Comment by gexla | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gexla | Hacker News Reader

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Good question. I'm going to run an experiment.

First "go-to" for search will be my browser history.

As long as the site I know I'm looking for is in my browser history, then I'll go there and use the search feature to find other items from that site.

Bookmark all the advanced search pages I can find for sites I find myself searching regularly.

Resist mindless searching for crap content which usually just takes up time as my brain is decompressing from other tasks.

For search which is more valuable to me, try starting my search from communities such as Reddit, Twitter or following links from other points in my history.

Maybe if it's not worth going through the above steps, then it's not valuable enough to look up?

NOTE: Sites such as Twitter may not be much better than Google, but I can at least see who is pushing the link. I can determine if this person is someone I would trust for recommendations.

I bet if I did all of the above, I could put a massive dent in the number of search engine queries I do.

Any other suggestions?

I think you're onto something.

You could create a local search index built around your browser history. Then you could create a digital fingerprint-profile around it (still local). And then query other people's histories, that are similar to yours, in a DHT-address fashion.

> but I can at least see who is pushing the link. I can determine if this person is someone I would trust for recommendations.

This doesn't seem true at all to me. Twitter dramatically shapes and modifies timelines to promote whatever they want. They're even more aggressive on modifying the search experience.

All of those constraints are invisible. It's dangerous to think you have more control or insight there.

Twitter has a social graph and communities much like Reddit. This adds more information. There are people posting information who I trust and even know IRL.

> All of those constraints are invisible. It's dangerous to think you have more control or insight there.

And yet you are commenting as if these results aren't invisible to you? The machinery behind Google search results aren't invisible? Are you trying to say that one invisible thing is more "X" than another invisible thing?

> And yet you are commenting as if these results aren't invisible to you? The machinery behind Google search results aren't invisible?

Because of my unique and fortunate work history I understand the internals of these systems better than many people do. I'm objecting to the distinction you're drawing, not suggesting an alternative order of transparency. There really isn't much difference between the two companies output in the regard we're discussing.

I agree that Twitter may not be much different from Google if you are relying on the algo. Notice that I mentioned Twitter as a community next to Reddit though. Everyone has different usage patterns for these services. I follow (and have been an active participant) in a number of niche communities on Twitter. In some cases, I could do a search for a term and most results would be from people I have interacted with through Twitter and other channels. Each of those people carried a reputation within that niche and some I knew better than others. I wouldn't use Twitter as a general search returning a large number of untrusted results. Sure, even search results on a specific user could be biased, but at least it would be from familiar territory.

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