6 ms·

I hope they do – Google is far, far, far too dominant in this space, and small-ish incumbents don't really stand a chance. If they keep up their privacy-friendl

I hope they do – Google is far, far, far too dominant in this space, and small-ish incumbents don't really stand a chance. If they keep up their privacy-friendly stance, this could really become something neat. I'd like for at least a little bit of competition in the gatekeeper-for-human-knowledge space.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
mgh2 6y ago
I honestly don't like my search results mingled with the advertising industry: there is bias in all results, you can't trust in information if it is not impartial. People used to create content to advance knowledge, but the amount of crap nowadays motivated my money (even if it is good quality) concerns me about the education of the human civilization as a whole. "The love of money (greed) is the root of all evil": Google, Amazon, Facebook all are already deep down this hole. Apple might be the only company that still has some decency left.
- switch11 6y ago
  Agreed totally there are parts of Microsoft that are also very honest For that matter there are even divisions within Google that want to do good stuff However, Amazon, Facebook and 90% of Google are basically just the precursors of The Matrix now Their ideal is that all people are mindless zombies, living on universal basic income, like vegatbles/animals, and spending all their money on AmazooogleBook
- elihu 6y ago
  I think there's a great opportunity now for a new search engine that evaluates the general spamminess of a site, and then punishes sites that link to spammy sites.
  - tweetle_beetle 6y ago
    This has already been in place for a long time. So much so in fact that you used to be able to attack a sites rankings by creating, or stealing, many low quality sites and publishing links on them to the victim's site. The victim, if they were lucky enough to know about theses things, would then have to create a Search Console account (for Google) and declare that the sites have nothing to do with them and Google should ignore them for ranking purposes. These days there are more attributes to add subtlety to your outbound links of you want the search engines to take you seriously.[1] I'm sure other search engines make similar judgements based on them. [1] https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/96569?hl=en https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/96569?hl=en
    - elihu 6y ago
      I was aware of that, and it's exactly backwards. Google is punishing sites for having low-quality sites point to them (even if they have no control of them). What I'm suggesting is the opposite, that a site be punished for its outward links, if they point to low-quality sites. (One could do this separately for various kinds of undesirable content and let the users choose whether they want to avoid spam, hate speech, plagiarized content, nsfw content, misinformation, Rick Astley videos, and so on.)
  - flukus 6y ago
    Punishing slow complicated sites and sites with annoying newsletter or cookie notifications would be nice too. Promote simple, fast readable sites with no dark patterns. There's plenty of room for improvement in search. DDG is already edging ahead because it searches for what I want, not what it thinks I want.
    - ianai 6y ago
      I’d be interested if I could alternate which sort of weights to apply-like you and sibling comment suggest.
  - throwawayinfo 6y ago
    Google already does this. It's an NP hard problem for sure.
- zeta0134 6y ago
  I wonder if there'd be any value in a search engine that recognized popular third-party ad networks and simply did not add to its index any page which includes them. (Or, at least, provided users an option to filter those results out.)
  - kyleee 6y ago
    It's a constant high stakes cat and mouse game though. A good idea for sure but the ad networks will expend incredible effort to avoid the filters
  - dividedbyzero 6y ago
    How would a search engine that doesn't have pretty much any major publication and a lot of content-driven websites gain any traction at all? There is so much it couldn't find, and while you may be fine with that, I doubt many people would be.
- james_s_tayler 6y ago
  Buy books then.
- Ancapistani 6y ago
  > "The love of money (greed) is the root of all evil": Google, Amazon, Facebook all are already deep down this hole. Apple might be the only company that still has some decency left. While I largely agree with your impressions, I find it ironic to see Apple mentioned in that context. They are the third most valuable company on Earth, worth about $1.3 trillion: https://fxssi.com/top-10-most-valuable-companies-in-the-world https://fxssi.com/top-10-most-valuable-companies-in-the-worl...
  - mgh2 6y ago
    There is a difference in how you make that money: the end does not justify the means. You can become rich by righteous means (although harder). Apple is not perfect, but at least for now, they did not sell out yet. Microsoft is a close 2nd, after some redemption lol
    - shard 6y ago
