7 ms·

DNS over Wikipedia

290 points by pyinstallwoes 3y ago

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
lxgr 3y ago
Neat, but from the title I'd have expected somebody running an actual DNS resolver somewhere deep in the Wikipedia: or Talk: namespace (over which one could then of course run IP over DNS in networks that only zero-rate Wikipedia) :)
- hadlock 3y ago
  This is better because it's "serverless" DNS over https
prosody 3y ago
Interestingly, Wikipedia editors are aware that Wikipedia articles are used to find the current URL of sites that are forced to change URLs frequently due to legal or moral issues, and they face the same dilemma registrars and service providers face.[0] So although it seems somewhat more resilient than search engine companies to demands from copyright holders, it's not uncensored, something to keep in mind if you're infrastructurizing it for that purpose. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:8chan/Archive_2#Inclusion_of_the_link_to_8chan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:8chan/Archive_2#Inclusion...
- shp0ngle 3y ago
  Yeah for example 8chan and kiwifarms are usually censored. I'm not that mad about it, some censorship is always necessary (you don't want links to child porn), but it's weird that Wikipedia pretends there is no censorship. And it's kind of arbitrary. Why is stormfront - an openly nazi forum (a really old one at that) - allowed, but kiwifarms - an anti-trans doxxing forum - isn't? It's both bad
  - chownie 3y ago
    Do they pretend there's no censorship? I don't see that. They block spam and I'm certain no one objects to that, so the bare fact that they exclude some information clearly does not constitute the status "censored" I'd imagine the reason kiwifarms gets different treatment is because the site is a lot worse than the descriptor "anti-trans doxxing forum" might make you believe — it's a website designed specifically to facilitate long term stalking and harassment campaigns. Trans people are their flavour of the month right now but a few years ago it was anyone disabled.
    - shp0ngle 3y ago
      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_censored https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_... https://foundation.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Resolution:Controversial_content https://foundation.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Resolution:Controver... If there is some official policy which links are allowed and which are not, I'll shut up. Why are some links allowed and some not, what is the policy, if there is some. I see > Wikimedia projects are not censored. Some kinds of content, particularly that of a sexual, violent or religious nature, may be offensive to some viewers; and some viewers may feel such content is disrespectful or inappropriate for themselves, their families or their students, while others may find it acceptable. which seems to me against link censorship.
    - diogocp 3y ago
      > Do they pretend there's no censorship? Yes, they do. Censorship of official links is against explicit Wikipedia policy[1], but it doesn't matter because every policy can be overridden by consensus. In practice this means that a handful of professional activists can (and do) censor it as they see fit, since they can determine for themselves whether such a "consensus" exists. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:External_links#Official_links https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:External_links#Offic...
      - schleck8 3y ago
        [flagged]
- special-K 3y ago
  The issue with most search engines is that on top of not showing the proper link, they push the malicious ones on top of the search page. Wikipedia can simply not link.
simonkagedal 3y ago
The README says: > Instead of googling for the site, I google for the site's Wikipedia article This seems like a bit of unfortunate wording – there does not seem to be a Google search involved, just a search directly on Wikipedia (the English version).
- mardef 3y ago
  Much like Kleenex or xerox, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark
  - rplnt 3y ago
    Well yes, but not here. While "googling" is generic, it's still a specific narrow term and it does not mean "search".
    - simonkagedal 3y ago
      Yeah, I might use “googling” to mean generic web search in everyday language, but I wouldn’t use it to refer to a site’s internal search function, and I wouldn’t use it at all in a technical description of some software.
      - fragmede 3y ago
        you might not, but clearly the author does.
        ziddoap 3y ago
        Right. If that wasn't the case, this comment chain calling that word choice by the author as unfortunate wouldn't exist.
        simonkagedal 3y ago
        I'm happy for them.
    - deleted 3y ago
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
dang 3y ago
Related: DNS over Wikipedia - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33830759 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33830759 - Dec 2022 (159 comments) Show HN: DNS over Wikipedia - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22790425 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22790425 - April 2020 (104 comments) There's also: Wikipedia over DNS (2008) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39628304 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39628304 - March 2024 (13 comments) Show HN: Wikipedia over DNS - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22808121 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22808121 - April 2020 (47 comments) Wikipedia over DNS - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2428198 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2428198 - April 2011 (16 comments) Wikipedia over DNS - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1233499 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1233499 - April 2010 (10 comments) Wikipedia over DNS - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=382642 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=382642 - Dec 2008 (1 comment) ... but I don't know how related those are
