
Show HN: Gurn – Use words, not bookmarks - sgmccli
https://www.gurn.io/
======
zufallsheld
That's what Firefox' awesome searchbar does. There I just input "jira
$projectname" and I get the correct URL. If this does not work, I simply
bookmark the page and give it tags. Then entering the tags in the search bar
gives the same result.

~~~
chrismorgan
Firefox also has the little-known keyword functionality. Bookmark
[https://bugs.example.com/issue/%s](https://bugs.example.com/issue/%s), in the
bookmark manager give it the keyword `bug`, and then typing “bug PROJ-123456”
will take you to
[https://bugs.example.com/issue/PROJ-123456](https://bugs.example.com/issue/PROJ-123456).
(On some search fields there may be an “Add a Keyword for this Search…” item
which helps with creating the bookmark with keyword, too.)

A quick look around [https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-
ons/WebExtensions/AP...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-
ons/WebExtensions/API/bookmarks) suggests that it’s not possible to control
the keywords and tags from an extension in Firefox; this is a sad omission:
I’d _really_ like an extension which imported all of DuckDuckGo’s !bangs as
bookmarks with keywords, so that you could type in _exactly the same stuff_
and have it bypass duckduckgo.com.

[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1276817](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1276817)
is about adding that, but weird stuff is happening there. I’m going to follow
it up, because I’d _hate_ to see this functionality lost. I use it for a
number of things.

~~~
Nadya
Adding a keyword used to be more prominent and easy to do - you could right
click any search bar and "Add as Keyword" \- or you could edit the Bookmark
link manually when bookmarking a page. They "simplified" bookmarking to where
I need to navigate through several layers of menus to access the Bookmark
Manager where I can finally edit the bookmark to add a Keyword and update the
link to what it needs to be.

I have no idea why they made bookmarks so much more difficult to work with and
I'm not sure when it happened - as I updated from FF39 to FF60. Using Quantum
for the last few weeks - I'm pretty sure I'll be going back to FF39 as it's
simply _more_ usable. Especially since add-ons that were a large part of my
workflow actually work (or even exist at all...)

~~~
chrismorgan
“Add a Keyword for this Search…” is still there in the context menu.

~~~
Nadya
Checked on my work computer and you're right! Something must be going on with
my userChrome.css back at home that's inadvertently hiding it from me, since I
hide useless context menu options like "Set as Desktop Background...", "Email
Image", etc. Something I'm hiding must be hiding "Add as a Keyword for this
Search..." on accident.

~~~
chrismorgan
And debugging those things can be nasty!

I wish :contains() had stayed in CSS Selectors Level 3, or that you could use
XPath in stylesheets.

Hmm… #contentAreaContextMenu actually looks pretty sane. They all have IDs,
which I really should have expected anyway. I’m going to add some rules to my
own userChrome.css. Thanks for the idea!

------
xori
The current workflow in Chrome is, CTRL-D, Name it something memorable, CTRL-
SHIFT-O, search your bookmarks.

You can even save all your currently opened tabs with CTRL-SHIFT-D.

I'm just surprised this service doesn't allow sharing of bookmarks to other
people, I figure that'd be the one thing that's still "hard". EDIT: I see that
it's on their todo list.

EDIT2: Upon further reflection I think the "team" aspect is the right thing to
sell to. Synchronized link sharing is still hard, and just having a company
wiki most of the time, doesn't make it easier.

~~~
bluehatbrit
Hey, I'm one of the engineers on Gurn! So we do have sharing actually, we have
lists to collect keywords (sort of like a bucket) and you can invite others to
these lists either via their email or username.

We're also working on Organisations at the moment which will make this even
easier and allow you to group together users and lists under one roof.
Checkout this link for some more info on list roles
[https://gurn.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/360000...](https://gurn.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/36000017428-what-
do-the-list-roles-of-admin-contributor-and-member-mean-)

------
WorkLifeBalance
I'd be wary of using a service built by a company (Gradient Ltd) that among
other things provides, "Effective Attribution, Web Tracking, Analytical
Insights".

From [https://www.gradient.co/#products](https://www.gradient.co/#products)
(scroll down 1 section).

"Attribution and identity stitching of users across multiple channels is
complex and confusing – we provide a platform that does it all in one place."

"With Kintra you can prove how effective a social campaign was and visualise
the full customer journey down to an identifiable individual – simple."

~~~
jlogsdon
From their Privacy Policy ([https://www.gurn.io/privacy-
policy/](https://www.gurn.io/privacy-policy/)):

    
    
      4. We may collect the following Data, which includes personal Data, from you:
        ....
        l. A list of URLs starting with a referring site, your activity on the Website,
           and the site you exit to (automatically collected);

~~~
sgmccli
Hi jlogsdon,

This clause exists as we run Google Analytics on the main gurn.io webpage. It
was a standard clause suggested by our lawyers here in the UK to ensure our
users are fully informed about the possible data collection being conducted by
the GA analytics.js tracking code.