      Don't forget that Apple is a multinational megacorp, and is user centric only when it suits them. Consider Tim Cook speaking at the conference used by the Chinese government to promote internet regulation, saying that the vision of the conference is one that Apple shares, and also the handing over of user data to Chinese servers (encrypted, but still out of their control).
  - stevendaniels 6y ago
    They are currently the most valuable company in the world: https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/apple-now-worth-2-trillion-making-it-most-valuable-company-n1237287 https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/apple-now-wor...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- victords 6y ago
  So the 2T dollars company is the decent one?
danudey 6y ago
Maybe they should build their own indexing backend and buy up DuckDuckGo for the frontend/user base/etc.
- kabes 6y ago
  Why would they? If Apple makes it the default search engine on iOS they immediately dwarf the ddg user base. And the front end is the easy part of a search engine.
  - redisman 6y ago
    UX is what has always set Apple apart. I don't see any universe where they would off-load that to a 3rd party.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  Apple doesn't buy companies for their user base. And while DDG's front end was innovative 20 years ago when Google did it, it's pretty basic (which I love) and shouldn't be too difficult to copy. The big challenge with search is the index.
  - jasonv 6y ago
    I spent a lot of time digging through all the oft-mentioned search engines here, and the interfaces between G, B, DDG and the others (Runnaroo, Startpage, etc) are all surprisingly similar. And they're all pretty unappealing (to me). Visualizations of results have improved so much in the last 10+ years, hopefully "visualization of search results" can also be advanced.
    - chris_f 6y ago
      As the creator of the upstart search engine on that list (Runnaroo), I do try to differentiate it from the the search providers, but there is a risk of being too different from what people expect. Take a look at the below search [0], it is distinctly different from the SERPs of the other search engines for the same query, but you are correct that we still focus on just listing information vs. visualizing it. Maybe something for us to explore. From a search visualization perspective, check out Carrot2 [1] for something more innovative. Swisscows [2] also has some nice visualization elements. [0] https://www.runnaroo.com/search?term=full+text+search+php https://www.runnaroo.com/search?term=full+text+search+php [1] https://www.runnaroo.com/search?term=carrot2 https://www.runnaroo.com/search?term=carrot2 [2] https://swisscows.com/ https://swisscows.com/
ogre_codes 6y ago
For me, this is the big reason to celebrate this. A duopoly in search is at least marginally better than a monopoly. If Maps is any indication, people will bitch about it for a year or so, but after 2 years, 80%+ of users will be using it. Personally, I'd love if Apple put this out there ad-free. Getting clean, honest search results was why I switched to Google to start with. Google's current platform where almost all search results above the fold are paid for is what we switched to Google to get away from. DDG is piles better in this regard now.
- mantap 6y ago
  Apple maps is probably a good example because outside the US it is still useless, 8 years later. I don't expect an Apple search engine to be any different.
  - matthewmacleod 6y ago
    In the UK it’s broadly as effective as a mapping tool, in my experience. Better in many ways, even; Google Maps is rammed full of adverts to the point it’s actually kind of distracting. That’s not to mention the desktop app - it’s a step change in performance versus Google Maps being a sluggish browser experience.
    - mantap 6y ago
      In many parts of the world Apple maps is incapable to even give directions. I kid not. Go to e.g. Colombia and try to make directions between two places. It won't let you. It just seems that Apple doesn't invest much in maps if they don't see a profit motive. They are very much capable of competing with Google Maps but they choose to build a more limited product that only works well in certain parts of the world where there are high concentrations of iPhone users. That's fine but it's not what I want in a maps app, I want consistency.
  - frio 6y ago
    Depends where you are, I guess? I'd've thought NZ's little backwater roads would be useless still, but Apple Maps has been fine for me for a long time now. I still occasionally use Google (Apple doesn't integrate cycling information where I live), but it's very very rare these days.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
redisman 6y ago
Google is also really bad these days. Sure they have impressive trivia features but searching for solid, reliable information is really crappy. The first page is always blogspam that seems like it's generated by a AI or someone who's being paid $5/h to write filler that doesn't quite count as SEO. The only way I can find (non-programming) information that is 50% reliable rather than 10% reliable is to append "reddit" to any queries.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

