Hacker News Reader

Comment by dwighteb | Hacker News Reader

> It is in all practical senses impossible for an iPhone or Mac user to change their search engine to a new search engine on Safari or at the iOS level.

On my IOS device, under Settings -> Safari -> Search Engine, I have a drop down with options, including Bing and DuckDuckgo, but defaulted to google.

On Macos, with Safari running, Safari -> Preferences… -> Search, Search Engine I have a drop down, defaulted to google, with Bing and DuckDuckgo amongst other choices.

Agreed on google”s effort to get their search engine as the default. However I just don’t understand how changing search engine is impossible given what I’m seeing on my devices? Nor does it seem over the top onerous to my eyes.

View on HN

Yes, but you can't add a new search engine at all! So if a search engine isn't one of the tiny number of options in that dropdown, you can't change to it. That applies on both iOS and MacOS. And that option is used for the entire system-wide search, not just Safari.

So here's a challenge, try adding a search engine not on that list. You can see the search engine I'm working on in my profile if you're interested (I don't want to hijack this thread with self-promotion). I challenge you to change to a new competitive option like it. You simply can't. That is a clear monopoly over distribution.

On desktop in Chrome, as noted it is not something any typical consumer can do easily. But even if they could, Google does not allow you to set the New Tab to another search engine, even by setting the homepage to one. So every new tab opened on Chrome takes you back to Google search, even if a consumer figures out how to change their homepage. As for changing the nav bar search, no ordinary consumer is going to be able to work out how to change a search URL pattern. That is clearly intended to prevent consumers changing.

So I stand by my point, especially on an iPhone, you simply cannot change your search engine to a new search engine like us. It is impossible.

I see your point. I would have sworn that DuckDuckGo was added as a search entry when I installed that app on my ios device, however my memory is hazy from that long ago, so perhaps that search engine was added at a different point, like when it became big enough for Apple to notice them.

I'm a huge fan of DuckDuckGo. My understanding is that it took a significant amount of effort and public lobbying for them to get added to that list, and it was back in 2014 that was announced.

I suspect the big problem is that even if your search engine succeeds, once you get enough traction you'll just sell up to Google and everything slots back to normal 'do some evil' mode.

I don't want to get too off-topic, but personally I can promise you we will never sell to Google. This problem is very personal. As well as being a programmer, I used to work as a journalist, and I've seen friends in media have their lives and businesses destroyed by Google's ad-tech. And I've seen the Internet turn from a wonderful thing to become a cesspool of content farms, clickbait and seo spam. I can't speak for other search startups, but we will never run ads or use ad-tech or sell user data or invade people's privacy. We're just two people. But we're two people on a mission.

Duckduckgo uses Bing and they also pay millions to be included.

We pay nothing so are not included. On the other hand we are happy to provide a one click search from our search engine or eight other search engines/services, currently from our web app [0]. One click for Google (if that's your thing), one click for Bing or Gigablast search engine results, one click for Brave and some of the many Bing and few Google syndicates - DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, Startpage.

[0] https://blog.mojeek.com/2022/02/search-choices-enable-freedo...

Source on the ‘pays millions’?

Even if DuckDuckGo and Bing pay absolutely nothing, it's good leverage to make Google pay even more, and its already public knowledge Google pays a lot to remain the default search engine on iOS, to the tune of billions of dollars a year:

> https://9to5mac.com/2021/08/25/analysts-google-to-pay-apple-...

> https://www.npr.org/2020/10/22/926290942/google-paid-apple-b...

etc, etc. Given Google pay a lot more for this privilege today than in years past, this may well have been part of the strategy.

> especially on an iPhone, you simply cannot change your search engine to a new search engine like us. It is impossible.

See my post above about iCabMobile, where there are TWENTY-FIVE search engines to choose from.

There are also other browsers than Safari and iCabMobile on iOS, many of which give alternatives to their search engine choices.

Naturally if you think only users who choose the default browser are interesting as your market, I wonder if those users would take a chance on your alternative search engine?

