

Binging it on: putting an end to the Google bias - antonpug
http://antonpug.com/2013/06/binging-it-on/

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gnosis
Am I the only one who finds it depressing that the main alternative to Google
is Microsoft?

Why couldn't there be a search engine run by a non-profit, which does not
treat its users like commodities, which respects its users' privacy, does not
track them, does not advertise, and is run for the benefit of its users, not
for its own benefit?

~~~
mhitza
Um, and how is that sustainable to the high volume a search engine is put
under; without a way to pay for itself?

~~~
gnosis
I'd be happy to contribute money to such an entity.

In the wake of the recent search-engine and web-service provider scandals, I
think a lot of people would.

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puzzlingcaptcha
Putting an end to the Google bias by introducing the Bing bias. Waste of time.

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59nadir
Just switch to duckduckgo already. You don't need either of the mentioned
search engines. I switched completely a couple of weeks ago and I haven't had
a problem searching for _anything_.

I have a hard time seeing what people think Google does so magically that they
see duckduckgo (or any alternative, really) failing at. You either get what
you search for or you don't. On top of that you can get to a result more
easily by using !bang stuff on duckduckgo.

~~~
afsina
Can we drop this DuckDuckGo advertisement posts already? People who follows HN
knows what DuckDuckGo is thanks to endless streaming of posts. We get it, a
Bing facade with a promise of Privacy.

~~~
59nadir
I don't follow HN enough to recognize "an endless streaming of [duckduckgo]
posts". Regardless, as a user I will happily inform people about what I see as
an alternative to Google.

I'd do the same for xmonad (or tiling window managers in general) in a
conversation that related to that. Because good software deserves mention.

If you don't want to see discussions about search engines then maybe, just
maybe, you shouldn't view the comments for links that pertain to that certain
topic. It seems fairly idiotic of you to even begin complaining about this,
honestly.

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antonpug
I agree with gnosis...it is depressing. I guess the point I was trying to make
is that Google is not the only player in this game, and from a dev
perspective, it's important to pay attention to Bing and optimize your SEO for
Bing as well. From a consumer's perspective, given the two choices - I think
people would see some advantages from Bing. But I agree - it would be amazing
to have a non-profit search engine, something ran by Mozilla maybe..

~~~
mhitza
Why would Mozilla do that when a large chuck of their funding comes from
Google?

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DanBC
The article doesn't mention any measures to escape particular search engine
bubbles. It seems unfair to make a comparison without doing that first.

I'm more interested in projects like blind search
([http://blindsearch.fejus.com/](http://blindsearch.fejus.com/))

~~~
antonpug
That's a nice site - if you just want to compare the search algorithms. (I
chose Bing) But today for most people search results are more than just pure
ordering of links - people want integration, people want easy-click access to
content and social media. I realize that's not the case for everyone, but for
a lot of users, these features matter, so stripping them away does not do the
search engines true justice

------
Toshio
The good news is there is
[http://yacy.net/en/index.html](http://yacy.net/en/index.html)

It's a peer to peer search engine without any of the privacy problems that
come with using Google or, god forbid, bing.

The bad news is that it requires some effort and dedication from its users.
Hopefully recent events will convince more people to give it a try.

