having the options easily there to do it manually.
| Many of us tech types would much rather configure chrome to
| add the search engine, than rely on another extension.. I
| already have too many, and sometimes I think they mess things
| up, so less is better imho.
| swethmandava wrote:
| Thank you, we are updating the page based on your feedback
| :) In the mean time, we have more details on alternatives
| for you over here
|
| https://www.notion.so/youdotcom/Setting-You-com-as-your-
| defa...
| Tyriar wrote:
| Present the extension as an option then, not a requirement,
| with instructions on how to add the search manually.
|
| It looks promising but if you block access without the
| extension, a portion of users like me are just not going to
| give it a chance. Not just because it's inconvenient but I
| rarely install extensions because it opens up the browser
| more to potential bad actors when I want it as secure as
| possible. I also don't want to change my browser settings
| before trying and the fact you require an extension is just a
| bad signal of what's to come.
| richardsocher wrote:
| Yea. That makes sense. I avoid extensions myself since many
| of them are super sketch. This one literally changes just
| one setting and you get the same results if you do it
| manually. But most web users won't know how to make setting
| changes.
|
| We describe the steps for all the different browsers in the
| first link of our FAQ:
|
| https://youdotcom.notion.site/Make-You-com-your-default-
| sear...
|
| Full FAQ here: https://youdotcom.notion.site/FAQ-8c871d6c99
| d84e02955fda772a...
| Tyriar wrote:
| > This one literally changes just one setting and you get
| the same results if you do it manually
|
| I just checked and this isn't actually true though, it
| looks like it also installs a service worker that runs
| some code in background.js. It sucks I needed to look at
| the extension's contents to verify that and backs up why
| I wouldn't want to install it in the first place.
|
| My proposal seems win-win, you can even push the
| extension hard in the search page if it's not installed
| due to your concern, provided you allow it to be easily
| and permanently dismissed.
| bryanmccann wrote:
| Hi Tyriar,
|
| Just wanted to provide some more info on the background
| service worker, though if you've pulled the code you've
| probably already seen the same.
|
| Right now that worker does two things. It redirects to a
| survey if you uninstall the extension (going away in the
| next update once it makes it through the webstore
| review), and it allows detection of the installed
| extension since its required in Chrome unless you search
| from the url/navbar.
|
| And just so there's full details on the restriction here
| too:
|
| We determine if the search is from the url/navbar only
| through that fromSearchBar query parameter, so either
| manually entering the url without that query param,
| following links without that query param, or by setting
| your default in your settings manually and searching from
| the url/navbar will all work. It is just that search bar
| on the page that gets disabled without the extension.
| There's also no restriction right now on non-Chrome
| browsers or in a Chrome Incognito Window.
|
| Thanks for digging in, bringing that up for
| clarification, and for your proposal!
| jsnell wrote:
| > This one literally changes just one setting and you get
| the same results if you do it manually.
|
| I don't think you understand: automatically changing even
| one of my browser settings is you changing one setting
| too many. It is signaling that your target market are
| unsophisticated users whom you're trying to scam into
| changing their browser defaults and not know how to
| change back.
|
| That's the exact opposite of your "built for devs"
| marketing message. When your message and your actions
| conflict, it's pretty obvious that you don't really
| believe the message.
| VRay wrote:
| You went to the trouble of showing "To see results and get
| the convenience of you.com, you'll need to add the you.com
| Chrome extension" when you could have just showed me the ****
| search results.
|
| This isn't making it more convenient, bro. You(dot com) just
| wasted my 10 seconds.
|
| You're stabbing yourself in the leg in order to spite Google
| boringg wrote:
| You can try the search engine without installing it in Chrome.
| Use incognito mode and put it in the search bar at the top.
| Doesn't work when its not in incognito mode though(?)
| marc1 wrote:
| Why is a first and last name required to sign up? It is an odd
| choice for a company that prides itself "superior privacy
| choices"
| zestyping wrote:
| Just wondering, why did you choose a name that cannot be used as
| a verb and is hard to pronounce unambiguously?
| skadamat wrote:
| If I could pay $5 or $10 (or heck $25) a month for a programmable
| search engine, then I'm ready.
|
| But competing with Google 90% on "their terms" seems super tough.
| Yes the design is a little different and that's awesome that
| You.com is experimenting, but I just wish I could pay for this.
| chrisMyzel wrote:
| How would a programmable search engine look like to you? Would
| providing what you look for with a) a search query b) tagging
| what you are looking for on screen on 3 results and c) getting
| results at scale sent to
|
| you be a programmable search engine? (then --> [1])
|
| [1] https://get-sentinel.io
| gremlinsinc wrote:
| How would that look like exactly? Looking for side projects
| that could change the world, and this looks like a good way to
| disrupt search.