I replied to your duplicate post separately, but it is worth noting that even if you install an alternative browsing App and use it, the iOS system search (swipe down from the top to access the search bar) is still using Google and Safari. And even if you were to use another browser like iCabMobile, it also simply does not let you add in a new search engine not already in its own options.

> And even if you were to use another browser like iCabMobile, it also simply does not let you add in a new search engine not already in its own options

I duplicated my post because you so pervasively in this thread duplicated your inaccuracies.

You are wrong about this, iCabMobile allows the user to very easily add search engines:

Settings > Tools > Search Engines > Add

Naturally I expect to be plentifully downvoted for this accurate information, just like pointing-out that iCabMobile has 25 search engines to was also extremely unpopular.

I may not be following you, but are you saying that when you change search engine in your App, it also changes the default search for iOS and Safari system-wide?

Or you are just talking about within your iCabMobile App itself, like anyone can do in their own app?

As far as I know, all the alternative browser and search Apps (including ours for example) are wrappers on top of Safari on iOS. And they are unable to change the iPhone's system-wide search or browser. That's the search engine accessed, for example, when a user swipes down on their iPhone home screen, and enters a query into the "Search" field that appears. Normally, that's Google and Safari at the iOS system-wide level.

Or are you saying that you are able to change these including adding alternative search engines under iOS Settings > Safari > Search Engine?

I'm curious how you're doing this if so, and I'm sure lots of other people would be too. My understanding is that App Store Apps or Extensions can not normally change the iPhone search engines, but I'd love to be wrong about that.

Its been a while but when you visited a search engine website it then showed up as an option, not sure which OS / browser that was on though

Firefox supports an open search standard which is a big improvement, so that's probably where you saw this. It provides an easier experience from the nav bar to add a new search engine to the browser. In practice, while it's a huge improvement, I've found talking with users that it's mostly helpful if someone technical is talking them through the change.

I concur. And would add that on Safari and iOS, it suits Google and Microsoft too keep others out; noting all options are Google, Bing or Bing sydnicates). And it suits Apple nicely; $15 bn from Google, pure margin. How much do they get from Microsft/syndicates? Meanwhile all search listed options in Chrome are Google or Microsoft (Bing and Bing syndicates). And, to complete all Edge options are Bing, Bing syndicates or Google. Disclosure: also alternative search engine CEO.

Presumably you count DuckDuckGo as a "Bing syndicate". I think that doesn't do it justice - many of the things I like about DDG are specific to DDG, and I could not care less whether the underlying crawl was run by Bing or not.

Yes, but I'm biased. Your perspective is as valid and I respect it. DDG does have some great features and we stand with them in fighting for user privacy. What benefits us all is a variety of different search engines and search services. It is the search engines that subtly determine our informational pathways, so variety is healthy. For one independent review of search engines and syndicates, including DDG see: https://seirdy.one/2021/03/10/search-engines-with-own-indexe...

100% agree. The more people working on this and building different features and trying different approaches the better. The more new search engines, the more everyone innovates, the better for the whole world. It is deeply unhealthy to have a single monopoly with its mono-search have 90%+ of the market. There are billions of search users with many different needs, and there is room for different approaches.

I fully understand your point and defaults are very strong.

That being said, I try new search engines from time to time and always get back to google, because non of the others have worked for me (in a professional context). I probably do 200 searches per day and google is most likely to give me relevant info on my first query (maybe 80-90% success rate). All others I have tried have been around 40-50% win an avg. of 2-3 search queries to find my result. That is a huge daily time sync on 200 searches per day.

I will also test your search engine.

And before having tested it, I have some unsolicited advice ;) At least these are things that would make me switch: 1) you are strong in my vertical. 50% of my daily search queries are professional. Probably 10-20% are programming related. If you were better 20% better than google at delivering results for that subset, I would probably use you. 2) If you had very strong support for my locale. Based in Germany, 50% of my private searches are in German. Most search engines, apart from google, suck in German. My assumption is their market share is so small that they don‘t put effort into any language specific search syntax understanding. German or large language groups like Spanish, Hindi, French come to mind. 3) If you can‘t become a default search engine on safari, maybe you can role your own browser (chromium fork or something) where you are the default. You could package it as: MySearchEngine App. It is actually a fully functional browser, but users really use it because they want to use your search engine. That might give easier access than having to manually navigate to your website in safari.

