23 ms·

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 fe

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 5y ago
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 5y ago
  Working on it right now :) Extension changes your navbar setting. It's 33kB. All the heavy lifting happens on our servers so as to not slow browsers down for users.
  - mh- 5y ago
    FYI, 17kB of that is a PNG icon that will never be rendered above 128x128. edit: actually, you have properly sized favicons additionally. Not sure what the 17kB one is for.
  - rameshvel 5y ago
    If its just 33 kb, whatever it does can be done in the webpage itself. To try the search engine, I have to install an extension or make it as a default search engine. Not cool at all.
  - cududa 5y ago
    sorry you got downvoted so much! But would be great to know the purpose of the extension, and why the service can't work without it
    - richardsocher 5y ago
      Hey. Thanks. We got lots of love in other places like Twitter, LinkedIn, ProductHunt, Facebook and others. So that made the launch an overall big success :) The only purpose of the extension is to make it convenient and easy to change your default on Chrome. Convenience usually wins on the internet. The extension has permissions to write to one field. No read access. Chrome flags and lets you verify permissions when you install an extension. Sadly, most users on the internet would not go into their settings to make a change. Of course, here on HN there are a lot of experts who care about their privacy and can make that change manually. We've listened and it's not required anymore to try it out. Being fully open is ultimately more aligned with our values of trust, facts and kindness.
richardsocher 5y ago
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...
- pedalpete 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    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.
    - richardsocher 5y ago
      And now it also doesn't happen in Chrome anymore. We dropped the requirement there too.
      - 5y ago

cududa 5y ago

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 5y ago
Working on it right now :) Extension changes your navbar setting. It's 33kB. All the heavy lifting happens on our servers so as to not slow browsers down for users.
- mh- 5y ago
  FYI, 17kB of that is a PNG icon that will never be rendered above 128x128. edit: actually, you have properly sized favicons additionally. Not sure what the 17kB one is for.
- rameshvel 5y ago
  If its just 33 kb, whatever it does can be done in the webpage itself. To try the search engine, I have to install an extension or make it as a default search engine. Not cool at all.
- cududa 5y ago
  sorry you got downvoted so much! But would be great to know the purpose of the extension, and why the service can't work without it
  - richardsocher 5y ago
    Hey. Thanks. We got lots of love in other places like Twitter, LinkedIn, ProductHunt, Facebook and others. So that made the launch an overall big success :) The only purpose of the extension is to make it convenient and easy to change your default on Chrome. Convenience usually wins on the internet. The extension has permissions to write to one field. No read access. Chrome flags and lets you verify permissions when you install an extension. Sadly, most users on the internet would not go into their settings to make a change. Of course, here on HN there are a lot of experts who care about their privacy and can make that change manually. We've listened and it's not required anymore to try it out. Being fully open is ultimately more aligned with our values of trust, facts and kindness.

richardsocher 5y ago

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...

pedalpete 5y ago
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 5y ago
  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.
  - richardsocher 5y ago
    And now it also doesn't happen in Chrome anymore. We dropped the requirement there too.
    - 5y ago