|
| If I could marry true copilot with google with maybe some sort
| of memory garden priority setting for things I come back to
| often (code, packages, docs, etc)....that'd be kinda nice...
|
| gpt3(like ) + search could be interesting but extremely costly
| for compute, though might actually be a decent reason to build
| something on blockchain (all users add compute, get paid for
| the storage, and gpu usage, one big botnet just to handle
| search).
|
| Just thinking aloud about how one would presumably pull this
| off.
|
| Ideally a mind/brain search interface would be nice someday,
| but the privacy concerns is cringy, but maybe something like
| alexa that listens while I talk to myself and looks at what I'm
| typing and gleans from that what I might need in terms of
| looking up stuff when I'm stuck on a coding problem, or if I
| were writing a novel, or some other creative endeavor.
|
| Or imagine an ai that continually just monitors the screen, and
| when I'm having trouble w/ a tool like learning Unity3d or some
| graphics tool, it can glean from the screen I'm on what help I
| need and suggest things...
|
| I really wish we did have new cool search tools like these in
| 2021... maybe by 2030 we will.
| skadamat wrote:
| > How would that look like exactly?
|
| You pay for the search product but you're able to do a ton of
| cool things that Google will likely never be incentivized to
| do. Basically turn the open web into a platform that works
| for you:
|
| - Setup highly custom alerts when a webpage changes content
| (e.g. ___ is now on sale)
|
| - Broaden search to include things like my contacts, docs,
| Wikipedia, etc. Ideally this is all done in a small little
| local index
|
| - Automatic visualization of the content graph (e.g. who
| reported on __ first and who is just regurgitating primary
| sources?)
| new_guy wrote:
| You can do that right now for free with Google (
| https://programmablesearchengine.google.com/cse/create/new )
| sam0x17 wrote:
| > the world's first open search engine platform
|
| Where can I find and download the source code?
| pkamb wrote:
| I've always wanted a search engine that searched mainly (only?)
| Stack Overflow, Reddit, and a handful of other authentic sites.
|
| One note: You.com seems to include Stack Overflow scrapers in the
| results. Would be better with those removed. These two results go
| the same content, one on SO and one scraped from it:
| https://i.imgur.com/TwvDIiC.png
| Aulig wrote:
| I agree, I had that experience too. SO duplicates are bad but
| official documentation pages of libraries would be very good,
| so I guess it'll be a bit difficult to determine which pages
| should be allowed as there will be quite a few domains.
| otrahuevada wrote:
| Looks pretty! And seems to understand my use of operators pretty
| well too, which is great.
|
| What does the extension even do tho? Site functionality seems
| just fine as an unlogged, incognito user.
|
| If it really just sets my default search engine, I'd personally
| much prefer some cute explanation about how to set it on my
| browser myself than install a thing that will run code on my own
| laptop to do it? idk if that's actually common or not but this is
| a personal preference of mine.
| swethmandava wrote:
| Hi - yes, it's setting your default engine. Feel free to follow
| the steps here to do the same:
| https://youdotcom.notion.site/Make-You-com-your-default-sear...
| abetusk wrote:
| You say that you don't store any information to ensure privacy
| but this is essentially asking users to trust you. Why not build
| trust into the technology from the outset? Or have I missed
| something and that is what you've done? Barring that, what
| actions do you intend to take to ensure data is kept private
| (external audit, etc)?
|
| You also say this is open source. I didn't look all that hard but
| could you provide a link to the associated repositories and
| mention what license it's under? Also, when you say "open
| source", do you mean the code only or are you providing data to
| the community as well?
|
| Also, I'm not sure the claim "world's first open source engine
| platform" is really accurate. I don't claim to have any big
| insight into what the various "tiers" of search engine there are
| (code, data, aggregation?) but I see at least one list that looks
| to have many FOSS alternatives to Google search [0].
|
| Could you go into what's novel about You.com compared to other
| FOSS alternatives?
|
| [0] https://github.com/tycrek/degoogle#web-based-products
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| "You say that you don't store any information to ensure privacy
| but this is essentially asking users to trust you. Why not
| build trust into the technology from the outset?"
|
| I am also working on a project where users can optionally self-
| store their data (at the cost of making what I hope are useful
| algorithms dumber). I'm sort of banking on the hope that 90% of
| users won't care, and the ten percent that do care will
| appreciate that option and become enthusiasts.
|
| I'm curious what Richard's answer to the trust question is, but
| also what you (@abetusk) mean by "build trust into the
| technology by the outset"? Even when open sourcing everything,
| there is the question of, "are you actually using that branch
| on the servers?" I don't know how to answer that.
| abetusk wrote:
| > I'm curious what ... you ... mean by "build trust into the
| technology by the outset"?