tjpnz 3y ago
>If you Google "Piratebay", the first search result is a fake "thepirate-bay.org" (with a dash) but the Wikipedia article lists the right one. Note that Wikipedia editors also remove links to sites they don't like.
- throwiforgtnlzy 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - Phiwise_ 3y ago
    This wording is unnecessary, but I agree that Wikipedia is quite harmed by some-to-many of its favored policies and editors. I've recently been turned on to Justapedia, a fork project that seems to want to avoid such petty-baron problems by vastly extending the scope of included information. Hopefully they or some other project crack the code for a reliable, free, easy to update online encyclopedia again.
    - emj 3y ago
      I think it is great that we have yet another encylopedia, but the bar have to be set higher than Wikipedia to be a serious competition. Bluntly and from experience starting a new encylopedia is hard so lets be honest that is mostly used by the far right which makes it a strange place for other people. My personal feeling is that having more stuff than Wikipedia is almost impossible in a fair way, even the more rigorous Wikidata is an almost impossible project. Discussing this is troublesome because complaining about the contents of an article is not the same as actually taking the time to write the article. Which is why it is also nice to have similarly licensed alternatives
mmahemoff 3y ago
Cool idea but it's unfortunate the Chrome extension can read and change data on all sites you visit (as well as the intrinsic phishing risk for a DNS/search substitute). There's a history of such extensions ending up in the hands of bad actors. Ironic that open-source extensions become obscenely dangerous once you install them from the Chrome store, a platform that's meant to improve security. The store should let you install directly from a repo and that should really be the default distribution mechanism, just as Obsidian does with plugins for example. The store could still monitor said repo for suspicious changes, cautiously roll out new updates, etc. Not to claim open source is perfect (as recent events illustrate), but transparent code is far safer than opening the kimono to a black box.
- caymanjim 3y ago
  It sucks that Chrome's permission model requires "read and change all data on all sites" for so many plugins. I don't mean to trivialize the difficulty in compartmentalizing permissions, but I wish we'd see some progress on it.
  - godzillabrennus 3y ago
    It’d be nice if chrome users could manually override the plugin permissions (downward only) in the browser gui and see if an extension still works as needed. Even better if those permissions would sync between browsers.
    - fragmede 3y ago
      you can restrict plugins to only run on sites you actually enable it on.
- cyberlurker 3y ago
  I had to look up “opening the kimono” and it’s kind of an interesting tangent. https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/11/02/360479744/why-corporate-executives-talk-about-opening-their-kimonos https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/11/02/360479744...
labster 3y ago
Why not get the URL from Wikidata json instead of parsing Wikipedia pages? Some of these pages can be quite long, and you’re throwing away most of the data.
- arboles 3y ago
  Wikidata can also list a choice of URLs if there are mirrors, or URLs that, on the Wikipedia page, are censored.
darepublic 3y ago
wikipedia for blockchain gambling resolution
throwiforgtnlzy 3y ago
Begs the Q: Why is someone using Google when DDG and Startpage exist? Can't someone !w piratebay and click the link?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- gaazoh 3y ago
  Google has a near monopoly on web search, and they are very aggressively doing everything they can to keep it that way, both by tightly integrating it in their products (browser, browser engine, and OSs, mainly) and funding competitors (Safari and Firefox main revenue source are contracts with Google, under the condition of making Google the default search engine). Sure, you're free to use DDG and find a workflow, but people are less likely to remember it, especially as they overwhelmingly use Google.
- chx 3y ago
  These days, the question rather is, why anyone on this site is not using Kagi? I understand perhaps the general populace simply doesn't know but here? https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/04/teach-me-how-to-shruggie/ https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/04/teach-me-how-to-shruggie/ > I hadn't even heard of Kagi, but the Nielsen Haydens are among the most effective researchers I know – both in their professional editorial lives and in their many obsessive hobbies. If it was good enough for them… > I tried it. It was magic. ... > That was before I started playing with Kagi's lenses and other bells and whistles, which elevated the search experience from "magic" to sorcerous. > The catch is that Kagi costs money – after 100 queries, they want you to cough up $10/month ($14 for a couple or $20 for a family with up to six accounts, and some kid-specific features) > I immediately bought a family plan. I've been using it for a month. I've basically stopped using Google search altogether.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- rbut 3y ago
  I will happily switch from Google when a search engine provides really good local results ^. It seems DDG and Startpage are mainly tailored for US. ^ Random suburb in random state in AU
notorandit 3y ago
It is not a DNS in the sense of "resolver" but rather a DNS in the sense of "name validator" or "name search". Cool idea, in any case!
aragonite 3y ago