------
ComNik
I think Finda ([https://keminglabs.com/finda/](https://keminglabs.com/finda/))
fills a similar need, runs offline, and indexes lots of other stuff as well.
Although I think it is not possible to assign additional keywords.

(Not affiliated in any way, just a user)

~~~
Semaphor
Mac OS only btw.

------
tpwong
Cool! This looks like go/ links, the internal URL shortener that Google uses
and which a lot of other tech companies subsequently adopted (I wrote about it
here: [http://blog.goatcodes.com/2018/04/18/go-
origin](http://blog.goatcodes.com/2018/04/18/go-origin))

Full disclaimer: I built goatcodes.com to be a hosted version of go/ links,
short links for teams. It serves a similar purpose to Gurn, albeit in a
slightly different way. Think bit.ly, but you have to log in before the
redirect.

------
nloa
After reading the privacy policy I know that I don't want to use this app.

[https://www.gurn.io/privacy-policy/](https://www.gurn.io/privacy-policy/)

~~~
sgmccli
Hi nloa,

I'm Simon, one of the founders of Gurn.

Can I ask what in particular about our privacy policy concerns you so that I
can address your concerns? It's a fairly standard privacy policy developed
with our lawyers here in the UK. I have already addressed others concerns
further down the comments about referer / ip collection which is required
wording as we use Google Analytics on our main website. If there is anything
else of concern I'd really like to understand it so I can try to work with our
lawyers to address it.

Thanks

Simon

------
darekkay
This looks nice. I've asked myself, what advantage this tool has over using
simple bookmarks with keywords. If I understand this correctly, the answer is
about being able to share the bookmarks with your team (and across browsers).
I would make this point much more prominent.

Here's a shameless plug for my tool StaticMarks [0], as I try to solve a
similar problem, but for a different audience (mostly developers). The
"marketing" page explaining exactly what the tool does is still a work in
progress, though.

[0] [https://staticmarks.com/](https://staticmarks.com/)

------
Terretta
What’s old is new again — AOL keywords!

Here’s an article from 2010 talking about AOL keywords at the turn of the
millennium:

 _How many of you remember watching TV about a decade ago, and seeing
commercials for large, well-known companies (and I mean really large ones—say,
for example, Proctor & Gamble) and hearing “visit us on the world wide web at
www.tidedetergent.com, or type in AOL Keyword: ‘laundry‘”?_

 _I was thinking about this the other day… AOL was way ahead of the curve on
this. They were so far ahead of the curve that it didn’t catch on. I know some
people just slightly younger than me might say “AOL? Who’s that?” But the fact
is, AOL was really a cutting-edge company in the dot-com era. I suppose in one
sense, you can’t even call them a dot-com company, cause they provided the
framework for the dot-coms without really being one themselves. (Plus they’re
still around!) In a way, they actually ushered in the internet age, and
survived. Funny thought._

 _But here’s what I’ve been thinking about… keywords were an idea so
brilliant, we just accept them as a fact of life today. But at the time, AOL
was the only one even thinking like that. I never knew what their policy was
on how they assigned different keywords to different companies [does anyone
know? was it auction-style? or just first-come-first-serve?], but I do know
that they were attempting to make our online search efforts easier by coming
up with simple, streamlined, logical one or two-word keywords that we could
type into a special box in the AOL browser and, Voila! We would end up at
exactly the most logical website for that type of word._

[http://www.ronstauffer.com/blog/remember-aol-
keywords/](http://www.ronstauffer.com/blog/remember-aol-keywords/)

------
raytracer
Check out Keypirinha if this workflow looks appealing.
[http://keypirinha.com/](http://keypirinha.com/)

Alt+Space brings up an edit box. Then type to perform some action. Actions can
be as simple as opening a bookmark or launching an application. (Keypirinha
indexes the bookmarks in all installed browsers, the Windows start menu and a
whole lot more.)

Keypirinha will be familiar to users of Launchy or Find And Run Robot. (But
Keypirinha is better!)

Keypirinha is one of the first bits of software I install after installing
Windows. I can't recommend it highly enough!

~~~
timvdalen
Do you know how it compares to Wox? I like the design and UX of Wox, but it's
a little bit slower than Launchy.

------
NateEag
Watching the animated demo on the home page, this looks a lot like how I use
Vimium
([https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/vimium/dbepggeogba...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/vimium/dbepggeogbaibhgnhhndojpepiihcmeb?hl=en))
to handle bookmarks - give them memorable names, then press 'b' and type until
you see the one you want, and press Enter.

Does this offer more that I'm missing? Or is the target market not the kinds
of people who would use something like Vimium?