|
| I'm not sure I could come up with a checklist that would take
| all the considerations in mind, so it's an ill defined
| question in some sense. For folks who market their product as
| "secure" and "privacy conscious", I would hope they would
| have thought about these questions and come up with a
| solution. At the very least, I would hope they would be able
| to list out their assumptions and limitations of whatever
| solution they came up with.
|
| To try and actually answer the question, though, I would
| think something along the lines of queries that are Tor
| enabled or have an option to allow for Tor connections
| (without the need for Javascript). Maybe something that uses
| distributed data/queries for decentralization and resiliency
| against snooping or attacks on a central location?
|
| It looks like You.com uses a chrome extension, so they should
| have more control over what form the queries take. Connection
| to the Tor network is presumably not out of the question.
|
| I agree that knowing what code is running where is a hard
| problem in general but besides being able to audit code
| that's open source, the other leg of that is to be able to
| stand up your own instance. There could be a way to provide
| incentives for people to return "good" results by random
| verification and/or user (transparent/frictionless/micro)
| payments.
|
| There are fancier systems like homomorphic encryption but I'm
| not sure those are really ready for everyday use yet.
|
| The amount of data is massive and any search service is going
| to be competing with a corporation that has 20+ years of
| domain knowledge and a compute infrastructure that is many
| orders of magnitude larger than anything that's really
| available, so I'm not sure there are any easy answers, which
| is why I'm asking.
|
| Maybe You.com is focusing on a more AI centric search
| service, which is how they're trying to compete or
| differentiate themselves? If so, then making that data
| available (under a libre/free license) along with the code
| would go a long way towards building good will and cold lead
| to a path for a "trustless" community built search engine.
| RattleyCooper wrote:
| I like the concept but the desktop version makes me scroll
| horizontally to look through results. I'd rather scroll
| vertically on desktop, and come to think of it I'd probably
| prefer vertical on mobile. Scrolling sideways like that is really
| annoying.
| ozcancikmaz wrote:
| I can move up some certain websites so I see their results on
| top. Also the ability to swipe the results is a great convenience
| vs scrolling down. thank you
| alangibson wrote:
| I searched for 'Pouchdb full text search', saw the horizontal
| scrolling cards then immediately switched back to Startpage.com.
| I can't see how sorting through info with horizontal scroll could
| ever be an improvement. It's bad enough on desktop, but most
| searches happen in mobile where it's even more annoying.
| nickstinemates wrote:
| NSFW results seem blocked. Don't have an account, maybe that is a
| requirement? Either way, bad.
| LouisSayers wrote:
| Wow, it's like a blast from the past on mobile - like some old
| school search engine with loads of stuff on the screen, it's hard
| to know where to look.
|
| On the homepage I see some ex-salesforce big shot founded this...
|
| I worked at a company for a month with an ex-bigshot Sales force
| person who was basically a sociopath. Maybe it's not fair to
| compare, but this gives me those same vibes.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| Congratulations. I like the layout.
|
| Although the page loads extremely slowly, I'm on a modern Ryzen
| 3, on a 100 mbit connection and my computer is really struggling
| to load the page. Like it takes nearly 5 seconds and I can't
| imagine what is taking so long to present the search bar with no
| search results.
| butz wrote:
| They _really_ tried to make search results look different from
| competition. While I 'm all for experimentation, horizontal
| scroll and huge overload of cards doesn't work for me.
| [deleted]
| 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
| > we'll never sell your data or follow you around the web and
| we'll never offer privacy-invading targeted ads.
|
| What about non-privacy-invading targeted ads? I'm sure google and
| facebook would both say that they don't "sell your data or...
| offer privacy-invading targeted ads" so It seems like a pretty
| weak promise.
| random478101 wrote:
| Some feedback:
|
| - the rounded corners remind me of the 2000s, and they kind of
| hurt my eyes; they take attention away from the text
|
| - I search for some niche CS topics; all the links I see I've
| seen on other search engines as well ...
|
| - ... which kind of makes this "google with a different layout"
| and some "categories", not terrible, but also not that different
|
| Now here's a challenge: Do some smart on-the-fly abstractive
| multi-document summarization and display a fluent mix of text,
| images and videos on a topic. Like a report. That would be a game
| changer, I'd think.
|
| If someone can pull this off, that might be you, Richard :)
| chrisMyzel wrote:
| Hi Richard, lucky coincidence - we're launching something similar
| in that regard today [1][2], in general we say "meeh" to search
| engines (you did not hear me saying that) but I love to keep
| watching your project from today on.
|
| We're launching Sentinel, an A.I.based data aggregation tool that
| does the searching for you and brings you back just results
| (instead of websites). You could call it a "semantic web enabler
| with a large language model instead of xml" at it's core - but
| it's too hard to digest for all people off HN.
|
| Chris
|
| [1] https://get-sentinel.io/ [2]
| https://medium.com/@get_sentinel/a-i-might-make-humans-happi...
| VRay wrote:
| Well, I tried to find a pancake recipe on "stovetop.app",
| "you(dot)com", and "get-sentinel" and so far I'm 0/3 on recipes
| and 3/3 on irritation for Nov. 9th HackerNews search engines
|
| ..holey moley, I just found something that works! I bookmarked
| a super weird search engine someone linked here a while back,
| and it actually returned useful search results immediately:
| https://search.marginalia.nu/search?query=pancake+recipe&pro...
|
| that led straight to: http://online-
| cookbook.com/goto/cook/rpage/000DDF , which is possibly the
| best recipe site I've ever seen in my life. It's just an
| ingredient list and a paragraph of text below it!