Somewhat related, but Wikipedia actually has a "special page" for searching external links, which I've had a lot of fun with: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:LinkSearch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:LinkSearch You can e.g. search for all external links to HN, to pg's website, or to any Twitter user's tweets: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:LinkSearch?target=news.ycombinator.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:LinkSearch?target=news... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:LinkSearch?target=paulgraham.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:LinkSearch?target=paul... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:LinkSearch?target=twitter.com%2Felonmusk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:LinkSearch?target=twit... You can also use it to get a sense of the adoption rates of new gTLDs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:LinkSearch?target=*.ngo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:LinkSearch?target=*.ng... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:LinkSearch?target=*.design https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:LinkSearch?target=*.de... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:LinkSearch?target=*.press https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:LinkSearch?target=*.pr... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:LinkSearch?target=*.club https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:LinkSearch?target=*.cl... (I only wish there's a way to optionally filter out links originating from Talk pages, since those sometimes introduce a lot of noise, depending on your purpose) All the other "special pages" are listed at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Special_page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Special_page
- rchard2scout 3y ago
  It's possible to use the external link search from the API, and that does have a namespace parameter. See for example https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&format=json&list=exturlusage&formatversion=2&euquery=news.ycombinator.com&eunamespace=0 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&format=json&...
atoav 3y ago
Another interesting application for wikipedia is translation of technical terms, although one has to be careful with that (I wouldn't trust a automated translation). Translation services often suck at translating technical terms, but if you find your languages wikipedia page on it and switch the language there is a good chance the title gives you a nice pointer. This doesn't work always, but if you are proficient enough in both languages you won't have a hard time figuring out if it is correct.
- Aachen 3y ago
  An issue with this is when articles exist in another language, but you can't link it. Nowadays it isn't as easy as just filling in that O is the Dutch article about what is called Eaux in French, you need to visit another Wikimedia project called wikidata and enter a translation there. But if the target name, O, is already in use, you need to first find a new data object name for O and migrate the wikidata object to the new name and then create a new one for the translation of Eaux. Or maybe the problem was that the wikidata ID for the Dutch article was already linked to something else (so O points to wikidata ID 123 and Eaux points to wikidata ID 321). Either way, you need some migration which first orphans one of the two sides iirc. It has been a few years so I forgot the details, but this is where I ran into some wall. I think you need special permissions for it and there's a gigantic backlog of such requests, essentially it never happens and so articles remain untranslated and unlinked. For some languages like German, there's another translation site with human-vetted translations: https://dict.cc https://dict.cc. It has support for language pairs beyond DE<>EN but those are pretty limited and iirc the suggestions queue always full. Not that DE<>EN is flawless but it's good and virtually always more helpful than DeepL or Gtrans
manx 3y ago
I like the main idea behind it. Instead of arbitrary people registering and selling domain names in a first-wins manner, there is a collaborative/consensus process behind it, to decide which word should point to which website. I think that in the long term, such a collaborative process to establish a <search-term> => <urls>[] mapping, would be more useful than search engines or domain names.
- RamblingCTO 3y ago
  Nah, this would just mean that a mob can censor/cancel people they don't like, won't it? The majority doesn't care, but a small, loud minority does enough to break stuff like this.
  - crotchfire 3y ago
    Would be interesting to combine this with a web-of-trust. None of my one-hop trusted people are part of the cancelmob. If I found that somebody two hops away from me did something absurd it's quite easy to do something about it -- apply negative trust to whatever path endorsed that nonsense. Unfortunately people these days seem allergic to running anything that isn't a web browser or served by an app store, and the entities that control those two channels are extremely unexcited about decentralization.
    - madacol 3y ago
      I've been thinking about that for years. I believe there are sooo many problems that would be solved by that kind of system And although it might not be technically practical in many cases, I think in this case it would
whycome 3y ago
How sure are the devs that .idk won't become an actual gTLD?
- forgotpwd16 3y ago
  They aren't and if happens will just use to another TLD. At least this is what OpenNIC did when .free was proposed to ICANN.
amitlevy49 3y ago
Can this be installed for Iceraven? I really want it on mobile
fauria 3y ago
Previously on HN: Wikipedia over DNS - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22808121 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22808121
hartator 3y ago
I wonder what it would take to get .idk root tld, and make it work without extensions.
- masfuerte 3y ago
  $185,000 and a lot of paperwork. https://newgtlds.icann.org/en/about/program https://newgtlds.icann.org/en/about/program
pona-a 3y ago
I wonder if one can take the English Wikipedia ZIM archive and process it to an efficiently-stored offline map of names to URLs, hopefully even with fuzzy matching.