mgh2 6y ago

I honestly don't like my search results mingled with the advertising industry: there is bias in all results, you can't trust in information if it is not impartial. People used to create content to advance knowledge, but the amount of crap nowadays motivated my money (even if it is good quality) concerns me about the education of the human civilization as a whole. "The love of money (greed) is the root of all evil": Google, Amazon, Facebook all are already deep down this hole. Apple might be the only company that still has some decency left.

switch11 6y ago
Agreed totally there are parts of Microsoft that are also very honest For that matter there are even divisions within Google that want to do good stuff However, Amazon, Facebook and 90% of Google are basically just the precursors of The Matrix now Their ideal is that all people are mindless zombies, living on universal basic income, like vegatbles/animals, and spending all their money on AmazooogleBook
elihu 6y ago
I think there's a great opportunity now for a new search engine that evaluates the general spamminess of a site, and then punishes sites that link to spammy sites.
- tweetle_beetle 6y ago
  This has already been in place for a long time. So much so in fact that you used to be able to attack a sites rankings by creating, or stealing, many low quality sites and publishing links on them to the victim's site. The victim, if they were lucky enough to know about theses things, would then have to create a Search Console account (for Google) and declare that the sites have nothing to do with them and Google should ignore them for ranking purposes. These days there are more attributes to add subtlety to your outbound links of you want the search engines to take you seriously.[1] I'm sure other search engines make similar judgements based on them. [1] https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/96569?hl=en https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/96569?hl=en
  - elihu 6y ago
    I was aware of that, and it's exactly backwards. Google is punishing sites for having low-quality sites point to them (even if they have no control of them). What I'm suggesting is the opposite, that a site be punished for its outward links, if they point to low-quality sites. (One could do this separately for various kinds of undesirable content and let the users choose whether they want to avoid spam, hate speech, plagiarized content, nsfw content, misinformation, Rick Astley videos, and so on.)
- flukus 6y ago
  Punishing slow complicated sites and sites with annoying newsletter or cookie notifications would be nice too. Promote simple, fast readable sites with no dark patterns. There's plenty of room for improvement in search. DDG is already edging ahead because it searches for what I want, not what it thinks I want.
  - ianai 6y ago
    I’d be interested if I could alternate which sort of weights to apply-like you and sibling comment suggest.
- throwawayinfo 6y ago
  Google already does this. It's an NP hard problem for sure.
zeta0134 6y ago
I wonder if there'd be any value in a search engine that recognized popular third-party ad networks and simply did not add to its index any page which includes them. (Or, at least, provided users an option to filter those results out.)
- kyleee 6y ago
  It's a constant high stakes cat and mouse game though. A good idea for sure but the ad networks will expend incredible effort to avoid the filters
- dividedbyzero 6y ago
  How would a search engine that doesn't have pretty much any major publication and a lot of content-driven websites gain any traction at all? There is so much it couldn't find, and while you may be fine with that, I doubt many people would be.
james_s_tayler 6y ago
Buy books then.
Ancapistani 6y ago
> "The love of money (greed) is the root of all evil": Google, Amazon, Facebook all are already deep down this hole. Apple might be the only company that still has some decency left. While I largely agree with your impressions, I find it ironic to see Apple mentioned in that context. They are the third most valuable company on Earth, worth about $1.3 trillion: https://fxssi.com/top-10-most-valuable-companies-in-the-world https://fxssi.com/top-10-most-valuable-companies-in-the-worl...
- mgh2 6y ago
  There is a difference in how you make that money: the end does not justify the means. You can become rich by righteous means (although harder). Apple is not perfect, but at least for now, they did not sell out yet. Microsoft is a close 2nd, after some redemption lol
  - shard 6y ago
    Don't forget that Apple is a multinational megacorp, and is user centric only when it suits them. Consider Tim Cook speaking at the conference used by the Chinese government to promote internet regulation, saying that the vision of the conference is one that Apple shares, and also the handing over of user data to Chinese servers (encrypted, but still out of their control).
- stevendaniels 6y ago
  They are currently the most valuable company in the world: https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/apple-now-worth-2-trillion-making-it-most-valuable-company-n1237287 https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/apple-now-wor...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
victords 6y ago
So the 2T dollars company is the decent one?