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| We shouldn't be too hard on these new search engines. My
| search engine spent a fairly long time returning _comically_
| irrelevant search results.
|
| Building a search engine is easy enough. Getting it to return
| good results is the 10% of the work that takes 90% of the
| time.
| chrisMyzel wrote:
| You'll be able to get 100s of recipes sorted by whatever you
| like to sort them after signing up for the waitlist at our
| website (and wait a little :))...without clicking through
| websites that is.
| stuhlmueller wrote:
| For web search, are you using the Bing API? If so, do you have
| thoughts from the private beta on how it compares to Google -
| where it does similarly/better, where it does worse?
| richardsocher wrote:
| Great question: We are first ranking apps and then within apps
| we have some of our own ranking but e.g. web results come from
| Bing. We have found that when non-web-result-apps trigger in
| the top 2, we are often as good or better than Google.
|
| Web results by themselves are a mixed bag, which is why we
| built out lots of custom apps for developers, e.g.
|
| StackOverflow (with code snippets), W3Schools, MDN, Copilot-
| like Code Completion, json checkers.
|
| You can find the list of apps in our FAQ:
| https://youdotcom.notion.site/FAQ-8c871d6c99d84e02955fda772a...
| gergi wrote:
| Beyond what others have mentioned about requiring the Chrome
| extension, I would strongly recommend altering the language in
| FAQ - "How do I make You.com my default search engine?"
|
| It vaguely references "the monopoly" in ominous tones. This comes
| across as petulant and distracting. Just focus on the
| instructions to set it as the default and how to respond to
| questions that try to change it back.
| tata71 wrote:
| PETULANT!, now I _have_! to check this shit out.
| vdddv wrote:
| "summarizes the web"?
| axpy906 wrote:
| Had no idea that Socher left SF.
| noduerme wrote:
| Question about a key UX decision: Why do all the search results
| open in a new tab with target="_blank"? This is the only search
| engine I can think of that has this behavior. I find it pesky
| from a user's point of view. If I want new tabs I can command-
| click the link.
|
| As it is, the UI doesn't provide the user any way to navigate
| away from You.com when opening a search result. I've always
| viewed new-tab links to be a kind of "sneaky" way to inflate
| engagement metrics, but I think it's particularly negative for
| usability on a search engine.
|
| [edit] Even odder, clicking the You logo in the upper-left corner
| of the search results page opens the You.com homepage _in a new
| tab_. What is the purpose of that?
| rfxap wrote:
| I can see it both ways. From what I've learned, Google does
| open results in a new tab by default in some countries, and
| they recently added the option to choose the new tab behavior.
| Adding that as an option could be a way to solve it.
| slipperlobster wrote:
| I pulled up your main page on Firefox and just did a search for
| "asd" - testing it out. Scrolling down a bit to images shows me
| some definitely NSFW images. If the goal is to be used in the
| workplace since you mention developer-focused "search-apps" then
| this is a nonstarter for me. Just a heads up.
| option_greek wrote:
| Oops. I think its worse than NSFW. It seem to fetch some pics
| of questionable age :(
| richardsocher wrote:
| I'll report it to the Bing image search team.
| richardsocher wrote:
| Oh shit! That's bad. That picture seems to have gotten through
| all the SafeSearch:strict filters.
|
| Sadly, the image search app comes from Bing, so every other
| non-Google search engine has the same problem with that same
| single image, e.g.
|
| https://duckduckgo.com/?q=asd&t=h_&iax=images&ia=images
|
| https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=asd&form=HDRSC2&first=1...
|
| Even in the SafeSearch:strict mode.
|
| I will report it them and I hope they'll fix it soon.
| paxys wrote:
| The front page has multiple calls to action to install their
| Chrome extension but fails to describe what the extension does or
| why I need it to do a web search.
| richardsocher wrote:
| 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.
| paxys wrote:
| So why can't I do a simple search without setting it as my
| default engine?
| usui wrote:
| Hi Richard, how does your organization achieve carbon neutrality?
| What metrics are available, or how do you know it's accurate?