290 points by pyinstallwoes 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

lxgr 3y ago

Neat, but from the title I'd have expected somebody running an actual DNS resolver somewhere deep in the Wikipedia: or Talk: namespace (over which one could then of course run IP over DNS in networks that only zero-rate Wikipedia) :)

hadlock 3y ago
This is better because it's "serverless" DNS over https

prosody 3y ago

Interestingly, Wikipedia editors are aware that Wikipedia articles are used to find the current URL of sites that are forced to change URLs frequently due to legal or moral issues, and they face the same dilemma registrars and service providers face.[0] So although it seems somewhat more resilient than search engine companies to demands from copyright holders, it's not uncensored, something to keep in mind if you're infrastructurizing it for that purpose. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:8chan/Archive_2#Inclusion_of_the_link_to_8chan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:8chan/Archive_2#Inclusion...

shp0ngle 3y ago
Yeah for example 8chan and kiwifarms are usually censored. I'm not that mad about it, some censorship is always necessary (you don't want links to child porn), but it's weird that Wikipedia pretends there is no censorship. And it's kind of arbitrary. Why is stormfront - an openly nazi forum (a really old one at that) - allowed, but kiwifarms - an anti-trans doxxing forum - isn't? It's both bad
- chownie 3y ago
  Do they pretend there's no censorship? I don't see that. They block spam and I'm certain no one objects to that, so the bare fact that they exclude some information clearly does not constitute the status "censored" I'd imagine the reason kiwifarms gets different treatment is because the site is a lot worse than the descriptor "anti-trans doxxing forum" might make you believe — it's a website designed specifically to facilitate long term stalking and harassment campaigns. Trans people are their flavour of the month right now but a few years ago it was anyone disabled.
  - shp0ngle 3y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_censored https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_... https://foundation.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Resolution:Controversial_content https://foundation.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Resolution:Controver... If there is some official policy which links are allowed and which are not, I'll shut up. Why are some links allowed and some not, what is the policy, if there is some. I see > Wikimedia projects are not censored. Some kinds of content, particularly that of a sexual, violent or religious nature, may be offensive to some viewers; and some viewers may feel such content is disrespectful or inappropriate for themselves, their families or their students, while others may find it acceptable. which seems to me against link censorship.
  - diogocp 3y ago
    > Do they pretend there's no censorship? Yes, they do. Censorship of official links is against explicit Wikipedia policy[1], but it doesn't matter because every policy can be overridden by consensus. In practice this means that a handful of professional activists can (and do) censor it as they see fit, since they can determine for themselves whether such a "consensus" exists. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:External_links#Official_links https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:External_links#Offic...
    - schleck8 3y ago
      [flagged]
special-K 3y ago
The issue with most search engines is that on top of not showing the proper link, they push the malicious ones on top of the search page. Wikipedia can simply not link.

