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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

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/
  - fao_ 6y ago
    Hey, I have some specific things that I'd love in runaroo to be able to move to it full time (things like !gsc => google scholar search, etc.). I would love to contribute these in some way, is the source available?
throwawayinfo 6y ago
I don't think the index is the challenge. Anyone with enough machines and gigabits can index a big enough portion of "the web". The real difficult part is ranking and understanding web pages themselves.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  > The real difficult part is ranking and understanding web pages themselves. This is what I was referring to.

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/
- fao_ 6y ago
  Hey, I have some specific things that I'd love in runaroo to be able to move to it full time (things like !gsc => google scholar search, etc.). I would love to contribute these in some way, is the source available?

throwawayinfo 6y ago

I don't think the index is the challenge. Anyone with enough machines and gigabits can index a big enough portion of "the web". The real difficult part is ranking and understanding web pages themselves.

ogre_codes 6y ago
> The real difficult part is ranking and understanding web pages themselves. This is what I was referring to.