</ end of unsolicited advice />

Have you tried Kagi.com? I switched to it and i'm very happy even with searches in my native language for example

The ultimate test of any search engine is always the results. While the project I'm working on is definitely still an alpha, I'd love to chat with you when you try it out. I don't want to take the conversation here off-topic. To your general points though, there are definitely opportunities to provide better results within specialist areas of knowledge, and for local markets.

I think most of the search startups are doing their own mobile app. On iOS, the system search and browser remains Google/Safari (and the App is essentially just a wrapper on Safari for browsing). But at least it is something. I think you'll see more people doing desktop apps, although the dominance of Google through Chromium forks for this isn't a coincidence. It feels like the bad old days of re-packaging Internet Explorer with a custom homepage all over again.

Multi-lingual search results in general; Google (and FB) just for some reason cannot comprehend that someone might have reasons to search in multiple languages or even regions. For instance, I at one point was an editor/fact-checker for an academic publisher and one project involved checking a lot of information from official government sources around the world, and Google did not know what to do with that.

Hell, I'd love to have the option to make the search results be completely language agnostic.

I sometimes have similar issues. But I can understand why Google might not want to cater to the multi-lingual market: perhaps it's just too niche?

I don't think it's too niche, I think they're just American.

A Canadian/Indian/EU-based Google probably would've ended up with multi-lingual support, whereas a China/UK based one probably wouldn't have.

By the time Google got big enough for international considerations, there were already a bunch of baked in assumptions about their users, like them being monolingual.

Don't you just set the region and language at the bottom?

I also search in multiple languages but I also know that's an exception. The majority of the people in the world likely would only use a single language and it's easy to believe that search results are better for those users with languages separated.

Yes, hence why I'd want an option for language agnostic results. It would be a terrible default.

There are cases when I'd even like REGION agnostic results, or least ones not bound by national boundaries. For example, I have an interest in my state history (MI), and there's plenty of relevant articles/commentary from the Canadians.

fwiw I use solution #3: the Brave browser, set to Brave search. So that option is not unrealistic now.

Also a fan of Brave browser here. The more people trying new things the better! I know some people don't like the crypto-angle with it, but I think it is a positive to test new economic models to support online content, personally.

Metager.org is my go to google search replacement. I imagine (although my German is non native) that the German search results are quite good. . . it being a German search engine. To be honest it the only search engine to get me off google - DDG is OK, as is searx, but I kept going back to the dirty G until Metager.

How much of the German challenge do you think is due to German being an inflected language? So a search engine that can't figure out the inflected variants of a word are going to potentially miss out on a large number of the relevant search results.

In addition to inflections, another factor may be the tendency to use compound words, so that a relevant word in context might not have a space at each end.

In English, Google is pretty good at figuring out when to add spaces in your queries (if you have a typo with your spaces). Similar technology should help it with German?

There's nothing magic about putting a space between words or not. Similar to whether you hyphenate or not.

Maybe it isn't a big deal; my thought was that if you're crawling a website and trying to associate its contents with search terms, parsing an uncommon compound word into the correct parts is going to come up more often in German than in English, especially if you're smaller than Google and German isn't your main focus. Are search engines good enough now to know that a string like electricovenmonitor is about ovens but not covens or Venmo?

At least in part this seems to be due to the profiles that Google has built. Whenever I try to use Google in anonymous mode, the results become noticeably worse.

Which, of course, means that it is yet another barrier to entry for any would-be competitors.

This could also be a perverse incentive reflected algorithmically (whether on purpose or not). Google has better data and makes more money when users are identified. So they have a vested interest in making users think that they will get worse results in Incognito mode.

