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Re:Startpage.com: Privacy-oriented search engine by dgut on Sunday January 10, 2021 @12:36PM (#25717080)
Shameless plug,.. I run Okeano [1], a privacy friendly [2] search engine that aims to use 80% of profits to purchase river interceptors from the Ocean Cleanup Project and deploy them to the worlds most polluting rivers.

We support domain blocklist [3] natively and have !waves (similar to !bangs).

We're bootstrapped and not owned by an advertising company (startpage.com is owned by System1).

[1] https://okeano.com

[2] https://okeano.com/privacy

[3] https://okeano.com/blocklist

Re:Startpage.com: Privacy-oriented search engine by jchook on Sunday January 10, 2021 @12:54PM (#25717293)
Coincidentally I also see Ecosia[1] on HN front page right now, a search engine that plants trees.

1. https://www.ecosia.org/

Re:Startpage.com: Privacy-oriented search engine by knuxus on Sunday January 10, 2021 @06:05PM (#25721281)
that uses Facebook analytics, apparently
Re:Startpage.com: Privacy-oriented search engine by bwQAp2cjo on Monday January 11, 2021 @12:22AM (#25724912)
Made an account just to say this, search results are good, maybe better than DDG, cant say for sure. Made couple of searches and results are very relevant to what I am searching. And it's faster than DDG, at least for me. I like it.UI is nice too, clean AF. I don't care much for the ocean cleaning part to be honest, yes shame on me. I guess I am cynical since some companies push those altruistic stuff to advertise themselves. Don't mean no ill, it's great what you're doing. Considering using at as my main search engine. Do you proxy exact results from Bing or are the results managed before showing to user?

Just searched 4chan, no direct link to 4chan in first page, only "about" it.

Re:Startpage.com: Privacy-oriented search engine by dgut on Monday January 11, 2021 @03:51AM (#25726363)
Hi. Thank you! I try to keep the UI clean and simple. It's nice to hear somebody appreciates that.

Regarding results, I wrote an answer to that question here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25717814

That 4chan results page is embarrassing indeed. Currently many things in the pipeline, but will fix.

If you find any quirks, my email is in my profile.

- David

Re:Startpage.com: Privacy-oriented search engine by bwQAp2cjo on Monday January 11, 2021 @08:56AM (#25728877)
Thank you to you too! I think folks at r/privacy r/privacytoolsio would be interested in this, could bring some more users.
Re:Startpage.com: Privacy-oriented search engine by ColinHayhurst on Tuesday January 12, 2021 @11:44AM (#25749376)
They have a page with links to privacy policies https://www.privacytools.io/providers/search-engines/
Re:Startpage.com: Privacy-oriented search engine by lasagna_coder on Sunday January 10, 2021 @01:07PM (#25717456)
I like this. But without adblock I see no ads. Also would it be possible to have a subscription based no-ad version so we don't see ads + don't feel guilty that we aren't helping out by not clicking any ads? I guess it would be hard to stay private because it would mix an paid account id with search queries, but maybe there's a way.
Re:Startpage.com: Privacy-oriented search engine by dgut on Sunday January 10, 2021 @01:20PM (#25717654)
We aren't running ads.. yet. Need more users before we can make a contract where we aren't required by the ad company to send user data.

Paid plan has been on my mind for a while now.. and as you said, it's complicated. It's in the pipeline.

Re:Startpage.com: Privacy-oriented search engine by lasagna_coder on Sunday January 10, 2021 @02:42PM (#25718770)
Would be a nice secondary business idea for some to create an ad company to cater to smaller online platforms like yours without requiring user data. Another complicated prospect but at least it would give you a starting point.

There's also things like https://coil.com/ who seem like they help support online content creators. I wonder if there's a way to treat search results like "content".

Re:Startpage.com: Privacy-oriented search engine by chris_f on Sunday January 10, 2021 @03:37PM (#25719430)
> "There's also things like https://coil.com/ who seem like they help support online content creators. I wonder if there's a way to treat search results like "content".

It is possible. I built the search engine [0] that was the first to integrate Coil as a monetization source. It is pretty small, but Coil payments do cover about 2% of the monthly cost to run the service.

Infinity Search also uses Coil. [1]

Here is an article with some thoughts around monetizing a privacy based search engine [2].

---------

[0] https://www.runnaroo.com/

[1] https://webmonetization.org/

[2] https://coil.com/p/runnaroo/Privacy-and-Search-Engine-Moneti...

Re:Startpage.com: Privacy-oriented search engine by lasagna_coder on Sunday January 10, 2021 @05:18PM (#25720690)
thanks, this is some good insight!
Re:Startpage.com: Privacy-oriented search engine by stevesearer on Sunday January 10, 2021 @10:30PM (#25724052)
My site sells and hosts our own ads and I have thought about starting something like this.

It would be interesting to sell space against specific queries for a time duration vs per click or per impression.

This approach doesn’t lend itself as much to optimizing for every individual user action, but instead as the quality of the content and users as a whole.

I would focus on a few niches to start which have lots of ad spend that you could get a piece of. Maybe you could then pour those dollars directly into improving the organic results for those niches.

Re:Startpage.com: Privacy-oriented search engine by lasagna_coder on Sunday January 10, 2021 @01:07PM (#25717471)
also, dark mode pls
Re:Startpage.com: Privacy-oriented search engine by dgut on Sunday January 10, 2021 @01:20PM (#25717663)
In the pipeline!
Re:Startpage.com: Privacy-oriented search engine by rkudeshi on Sunday January 10, 2021 @01:18PM (#25717624)
Do you index webpages yourself or piggyback off Bing/Google?
Re:Startpage.com: Privacy-oriented search engine by dgut on Sunday January 10, 2021 @01:32PM (#25717814)
It uses Bing as a backup and for most general search. We have our own index that focuses on specific communities, including HN. Eventually you'll see more tailored search for that index, including a "privacy rank" and page size.
Re:Startpage.com: Privacy-oriented search engine by hundchenkatze on Sunday January 10, 2021 @01:05PM (#25717438)
It's probably not the best idea to go against established conventions, but I think it'd be pretty cool if you used tilde instead of exclamation marks for waves. :)
Re:Startpage.com: Privacy-oriented search engine by dgut on Sunday January 10, 2021 @01:30PM (#25717796)
Yes, I think this is a good idea. Might make this optional or as an alternative. Added to the pipeline.
Re:Startpage.com: Privacy-oriented search engine by jdemaeyer on Sunday January 10, 2021 @12:43PM (#25717170)
https://okeano.com/reports gives me

> Can't find what you're looking for.

Re:Startpage.com: Privacy-oriented search engine by dgut on Sunday January 10, 2021 @12:46PM (#25717212)
Yes, sorry. Have to fix that. We are not making money yet so no reports to show.
Re:Startpage.com: Privacy-oriented search engine by Klonoar on Sunday January 10, 2021 @09:52PM (#25723774)
I appreciate the UI work on Okeano, but could you please support a dark mode option?
Re:Startpage.com: Privacy-oriented search engine by dgut on Sunday January 10, 2021 @11:17PM (#25724426)
Thank you. Yes, working on it.
Re:Startpage.com: Privacy-oriented search engine by forgotmypw77 on Sunday January 10, 2021 @02:15PM (#25718430)
please test your site with nojs.

js is not an option with many devices and useragents.

thank you for doing what you do.

Re:Startpage.com: Privacy-oriented search engine by dgut on Sunday January 10, 2021 @06:58PM (#25721937)
It's only 22 kb of JS and at least 2/3 of that is Axios which I'm about to replace with Fetch.. but I understand :)

In the pipeline!