|
| As a software engineer, this has never been a requirement of me,
| but I want to start conscientiously working for a company that
| prioritizes it. I have toyed with the idea of Raspberry Pis,
| Starlink, and solar panels to host a carbon-neutral Kubernetes
| cluster.
|
| (P.S. I submitted an application, but regardless will be
| interested to follow You.com for the upcoming years)
| vdddv wrote:
| "Some web, image, video, or news results are powered by
| Microsoft" So the same as Ecosia, Duckduckgo and any alternative
| search engines?
| languagehacker wrote:
| Wow, looks real cuil
| dan-robertson wrote:
| I had a go for a 'dev' related search. I just tried one trivial
| thing.
|
| I searched for 'jq modify value' as it's something I previously
| found hard to find skimming the enormous man page. I got:
|
| 1. A stack overflow question which implicitly answered the
| question but was actually about someone wanting to modify a file
| in-place.
|
| 2. A blog post from Monsanto. I clicked on it and I was greeted
| with a big model box that I didn't read.
|
| 3. Something from w3 schools (which unlike stack overflow seems
| to get first class treatment in the results) about css and
| jquery.
|
| 4. Some "generated code" that was totally crazy looking python
| full of comments in Chinese.
|
| 5. A video that looked like it might contain the answer
|
| 6. A box asking me to sign into GitHub.
|
| I clicked the G icon for Google and the first result was a stack
| overflow question about how to modify a field with jq. The top
| answer was sane but there were some weird comments on it (the
| answer to the question in the You.com results had good
| constructive comments). I didn't look at the later results which
| is unfair as the first result from You.com also contained the
| answer.
|
| It seems to me that it must be extremely hard to break into this
| space. Microsoft tried (including building entirely their own
| indexes and suchlike) and, roughly speaking, failed despite often
| producing high quality results that bettered Google. Any bad
| results from an upstart send people back to Google. Bad results
| from Google send them back to the search box to try again. I
| can't blame them for wanting people to set the app as a chrome
| default with extra extension-powered abilities.
|
| Personally I also find it weird to be connecting 'private' search
| with other accounts. I guess it is private+personalised but I'm
| not sure I really want personalised.
|
| Maybe things would be different for other queries.
| radicalriddler wrote:
| Just from a webdev perspective, please add titles to your links
| and icons. I should be able to hover over those up and down
| arrows and know they're for voting. I should be able to hover
| links and see the full link text even it's clipped in the card.
|
| These are basic accessibility things that any good web developer
| should be adding in by default.
| alvatar wrote:
| Very cool! I'm gonna give it a chance for sometime as a default
| instead of DuckDuckGo
| [deleted]
| srhngpr wrote:
| If your search engine requires an extension to work and display
| the results, it's a total non-starter. Cannot suggest this to any
| non-HN crowd. Good luck.
| richardsocher wrote:
| Yea... Requiring the default was a tough choice.
|
| You actually can try it out in incognito mode and any other
| browser. But we found that without the convenience of a navbar
| search, most people won't give it a proper try either way.
|
| I hope we can drop this requirement even in Chrome when we
| become one of the default options.
|
| If you set your search engine default to http://you.com
| manually in Chrome with "https://you.com/search?q=%s" you will
| not need the extension... but for most people convenience wins
| and well...
|
| It's tough to go up against a monopoly that controls the
| browser too?
| DevX101 wrote:
| What's the unofficial requirements to become a default search
| engine in the major browsers?
| dmitriid wrote:
| You contact the company and offer to pay them hundreds of
| millions of dollars a year (see Google and Safari and
| Firefox).
|
| Smaller browsers (if they at all exist) will default to
| Google because that's what users expect. Except Edge. Edge
| will stick to Bing.
| richardsocher wrote:
| We don't even know. It's not made public anywhere :( Hence
| our extension requirement for the time being.
|
| At least Chromium-based browsers have 5 second extension
| install/uninstall options whereas in Safari it's several
| minutes and so many clicks, we didn't even bother trying to
| build the extension.
| srhngpr wrote:
| I get that and appreciate that this was a tough choice, but
| the alternative you're proposing (1) requires several more
| clicks, (2) expects the end user to trust an extension that
| is unknown to them at the onset, and (3) does not provide an
| intuitive way for the average user to know they can use
| incognito to try it out.
|
| You have an extremely memorable URL and in my view, the
| quality and accuracy of the results should naturally help
| spread the word for you if you do indeed provide a compelling
| alternative.
|
| I'm sorry, I just don't buy your argument about "monopoly and
| controlling the browser" when you don't require an extension
| for those using Firefox, Edge, etc. - yet you _hope_ that
| Google will still add you to the default list of search
| engines.
| icelancer wrote:
| >> It's tough to go up against a monopoly that controls the
| browser too?
|
| So the idea was to force people using Chromium/Chrome to
| install an extension, driving off a huge percentage of power
| users with the hopes that the every day person (who couldn't
| even tell you what search engine they use) will adopt the
| extension without questioning it?