danudey 6y ago

Maybe they should build their own indexing backend and buy up DuckDuckGo for the frontend/user base/etc.

kabes 6y ago
Why would they? If Apple makes it the default search engine on iOS they immediately dwarf the ddg user base. And the front end is the easy part of a search engine.
- redisman 6y ago
  UX is what has always set Apple apart. I don't see any universe where they would off-load that to a 3rd party.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
ogre_codes 6y ago
Apple doesn't buy companies for their user base. And while DDG's front end was innovative 20 years ago when Google did it, it's pretty basic (which I love) and shouldn't be too difficult to copy. The big challenge with search is the index.
- jasonv 6y ago
  I spent a lot of time digging through all the oft-mentioned search engines here, and the interfaces between G, B, DDG and the others (Runnaroo, Startpage, etc) are all surprisingly similar. And they're all pretty unappealing (to me). Visualizations of results have improved so much in the last 10+ years, hopefully "visualization of search results" can also be advanced.
  - chris_f 6y ago
    As the creator of the upstart search engine on that list (Runnaroo), I do try to differentiate it from the the search providers, but there is a risk of being too different from what people expect. Take a look at the below search [0], it is distinctly different from the SERPs of the other search engines for the same query, but you are correct that we still focus on just listing information vs. visualizing it. Maybe something for us to explore. From a search visualization perspective, check out Carrot2 [1] for something more innovative. Swisscows [2] also has some nice visualization elements. [0] https://www.runnaroo.com/search?term=full+text+search+php https://www.runnaroo.com/search?term=full+text+search+php [1] https://www.runnaroo.com/search?term=carrot2 https://www.runnaroo.com/search?term=carrot2 [2] https://swisscows.com/ https://swisscows.com/

ogre_codes 6y ago

For me, this is the big reason to celebrate this. A duopoly in search is at least marginally better than a monopoly. If Maps is any indication, people will bitch about it for a year or so, but after 2 years, 80%+ of users will be using it. Personally, I'd love if Apple put this out there ad-free. Getting clean, honest search results was why I switched to Google to start with. Google's current platform where almost all search results above the fold are paid for is what we switched to Google to get away from. DDG is piles better in this regard now.

mantap 6y ago
Apple maps is probably a good example because outside the US it is still useless, 8 years later. I don't expect an Apple search engine to be any different.
- matthewmacleod 6y ago
  In the UK it’s broadly as effective as a mapping tool, in my experience. Better in many ways, even; Google Maps is rammed full of adverts to the point it’s actually kind of distracting. That’s not to mention the desktop app - it’s a step change in performance versus Google Maps being a sluggish browser experience.
  - mantap 6y ago
    In many parts of the world Apple maps is incapable to even give directions. I kid not. Go to e.g. Colombia and try to make directions between two places. It won't let you. It just seems that Apple doesn't invest much in maps if they don't see a profit motive. They are very much capable of competing with Google Maps but they choose to build a more limited product that only works well in certain parts of the world where there are high concentrations of iPhone users. That's fine but it's not what I want in a maps app, I want consistency.
- frio 6y ago
  Depends where you are, I guess? I'd've thought NZ's little backwater roads would be useless still, but Apple Maps has been fine for me for a long time now. I still occasionally use Google (Apple doesn't integrate cycling information where I live), but it's very very rare these days.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

redisman 6y ago

Google is also really bad these days. Sure they have impressive trivia features but searching for solid, reliable information is really crappy. The first page is always blogspam that seems like it's generated by a AI or someone who's being paid $5/h to write filler that doesn't quite count as SEO. The only way I can find (non-programming) information that is 50% reliable rather than 10% reliable is to append "reddit" to any queries.