simonkagedal 3y ago

The README says: > Instead of googling for the site, I google for the site's Wikipedia article This seems like a bit of unfortunate wording – there does not seem to be a Google search involved, just a search directly on Wikipedia (the English version).

mardef 3y ago
Much like Kleenex or xerox, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark
- rplnt 3y ago
  Well yes, but not here. While "googling" is generic, it's still a specific narrow term and it does not mean "search".
  - simonkagedal 3y ago
    Yeah, I might use “googling” to mean generic web search in everyday language, but I wouldn’t use it to refer to a site’s internal search function, and I wouldn’t use it at all in a technical description of some software.
    - fragmede 3y ago
      you might not, but clearly the author does.
      - ziddoap 3y ago
        Right. If that wasn't the case, this comment chain calling that word choice by the author as unfortunate wouldn't exist.
      - simonkagedal 3y ago
        I'm happy for them.
  - deleted 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

dang 3y ago

Related: DNS over Wikipedia - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33830759 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33830759 - Dec 2022 (159 comments) Show HN: DNS over Wikipedia - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22790425 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22790425 - April 2020 (104 comments) There's also: Wikipedia over DNS (2008) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39628304 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39628304 - March 2024 (13 comments) Show HN: Wikipedia over DNS - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22808121 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22808121 - April 2020 (47 comments) Wikipedia over DNS - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2428198 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2428198 - April 2011 (16 comments) Wikipedia over DNS - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1233499 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1233499 - April 2010 (10 comments) Wikipedia over DNS - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=382642 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=382642 - Dec 2008 (1 comment) ... but I don't know how related those are

tjpnz 3y ago

>If you Google "Piratebay", the first search result is a fake "thepirate-bay.org" (with a dash) but the Wikipedia article lists the right one. Note that Wikipedia editors also remove links to sites they don't like.

throwiforgtnlzy 3y ago
[flagged]
- Phiwise_ 3y ago
  This wording is unnecessary, but I agree that Wikipedia is quite harmed by some-to-many of its favored policies and editors. I've recently been turned on to Justapedia, a fork project that seems to want to avoid such petty-baron problems by vastly extending the scope of included information. Hopefully they or some other project crack the code for a reliable, free, easy to update online encyclopedia again.
  - emj 3y ago
    I think it is great that we have yet another encylopedia, but the bar have to be set higher than Wikipedia to be a serious competition. Bluntly and from experience starting a new encylopedia is hard so lets be honest that is mostly used by the far right which makes it a strange place for other people. My personal feeling is that having more stuff than Wikipedia is almost impossible in a fair way, even the more rigorous Wikidata is an almost impossible project. Discussing this is troublesome because complaining about the contents of an article is not the same as actually taking the time to write the article. Which is why it is also nice to have similarly licensed alternatives

mmahemoff 3y ago

Cool idea but it's unfortunate the Chrome extension can read and change data on all sites you visit (as well as the intrinsic phishing risk for a DNS/search substitute). There's a history of such extensions ending up in the hands of bad actors. Ironic that open-source extensions become obscenely dangerous once you install them from the Chrome store, a platform that's meant to improve security. The store should let you install directly from a repo and that should really be the default distribution mechanism, just as Obsidian does with plugins for example. The store could still monitor said repo for suspicious changes, cautiously roll out new updates, etc. Not to claim open source is perfect (as recent events illustrate), but transparent code is far safer than opening the kimono to a black box.