|
| I don't think this is a tough choice. I think it was one you
| didn't think through at all.
| alex_smart wrote:
| You can remove "&fromSearchBar=true" from the address and it
| will show the results.
| [deleted]
| ManBlanket wrote:
| ... Or you can just use Firefox. I'm not kidding. ><
| paxys wrote:
| Or you can just use Google and not bother with any of this
| not2b wrote:
| Nope. Not if there's no way to even try it out without installing
| an extension.
| soheil wrote:
| I get one experience in Incognito mode, a completely different
| one in normal mode. They tell you to install a Chrome ext to use
| it when you can just do so without it in incognito mode. Removing
| the ext also takes you to a 404 page that seems suspect.
|
| Already playing tricks on users at launch, at least it took
| Google a decade to remove their "don't be evil."
| richardsocher wrote:
| Hi Soheil.
|
| Yea... Requiring the default was a tough choice. You actually
| can try it out in incognito mode and any other browser. We
| didn't want to mess with privacy in incognito mode but just
| found that without the convenience of a navbar search it's hard
| to break many years of a monopoly dominating search. I hope we
| can drop this requirement even in Chrome when we become one of
| the default options.
|
| But as you found out, installing and uninstalling takes only a
| few seconds.
|
| Regarding the uninstall bug... not sure why you think that bug
| is an "evil" "trick" :) We are just in beta and still have to
| iron things out. We are waiting to get approval from the Chrome
| store and will fix that bug soon.
| abalaji wrote:
| Here's a comparison between the main search engines:
|
| - https://you.com/search?q=python%20install%20requirements
|
| - https://www.google.com/search?q=python+install+requirements
|
| - https://www.bing.com/search?q=python+install+requirements
|
| Code complete seems like it could be a killer feature, but
| doesn't seem to work in the above case, whereas it does work in
| the OpenAI Codex model:
|
| - https://i.imgur.com/0xXdip3.png
| aetherspawn wrote:
| The You.com one won't load for me. I guess they're getting
| pounded.
| gremlinsinc wrote:
| How much was that domain name? That's like prime real estate...
| that alone is like a billion dollar domain.
| zikduruqe wrote:
| > Benioff's involvement with the startup includes the transfer
| of the You.com domain name, which he has owned since the 1990s.
| Neither he nor the startup would comment on the terms of the
| URL exchange, and it was not clear whether the transfer formed
| part of the overall investment. Beyond Benioff's TIME Ventures,
| other investors include Breyer Capital, Sound Ventures and Day
| One Ventures.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/technology/salesforce-ceo-benioff-in...
| hmate9 wrote:
| It's a little bit annoying because "y" or "yo" or "you" will
| always autocomplete to youtube for me.
| marban wrote:
| If ...tube is the first suggestion, you're still in a good
| position
| Invictus0 wrote:
| Underrated comment. If You.com ever takes off, there are
| going to be many, many embarrassing accidental
| autocompletions to youporn.com.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| Does anyone know how browsers decide which to auto-suggest
| first? Is it merely a function of which domain you've visited
| the most often?
| akaij wrote:
| Firefox uses Frecency: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Places.fre
| cency.%28visit_type%29Vi...
| [deleted]
| elliekelly wrote:
| For some reason whenever I try to go to the New York Times
| site from my phone the browser autocompletes to the HN URL.
| So it's really Safari's fault that I'm here so often...
| FinanceAnon wrote:
| Why do I have to install a Chrome extension to search, while I
| don't need one on Mozilla?
| rfd4sgmk8u wrote:
| Requiring a plugin to use a search engine is the dumbest thing I
| have seen in a while. It is insane. How did anyone think this was
| a good idea? How was this funded? This creepy and weird!
|
| I was frustrated when this popup appeared and will never use
| this. Its left negative feelings, I will strongly resist you dot
| com forever.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| After just seeing a post for a new service called Gallery and
| thinking of how annoyed I was at Facebook taking over the word
| meta and Trump taking over the verb to trump, part of me doesn't
| want this platform to succeed only because of its name. Someone
| below typed "I heard about 'you'" and it just made me realize how
| frustrated I am that so many tech companies seem to be
| repurposing more and more core words into their brand names. I
| guess Apple and Amazon have been doing it for a while.
|
| Anyone know why this is happening, also feel annoyed by this, and
| know if there's any end in sight?
| option_greek wrote:
| I did a few quick searches on differing topics and I must say the
| relevancy is almost on par with Google. DDG doesn't even come
| close: especially for typeahead suggestions. Only weird thing is
| that it doesn't feel fast - may be due to whole HN doing a stress
| test right now.
|
| It will be nice to default to Web based on previous searches. the
| default all tab takes forever to load results probably due to
| images and videos hogging the same page.
