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Comment by nepalvibes | Hacker News Reader

I heard about "you" from one of my friends and wanted to give it a try and it forced me to install chrome plugin. This is a lot of friction for me to try a new search engine. Not sure why you'd force your user to install something just to give it a try.

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Yea... Requiring the default was a tough choice.

You actually can try it out in incognito mode and any other non-Chromium browser. But we found that without the convenience of a navbar search, most people won't give it a proper try either way.

I hope we can drop this requirement even in Chrome when we become one of the default options.

If you set your search engine default to http://you.com manually in Chrome with "https://you.com/search?q=%s" you will not need the extension... but for most people convenience wins and well...

It's tough to go up against a monopoly that controls the browser too?

I installed the extension, tested a search, then switched my default back to another search engine. Future searches on you.com failed because I did not have the extension installed - even though I did.

I uninstalled the extension. I don't want to use tools that give me less power over my browsing experience, arbitrarily breaking although I'd done what was explicitly documented. I want tools that give me more power.

This seemed interesting to me, but requiring an installation is a no-go, especially for privacy-minded software. I can tell you right now that most privacy-conscious individuals won't give you a proper chance if this is how you treat the onboarding process, regardless of how David V. Goliath the situation seems.

> I hope we can drop this requirement even in Chrome when we become one of the default options.

I don't mean to be pessimistic, but the chances of 'you.com' appearing in my search engine choices is slim to none. You're welcome to drag me through the mud when you prove me wrong, but hedging your entire bet on getting added as a default option is a suicide pact for any software, particularly ones that are competing with bigger players.

> It's tough to go up against a monopoly that controls the browser too?

It's tough doing anything on someone else's platform, monopoly or not. This just reads as a vague dismissal of a frankly serious problem. I recommend taking notes out of DuckDuckGo's book, where they took proactive measures to accommodate for security-minded individuals. The fact that they let you connect without Javascript enabled is a subtle nod to their power users, who might be more concerned with that stuff. On the other side of the spectrum is you.com, which requires me to install an extension while promising that it's 'more secure' in the end. The optics are not good, particularly for the people who know what they're looking for.

It seems to me like becoming a default search option is something you.com should work on (and should be much easier) once you are already really successful, but blocking instant try-out of search on the most popular browser is going to prevent you.com from achieving the user numbers needed to achieve that. I have literally never installed a Chrome extension and never will, so I guess I will never find out what improvements to the search results you can offer compared to other search engines.

Your customers are telling you they want and you're making excuses for why you won't give it to them. I don't foresee this going well.

I don't use Chrome, I use Firefox. It was confusing for it to ask me to add an extension to Chrome.

Oh. That's odd. It shouldn't ask you for the Chrome install if you're on Firefox. We can't reproduce that bug. What version of FF are you on?

Happens for me too, Firefox on iOS.

Edit: it badgers me to install it in Chrome even in mobile Safari.

Edit 2: seems there is a search box on top of the page. It works but I didn't notice it initially because

- the page was so intensely focused on getting me to install a Chrome extension (both in Firefox on iOS and Safari on iOS)

- and the placeholder text ("you.com")looked like a decoration initially (try something like "type here" or something)

Looks like the issue is that the submitted link is a search for “you.com”, which appears to be a special search result that includes prominent promotion of the Chrome extension, regardless of which browser you’re using. It would probably have been a better idea to submit a link to the landing page or a normal search result.

Aha, that explains a lot!

Same here on Firefox 94.0.1 on MacOS.

I also have privacy.resistFingerprinting enabled, maybe the other commenter does too, and that might muck with things.

Just tested and my reported user-agent is: "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; rv:91.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/91.0"

Same happens here. Normal search works fine though (using top nav bar)

Latest Firefox mobile, android

Ok, after trying incognito, I do like it, but I'm not ready to switch my default from DDG yet. Maybe on the non-incognito chrome results page you could include a note that your search can be tested from incognito along with the prompt to install the extension?

Hey, thanks for the feedback. We dropped the requirement to install the extension. We're open on all browsers now. Happy searching or trying :)

You don't have to use the plugin, just search at the top of the page.

The text around the plugin is misleading. Strike 1 IMHO.

On Chrome desktop I just see a blocker message: "To see results and get the convenience of you.com, you’ll need to add the you.com Chrome extension"

Wow, you're right. Searching works fine in Safari (desktop) but requires a plugin when you visit the same page in Chrome.

I want to like this, but this move seems like just another scummy "growth hack".

This feedback is so common in all the threads here that I can only wonder why someone would so gloriously sabotage their own product.

It's a bit needy. Maybe give people a chance to try it out on their own terms instead of forcing them to commit right off the bat?

Hey, thanks for the feedback. We dropped the requirement to install the extension. We're open on all browsers now. Happy searching or trying :)

I'm using Firefox and don't get that message. Obviously if you do get it on Chrome, that's a bad user experience and needs to be changed.

When I click the search bar at the top of the page it takes me to the plugin install page.

On mobile I'm able to search no problem. I guess that makes sense though because Chrome extensions on mobile aren't a thing.

Yea. It's not like we're tryin to block users :) We just found that without the convenience of a navbar search - you're ngmi (not gonna make it) as a search engine.

We hope we can drop all restrictions in the future.

This sort of attitude that prioritizes your own growth over the experience of your customers does not bode well for a company that is trying to sell itself as committed to user privacy.

yea. we didn't realize this extension install would make for such a terrible experience for some folks.

but we listen, so we dropped the requirement entirely.

happy open searching

I think they know there is more chances you come back to you.com if you are reminded by the extension icon.

Hey, thanks for the feedback. We dropped the requirement to install the extension. We're open on all browsers now. Happy searching or trying :)

I was able to use it without installing anything.

I am not. I get the blocking message after performing the search.

Not a great first impression for the Hacker News crowd.

I still get this unless I try it in incognito.

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