caymanjim 3y ago
It sucks that Chrome's permission model requires "read and change all data on all sites" for so many plugins. I don't mean to trivialize the difficulty in compartmentalizing permissions, but I wish we'd see some progress on it.
- godzillabrennus 3y ago
  It’d be nice if chrome users could manually override the plugin permissions (downward only) in the browser gui and see if an extension still works as needed. Even better if those permissions would sync between browsers.
  - fragmede 3y ago
    you can restrict plugins to only run on sites you actually enable it on.
cyberlurker 3y ago
I had to look up “opening the kimono” and it’s kind of an interesting tangent. https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/11/02/360479744/why-corporate-executives-talk-about-opening-their-kimonos https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/11/02/360479744...

labster 3y ago

Why not get the URL from Wikidata json instead of parsing Wikipedia pages? Some of these pages can be quite long, and you’re throwing away most of the data.

arboles 3y ago
Wikidata can also list a choice of URLs if there are mirrors, or URLs that, on the Wikipedia page, are censored.

darepublic 3y ago

wikipedia for blockchain gambling resolution

throwiforgtnlzy 3y ago

Begs the Q: Why is someone using Google when DDG and Startpage exist? Can't someone !w piratebay and click the link?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
gaazoh 3y ago
Google has a near monopoly on web search, and they are very aggressively doing everything they can to keep it that way, both by tightly integrating it in their products (browser, browser engine, and OSs, mainly) and funding competitors (Safari and Firefox main revenue source are contracts with Google, under the condition of making Google the default search engine). Sure, you're free to use DDG and find a workflow, but people are less likely to remember it, especially as they overwhelmingly use Google.
chx 3y ago
These days, the question rather is, why anyone on this site is not using Kagi? I understand perhaps the general populace simply doesn't know but here? https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/04/teach-me-how-to-shruggie/ https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/04/teach-me-how-to-shruggie/ > I hadn't even heard of Kagi, but the Nielsen Haydens are among the most effective researchers I know – both in their professional editorial lives and in their many obsessive hobbies. If it was good enough for them… > I tried it. It was magic. ... > That was before I started playing with Kagi's lenses and other bells and whistles, which elevated the search experience from "magic" to sorcerous. > The catch is that Kagi costs money – after 100 queries, they want you to cough up $10/month ($14 for a couple or $20 for a family with up to six accounts, and some kid-specific features) > I immediately bought a family plan. I've been using it for a month. I've basically stopped using Google search altogether.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
rbut 3y ago
I will happily switch from Google when a search engine provides really good local results ^. It seems DDG and Startpage are mainly tailored for US. ^ Random suburb in random state in AU

notorandit 3y ago

It is not a DNS in the sense of "resolver" but rather a DNS in the sense of "name validator" or "name search". Cool idea, in any case!

aragonite 3y ago

Somewhat related, but Wikipedia actually has a "special page" for searching external links, which I've had a lot of fun with: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:LinkSearch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:LinkSearch You can e.g. search for all external links to HN, to pg's website, or to any Twitter user's tweets: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:LinkSearch?target=news.ycombinator.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:LinkSearch?target=news... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:LinkSearch?target=paulgraham.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:LinkSearch?target=paul... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:LinkSearch?target=twitter.com%2Felonmusk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:LinkSearch?target=twit... You can also use it to get a sense of the adoption rates of new gTLDs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:LinkSearch?target=*.ngo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:LinkSearch?target=*.ng... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:LinkSearch?target=*.design https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:LinkSearch?target=*.de... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:LinkSearch?target=*.press https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:LinkSearch?target=*.pr... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:LinkSearch?target=*.club https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:LinkSearch?target=*.cl... (I only wish there's a way to optionally filter out links originating from Talk pages, since those sometimes introduce a lot of noise, depending on your purpose) All the other "special pages" are listed at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Special_page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Special_page

rchard2scout 3y ago
It's possible to use the external link search from the API, and that does have a namespace parameter. See for example https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&format=json&list=exturlusage&formatversion=2&euquery=news.ycombinator.com&eunamespace=0 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&format=json&...