|
| It is mentioned as open search engine: what does that mean ? is
| it open index/api is open or fake open like openai ?
|
| >> we'll never sell your data or follow you around the web and
| we'll never offer privacy-invading targeted ads.
|
| I don't think the above will age well in search
| keb_ wrote:
| A search engine that requires JavaScript to use is an automatic
| no-go for me. Still, I commend the effort here.
| nothrowaways wrote:
| Looks interesting! The interface is intuitive with diverse and
| useful results!
|
| Well done guys.
| nepalvibes wrote:
| I heard about "you" from one of my friends and wanted to give it
| a try and it forced me to install chrome plugin. This is a lot of
| friction for me to try a new search engine. Not sure why you'd
| force your user to install something just to give it a try.
| hundchenkatze wrote:
| I was able to use it without installing anything.
| nepalvibes wrote:
| I still get this unless I try it in incognito.
| icelancer wrote:
| I am not. I get the blocking message after performing the
| search.
|
| Not a great first impression for the Hacker News crowd.
| mthoms wrote:
| You don't have to use the plugin, just search at the top of the
| page.
|
| The text around the plugin is misleading. Strike 1 IMHO.
| globalise83 wrote:
| On Chrome desktop I just see a blocker message: "To see
| results and get the convenience of you.com, you'll need to
| add the you.com Chrome extension"
| cabalamat wrote:
| I'm using Firefox and don't get that message. Obviously if
| you do get it on Chrome, that's a bad user experience and
| needs to be changed.
| mthoms wrote:
| Wow, you're right. Searching works fine in Safari (desktop)
| but requires a plugin when you visit the same page in
| Chrome.
|
| I want to like this, but this move seems like just another
| scummy "growth hack".
| alfonsodev wrote:
| I think they know there is more chances you come back to
| you.com if you are reminded by the extension icon.
| crummy wrote:
| When I click the search bar at the top of the page it takes
| me to the plugin install page.
| nabakin wrote:
| On mobile I'm able to search no problem. I guess that makes
| sense though because Chrome extensions on mobile aren't a
| thing.
| richardsocher wrote:
| 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.
| shkkmo wrote:
| 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.
| richardsocher wrote:
| Yea... Requiring the default was a tough choice.
|
| You actually can try it out in incognito mode and any other
| non-Chromium browser. But we found that without the convenience
| of a navbar search, most people won't give it a proper try
| either way.
|
| I hope we can drop this requirement even in Chrome when we
| become one of the default options.
|
| If you set your search engine default to http://you.com
| manually in Chrome with "https://you.com/search?q=%s" you will
| not need the extension... but for most people convenience wins
| and well...
|
| It's tough to go up against a monopoly that controls the
| browser too?
| globalise83 wrote:
| It seems to me like becoming a default search option is
| something you.com should work on (and should be much easier)
| once you are already really successful, but blocking instant
| try-out of search on the most popular browser is going to
| prevent you.com from achieving the user numbers needed to
| achieve that. I have literally never installed a Chrome
| extension and never will, so I guess I will never find out
| what improvements to the search results you can offer
| compared to other search engines.
| afandian wrote:
| I don't use Chrome, I use Firefox. It was confusing for it to
| ask me to add an extension to Chrome.
| richardsocher wrote:
| Oh. That's odd. It shouldn't ask you for the Chrome install
| if you're on Firefox. We can't reproduce that bug. What
| version of FF are you on?
| skinkestek wrote:
| Happens for me too, Firefox on iOS.
|
| Edit: it badgers me to install it in Chrome even in
| mobile Safari.
|
| Edit 2: seems there is a search box on top of the page.
| It works but I didn't notice it initially because
|
| - the page was so intensely focused on getting me to
| install a Chrome extension (both in Firefox on iOS and
| Safari on iOS)
|
| - and the placeholder text ("you.com")looked like a
| decoration initially (try something like "type here" or
| something)
| nickstinemates wrote:
| Same happens here. Normal search works fine though (using
| top nav bar)
| jamestanderson wrote:
| Same here on Firefox 94.0.1 on MacOS.
|
| I also have privacy.resistFingerprinting enabled, maybe
| the other commenter does too, and that might muck with
| things.
|
| Just tested and my reported user-agent is: "Mozilla/5.0
| (Windows NT 10.0; rv:91.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/91.0"
| mgcross wrote:
| Ok, after trying incognito, I do like it, but I'm not ready
| to switch my default from DDG yet. Maybe on the non-incognito
| chrome results page you could include a note that your search
| can be tested from incognito along with the prompt to install
| the extension?
| smoldesu wrote:
| This seemed interesting to me, but requiring an installation
| is a no-go, especially for privacy-minded software. I can
| tell you right now that most privacy-conscious individuals
| won't give you a proper chance if this is how you treat the
| onboarding process, regardless of how David V. Goliath the
| situation seems.
