
Hacker News Search Extension for Firefox - pg
http://www.webmynd.com/html/hackernews.html
======
pg
Warning, the first search tends to be slow, which makes one wonder how the
thing works, but give it time and you'll see HN search results on the right.
Successive searches are faster.

~~~
jmtame
The first search for me also had some screwy CSS. Mine looked really funky on
the first go, which made me skeptic and I came here and read your note.
Subsequent searches run fast and don't have CSS issues.

Love it.

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matt1
Cool cool cool.

I never looked into Webmynd until seeing this. Thanks for adding HackerNews to
the list of sources and kudos on the effective marketing :)

~~~
amirnathoo
Thanks :-)

What other sources would you like to see? If you find yourself ever typing
into a search box on some site that isn't Google (or one of the other large
search engines) let us know and we'll add it.

~~~
manvsmachine
I find myself doing a lot of site searches for LifeHacker

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rokhayakebe
This is a very important step towards what Search will be (somewhat social).
If there has been a HN thread about what I am looking for, I will check it
before I check the Google results.

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jobenjo
We launched a similar plugin with Webmynd for Fluther and so far our users
have been very receptive.

I have to say it's a brilliant way for them to market their service, and
everybody wins.

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AndrewWarner
Does anyone else think it would be helpful if Google integrated options like
this into their search?

~~~
amirnathoo
Google have started to add personalization on the left-hand side with
SearchWiki. I think a problem with it is the effect is not obvious - sure the
ranking might be different for you if you do the same search again, but how
will it effect different searches? By doing much more obvious personalization
which is applicable for every search you do thereafter, I think WebMynd gives
more value for the (small) effort to configure it.

Also, whatever they might like to experiment with, I think Google will be
reluctant to try radically different designs or really mess with the right-
hand side of the page. As a public company they need to optimize for ad-
revenue.

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EastSmith
Yesterday I installed Feedly and it looked great while using the dashboard and
as a start page. But when I went to Google to search something I was surprised
because feedly inserted search results (from my feeds) just above google
search results.

I then went to Feedly website, searching for info whether they are storing my
searches somewhere, how long they keep it, etc. I was unsuccessful so I
uninstalled it right away.

Don't get me wrong here, I find this functionality very useful. I also
understand it's great business to gather data on people searches and some
people really don't care. Just I am not one of them.

So can someone please tell me if the searches I do are sent to Webmynd,
stored, sold, hacked or not?

~~~
amirnathoo
What WebMynd does is covered in our FAQ:

<http://www.webmynd.com/html/faq.html>

Depending on the settings, WebMynd does collect some search and browsing
information. We never reveal this information to third parties. The
information is not exposed to other users (even in aggregate / anonymized
form).

WebMynd includes the ability to save and index (on our servers) your browsing
history so you can find things again faster. This is disabled by default in
the Hacker News Search version. You can turn on recording of history and
select history search on Google with a couple of clicks if you would like to.
More information on that here:

<http://www.webmynd.com/html/help.html>

We do gather data of how many searches are performed, how users interact with
our UI and which sources are generating click-throughs all to try and make the
service better. I think this is standard practice for search engines /
aggregators and most users expect that.

~~~
EastSmith
Thanks for the info.

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einarvollset
Good job guys. I still prefer your "my top sites" search result though. That
thing is just absolute magic :-)

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thomasmallen
1a. Does HN have any kind of hidden search engine?

1b. If so, could OpenSearch be implemented over it, enabling a real HN search
extension?

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btw0
This is good, but sometimes freezes my firefox, going to disable it anyway.

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shimi
Good stuff, Brilliant job

Effective marketing at its best!!!

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newt0311
Very nice. Its like <search term> site:news.ycombinator.com but orders of
magnitudes more polished and better designed.

~~~
mlLK
How does this differentiate from using 'google site:ycombinator.com [search
this]'? I've never had a problem searching for what I wanted using google's
site option. i.e. I have 334 HN threads saved in my profile; googling
'site:ycombinator.com mllk' results in 326 entries found. I haven't used the
application yet so, of course this is my prebias speaking, but I never really
saw a point for redoing a site search besides the idea for using a different
index.

~~~
amirnathoo
Here are a few of ways adding the site-specific search on the right is
helpful:

1) If you frequently find yourself referring to sites like Amazon or
Wikipedia, or indeed Hacker News now, to find information on particular
topics. WebMynd saves you a step. You don't need to navigate there or craft
your query in a particular way.

2) If you don't realize that a particular site or source could have useful
information on a particular topic. With this toolbar you don't have to
remember or think to check, you will be presented results from your favourite
sources for each query you do.

3) It increases the amount of information on the page and so increases the
chance you'll find exactly what you want.

Bear in mind that while the Hacker News search is currently powered by
Google's site specific search, most of the other sources WebMynd provides use
the sources' own search engines. Which means they may include results which
Google does not readily surface.

I hope you do get a chance to try it out!

~~~
ananthrk
I haven't tried WebMynd yet (will do so). But, from the FAQ,

"Some people call the WebMynd browsing history a DVR for the web - it saves
and records the pages you see online so you can find what you have seen before
faster:"

This sounds very similar to what InfoAxe is trying to do. Has anyone here
tried InfoAxe? How different are these services?