~~~
qqii
It looks to be targeted at teams, with a key feature being the ability to
synchronise bookmarks.

[https://www.gurn.io/business/](https://www.gurn.io/business/)

~~~
NateEag
Ah, that makes sense. Thanks!

------
qqii
I'm curious if this is any better than a well designed custom landing page,
which could even be set as the new tab in a browser. Everyone is already
familiar with links and webpages yet using the navbar in this way is pretty
rare, the only other case I can think of is duckduckgo's bang feature[0].

0: [https://duckduckgo.com/bang](https://duckduckgo.com/bang)

~~~
bluehatbrit
Hey, I'm one of the engineers building Gurn. We've actually thought a lot
about this, almost creating a personal home page for your browser which could
be a starting place for navigating to common groups of urls etc. We're still
figuring out how this might work and how it could fit into the product at the
moment but stay tuned!

------
sethammons
Thinking of bookmarks and then thinking of history, what I really want is a
personal search engine that only searches things you've browsed. Where was
that article I read on $subject? I recall the snippet $snippet. Where is that
funny picture I saw a few months ago about the old man? It would be perfect in
this chat.

A good personal search engine might further alleviate the need for bookmarks.

~~~
digi_owl
Something like a full site cache combined with a full text search through said
cache?

------
matt_the_bass
I found it interesting that self hosting costs more than cloud. I’m sure there
are lots of reasons. @gurn engineers, can you share some of your reasoning
behind this? I’m curious the % of self host vs cloud.

~~~
sgmccli
Hi Matt,

I'm one of the co-founders of Gurn.

We make it cheaper to host in the cloud as there is significantly less burden
upon us as a small company in supporting our cloud offering. When we use the
term self-host we are actually talking about on-premise clients, think places
that might operate under an air-gap such as financial institutions, government
departments etc. We've found that these organisations don't particularly enjoy
the fast-paced development and release cycles that you can deliver in a
continuous deployment environment such as the cloud and we end up with
fragmented versions in use across clients. As such we want to encourage as
many businesses to stick to the cloud environment as possible and price
accordingly.

To date, our largest installations are on-prem, as companies we've dealt with
are still getting comfortable with the cloud.

We also have the concept of on-prem/off-prem where we can spin up a dedicated
cloud environment should the company require it, but again this involves an
extra cost to us and is factored into "self-host" price.

Hope that helps.

~~~
matt_the_bass
Thanks for the explanation. That was my thought. Assise from the support
issues, on prem may be more valuable to those customers. Definitely charge
more for things that are more valuable to customers.

Good luck!

------
fineline
You had me - but then the "Get Gurn" button didn't work...

~~~
bluehatbrit
Oh snap! We're taking a look now.

Edit: it's all working now, apologies for the broken link!

------
miguelrochefort
Why aren't bookmarks added to Google search results?

I save a lot of high-quality articles in Pocket, and it would be extremely
helpful to have them show up on Google when I search for related stuff.

------
unop
Umm, don't most browsers have a keyword based/parameterized bookmark feature
nowadays?

~~~
bluehatbrit
Yes they do, we're focusing a lot on sharing and collaborating which browsers
don't provide. This way you could be using a keyword happily and if you notice
it goes to an out dated resource, you can update it and others in your team
will get that update instantly without having to do it themselves.

------
teddyh
You mean like using… domain names?

------
mcjiggerlog
Cool product, unfortunate name -
[https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Gurn](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Gurn)

~~~
laumars
"Gurn" is actually in the English dictionary and it's meant "to pull an ugly
face" _long_ before it was linked to drug taking. In fact the World Gurning
Championships have been running since the 13th century.

Frankly though, if your naming requirements are " _must not appear in Urban
Dictionary_ ", then people might as well just give up naming things now. UD
pretty much has every real and imaginary word in its database as well as half
of all the possible acronyms in the world too.

~~~
rmacduf
Hey, I'm one of the co-founders of Gurn... Yeah the name is definitely a
talking point!

In the UK, you're spot om, it does have the connotation of pulling an ugly
face - the exact same type of face all our colleagues used to pull when they
couldn't find the web resources they needed! Outside of the UK people tend to
see it just as a short and memorable 4-letter word :-)

Using Gurn as the name is also a pun on how the tool works - you type 'go' in
the address bar, followed by a keyword. The Keyword acts like an old school
URN... So you 'go urn'... hence Gurn :-)

~~~
al2o3cr
Nice woody sort of word, "gurn".

------
cyberpunk0
Why would I want social features added to my bookmarks? Not everything needs
to have social nonsense bolted on to it. No thanks

~~~
mbreese
Think about this in the context of a company. You may want to allow people to
quickly search for bookmarks flagged by others at the company.

For example: ‘hr vacation policy’ or ‘project foo’

~~~
sgmccli
You've hit the nail on the head :)