|
| > I hope we can drop this requirement even in Chrome when we
| become one of the default options.
|
| I don't mean to be pessimistic, but the chances of 'you.com'
| appearing in my search engine choices is slim to none. You're
| welcome to drag me through the mud when you prove me wrong,
| but hedging your entire bet on getting added as a default
| option is a suicide pact for any software, _particularly_
| ones that are competing with bigger players.
|
| > It's tough to go up against a monopoly that controls the
| browser too?
|
| It's tough doing _anything_ on someone else 's platform,
| monopoly or not. This just reads as a vague dismissal of a
| frankly serious problem. I recommend taking notes out of
| DuckDuckGo's book, where they took _proactive measures_ to
| accommodate for security-minded individuals. The fact that
| they let you connect without Javascript enabled is a subtle
| nod to their power users, who might be more concerned with
| that stuff. On the other side of the spectrum is you.com,
| which requires me to install an extension while promising
| that it 's 'more secure' in the end. The optics are not good,
| particularly for the people who know what they're looking
| for.
| vngzs wrote:
| I installed the extension, tested a search, then switched my
| default back to another search engine. Future searches on
| you.com failed because I did not have the extension installed
| - even though I did.
|
| I uninstalled the extension. I don't want to use tools that
| give me less power over my browsing experience, arbitrarily
| breaking although I'd done what was explicitly documented. I
| want tools that give me _more_ power.
| [deleted]
| thomasfromcdnjs wrote:
| I gave it a go and actually kinda liked it. Will play around
| more...
| DeathArrow wrote:
| Do you use GPT-3 to summarize?
| richardsocher wrote:
| We use it to generate code in the code completion app. But
| sadly, with our values of trust facts and kindness, we cannot
| rely on large language models to completely generate the
| results as they often make up facts.
| open-paren wrote:
| I've used the you.com beta for about a month, and I've switched
| back to DuckDuckGo because the results were too slow to show up
| and the elements on the results page jumped around too much.
| Superficial, I know, but I just didn't want to wait for all the
| extra answers to pop up.
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| Great.
|
| I tried to build an open-source search engine back in 2007. I
| utterly failed, but it was a great experience.
|
| I also tried to launch a Chrome extension to summarize
| interesting web pages [0].
|
| I wish you luck! Ping me if you'd like to chat ($HN_Username at
| gmail)
|
| [0]: https://github.com/simonebrunozzi/MNMN/tree/master/Weekly-
| Su...
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| I'd like to know more about the "built for devs" concept you are
| presenting to us. What does that mean to you?
|
| For me personally, I rarely perform site:github.com or
| site:stackoverflow.com searches in my browser's default search
| engine. I typically just enter a few keywords and try to make
| sense of what I find.
|
| When I personally think of a search engine built for devs, I
| think of one that parses queries differently from the natural
| language processing that seems to be all the rage these days. For
| instance, when I search "?. C#" I want to know what this operator
| actually is. Instead, the algorithm omits the ?. and just returns
| the most generic results relating to C#.
| https://you.com/search?q=%3F.%20C%23&fromSearchBar=true This is
| true even when I put the "?." in quotes. One of the results is
| titled "Null coalescing operator" from Wikipedia, but this is
| actually misleading since ?. is actually the null-conditional
| operator. The information _is_ there but it is not easy to find.
|
| The other item on my wishlist for a dev-centric search engine is
| to be able to persist the main language(s) I am trying to search
| about. Its mildly tedious to type C3 and then my keywords (.....
| dammit, C#, this happens ALL the time), in each query to narrow
| things down and not get javascript results.
| the_jeremy wrote:
| SymbolHound (http://symbolhound.com/) is the only one I've
| found that doesn't ignore special characters.
| howmayiannoyyou wrote:
| Hard pass. Not installing a CE to test this out. Not changing my
| default search engine straight away. Not convinced based on what
| I see there is value added here. Fix those things and I will give
| it whirl.
| swethmandava wrote:
| thanks for your feedback! Requiring the default was a tough
| choice for us. Totally hear you on your distrust of extensions.
| If you still want to try out our product, we have more details
| on alternatives for you over here
|
| https://www.notion.so/youdotcom/Setting-You-com-as-your-defa...
| [deleted]
| kmarc wrote:
| If I recall correctly, Google was very successful at the
| beginning because of their instant results coming back in a dead
| simple list of links and some details.
|
| When I searched on you.com, I got these ugly pulsating
| placeholders, and then could smell the oily engines in my device
| whirring up to send that damn heavy AJAX query to let me wait
| another 2 seconds to get something displayed.
|
| I like the idea, and wish a lot of luck to this project, but the
| UX is just bad, sorry.
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(page generated 2021-11-09 23:00 UTC)