atoav 3y ago

Another interesting application for wikipedia is translation of technical terms, although one has to be careful with that (I wouldn't trust a automated translation). Translation services often suck at translating technical terms, but if you find your languages wikipedia page on it and switch the language there is a good chance the title gives you a nice pointer. This doesn't work always, but if you are proficient enough in both languages you won't have a hard time figuring out if it is correct.

Aachen 3y ago
An issue with this is when articles exist in another language, but you can't link it. Nowadays it isn't as easy as just filling in that O is the Dutch article about what is called Eaux in French, you need to visit another Wikimedia project called wikidata and enter a translation there. But if the target name, O, is already in use, you need to first find a new data object name for O and migrate the wikidata object to the new name and then create a new one for the translation of Eaux. Or maybe the problem was that the wikidata ID for the Dutch article was already linked to something else (so O points to wikidata ID 123 and Eaux points to wikidata ID 321). Either way, you need some migration which first orphans one of the two sides iirc. It has been a few years so I forgot the details, but this is where I ran into some wall. I think you need special permissions for it and there's a gigantic backlog of such requests, essentially it never happens and so articles remain untranslated and unlinked. For some languages like German, there's another translation site with human-vetted translations: https://dict.cc https://dict.cc. It has support for language pairs beyond DE<>EN but those are pretty limited and iirc the suggestions queue always full. Not that DE<>EN is flawless but it's good and virtually always more helpful than DeepL or Gtrans

manx 3y ago

I like the main idea behind it. Instead of arbitrary people registering and selling domain names in a first-wins manner, there is a collaborative/consensus process behind it, to decide which word should point to which website. I think that in the long term, such a collaborative process to establish a <search-term> => <urls>[] mapping, would be more useful than search engines or domain names.

RamblingCTO 3y ago
Nah, this would just mean that a mob can censor/cancel people they don't like, won't it? The majority doesn't care, but a small, loud minority does enough to break stuff like this.
- crotchfire 3y ago
  Would be interesting to combine this with a web-of-trust. None of my one-hop trusted people are part of the cancelmob. If I found that somebody two hops away from me did something absurd it's quite easy to do something about it -- apply negative trust to whatever path endorsed that nonsense. Unfortunately people these days seem allergic to running anything that isn't a web browser or served by an app store, and the entities that control those two channels are extremely unexcited about decentralization.
  - madacol 3y ago
    I've been thinking about that for years. I believe there are sooo many problems that would be solved by that kind of system And although it might not be technically practical in many cases, I think in this case it would

whycome 3y ago

How sure are the devs that .idk won't become an actual gTLD?

forgotpwd16 3y ago
They aren't and if happens will just use to another TLD. At least this is what OpenNIC did when .free was proposed to ICANN.

amitlevy49 3y ago

Can this be installed for Iceraven? I really want it on mobile

fauria 3y ago

Previously on HN: Wikipedia over DNS - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22808121 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22808121

hartator 3y ago

I wonder what it would take to get .idk root tld, and make it work without extensions.

masfuerte 3y ago
$185,000 and a lot of paperwork. https://newgtlds.icann.org/en/about/program https://newgtlds.icann.org/en/about/program

pona-a 3y ago

I wonder if one can take the English Wikipedia ZIM archive and process it to an efficiently-stored offline map of names to URLs, hopefully even with fuzzy matching.