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Comment by bseo | Hacker News Reader

I don't really want to send anyone my web searching history, however I would be interested if the plugin could export data to csv,xml or json. That way I could datamine my search history with whatever tools I like to use.

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That's a really interesting idea. When we got started on this 6 weeks ago, we were actually thinking about going down a path very similar to that, of putting it all into a desktop application, rather than building a web app. It does potentially finesse the privacy issue. We perceived the tradeoff as being between powerusers being able to extract and fully analyze the data, versus more casual users wanting the data everywhere, and getting the other general conveniences of a web app. We'll write up a blog post to try and gauge interest, thanks again for the suggestion.

Why not offer both? Casual users might prefer to use the web app, advanced users can mine their own data. However, if I were to use a plugin to export my search data, I would expect it to be good at capturing/extracting search queries on a variety of websites and maybe have some additional features. Otherwise, I could just mine my Firefox history directly.

By the way, you could build a web app that runs on the desktop with Appcelarator's Titanium, or port the existing one to Titanium.

Yeah, that's the right answer. We just stepped out to grab lunch, were talking about your idea, and decided to basically build what you're suggesting here in this second message.

If you want us to let you know when we have something together (probably less than a week), my email is in my profile, shoot me a note, if you'd like.

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