Personalization is a double-edged sword. @pg once wrote about Google results becoming "what's true for you" rather than what's objectively true. And filter bubbles and subtle "personalization censorship" are also dangers. I think it's possible to have high quality results and privacy/anonymity, and it's not a binary choice. It's a challenge worth figuring out.

Totally agree that personalization is a double edged sword. Problem is getting people to actually want to change their personalized feeds/results. Most people have no clue what they’re missing and this issue has huge “Medium is the message” like implications.

I disagree about google being the best. For a start, their image search is massively behind bing. They do 0 work to remove pinterest spam. And DDG is way ahead of google on normal adhoc search.

I use my own server for search. I just had to add an OpenSearch xml file.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/OpenSearch

The OpenSearch standard is great and definitely an improvement where it's supported, but unfortunately as far as I'm aware in most browsers that's limited to site-search (in website search after typing a url). It doesn't work at all on iOS.

On Firefox it makes it easier to talk a non-technical user through how to change their default search engine, and at least they aren't entering search pattern strings into a settings field as with Chrome.

I use it on iOS Chrome.

As far as I'm aware and the OpenSearch docs, support is limited to in-site searches on most platforms outside of Firefox (not changing default search option for example using Chrome on iOS). Would be really interested in the steps you followed if you're happy to share them.

For sure. I added this file at the top level, as opensearch.xml. Sorry if formatting is wrecked.

  <OpenSearchDescription
      xmlns="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/"
      xmlns:moz="http://www.mozilla.org/2006/browser/search/"
    >

      <ShortName>My Search</ShortName>

      <Description>Personal Search</Description>

      <Url
        type="text/html"
        method="get"
        template="https://mysite.com/?q={searchTerms}"
      />

      <Url
        type="application/rss+xml"
        indexOffset="0"
        rel="results"
        template="/results?query={searchTerms}"
      />

      <Url
        type="application/json"
        rel="suggestions"
        template="/suggest?q={searchTerms}"
      />

      <InputEncoding>UTF-8</InputEncoding>

      <Image height="32" width="32" type="image/x-icon">
        https://yarnpkg.com/favicon.ico
      </Image>

    </OpenSearchDescription>

In the head tag:

I then went to my site on Chrome iOS and it showed up under Settings > Search Engine > Recently visited. I then selected it and now anything I put in my url bar gets sent to my server. It's pretty sick.

That's interesting, I don't get that option on Chrome on iPhone (Search Engine > Recently visited), except for the officially supported five (Google, Bing, Yahoo, DDG, Ecosia).

I'm wondering do you see that as an option visiting our site (we have an opensearch description for Andi also) or other search engines like You with one?

Very curious.

Yeah it didn't work. I checked https://andisearch.com/opensearch.xml but it redirected to that route with a trailing slash: https://andisearch.com/opensearch.xml/

That might be part of it.

Thanks for having a look. The opensearch file is https://andisearch.com/andi.xml, and it's correctly referenced from the "<link rel="search"..." opensearch tag. If you have a look in Firefox you'll see it prompts in the nav bar. So I don't think that would be the issue. Do you see anything for other engines like You with the opensearch head item?

I DM'd you on Discord :)

Thanks heaps! Will post the outcome here just in case anyone else is trying to make opensearch work on Chrome on iOS once we figure it out!

I'm thinking maybe Chrome on iOS has its own flavor of implementation and possibly it needs the filename to be "opensearch.xml" rather than looking at the <link> tag. I'm renaming the file to see if that makes a difference. If you had an example of another site where it worked, that would be awesome. At least one more platform where OpenSearch works for setting the default site search would be nice.

> So here's a challenge, try adding a search engine not on that list.

Well, you can. I just tried it and works. Granted, you need a third party app, but it's doable.

I'd be interested in the steps you took. Third-party Apps on iOS can't change the Safari or system-wide options for search engines as far as I'm aware. Installing a third-party App just gives you a wrapper around Safari for browsing while you use that App only. If you swipe down on your home screen to use the system search, or open Safari itself, nothing has changed. I can ask you to install our App or another search provider's App, but it doesn't change your iPhone's search engine or add it to Safari.

Kagi search has an extension. Maybe you could do something similar. It’s on the iOS store under kagi-search-for-safari.

That's interesting. I didn't think an extension could change the search engines available under Settings > Safari > Search Engine on iOS from the defaults (Google, Bing, Yahoo, DDG, Ecosia), or change the system-wide search used. Do you see different options now under Settings for search engines and did it change your system-wide search too (i.e. swipe down on home screen and then use the built-in Search)?

Swiping down doesn’t work, it’s in-browser only in the address bar. As for in safari, I don’t get options, but if the extension is enabled it redirects the search to Kagi.

Swiping down on my home screen gives search suggestions but no inline results. Clicking on those takes me to Kagi in safari.

No, it is a hack basically redirecting searches to a custom search engine. Good luck with Andisearch!

Yes, I found it a few weeks ago. It changes how safari works and improves it quite a lot.

I can block elements, and cookies in a site, define custom JavaScript or css, change the default search engine with one in a list o define a new one, and a whole lot of other things. All inside default safari.

Its name is Hyperweb. You can get it here: https://apps.apple.com/app/hyperweb/id1581824571

I tries you search engine with a few queries and I was pleasantly surprised! Keep up the good work!

I didn't want to take the discussion off topic but I appreciate that and thank you! Lots of work to do! Please reach out if you'd like to as well :)

Your search engine doesn't seem to offer an OpenSearch description. Wouldn't adding one solve the problem for some browsers at least? https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/

Thanks, just to let you know, yes, it does have an opensearch description. But in practical terms that doesn't help much even if a startup search engine adds it.

Unfortunately, while OpenSearch is great where it's supported, outside of Firefox, the only real support is for in-site-search on other platforms (where you type a site name and then a search string), and not for changing your browser search engine. And it doesn't work at all on iOS even for site search.

So unfortunately it doesn't fix the problem of how a consumer can easily change their search engine to something new on Chrome or Safari or an iPhone.

I don't want to sidetrack the discussion, but if you want to confirm the opensearch description, you can open our site in Firefox, then click the "..." in the browser address bar and then click "Install Andi Search". Or reach out and very happy to talk you through it.

I am using firefox (windows 10), I don't see the "..." in the browser address bar.

Edit: When I click the address bar, I see an small "A" icon in the bottom row. When I hower over it, it shows "install Andi search".

Depending on the platform, you might need to right-click on the Firefox browser address bar and choose the "Add search engine" option from the dropdown (where a website has it). Do you see an option to add a new search engine when you right-click the browser address bar at all?

[Edit: just saw the edit that you found it - thanks again for looking around for it too!]

> Google does not allow you to set the New Tab to another search engine

Firefox has removed the ability to set a default page for new tabs and requires users to install an extension to restore the functionality, which in fact provides degraded functionality. As originally implemented the new tab would load the new page instantly. With the extension, a new tab is created, focus is given to the URL bar and after a brief but noticeable pause, the chosen page loads.

You have a section in Andi Search which lets you try and set it as the default (in Firefox at least) but it doesn't work. Is that what you mean, or am I doing something wrong/weird?

BTW I really like what you're doing, and I'll definitely like to set it as default in Firefox somehow if I could just to try it out. My first tests were surprisingly good, I didn't expect it to deliver results which are accurate and which appear to at least match DDG. Nice one. [slightly unusual page format on desktop though :)]

Thanks! I don't want to distract from the main topic too much but would love to chat with you if you're open to it. There's a thread below with @neffity and I made some changes (trying to get Chrome on iOS to use OpenSearch) and broke that for a little. Update is just deploying now. I sincerely appreciate the feedback and you having a look too! :)

Hello Jed, that sucks. I understand that custom search engine exclusion is a financial decision by companies that can get away with almost whatever they want to do.

For iPhone, iPad, and macOS, you could use Swift and SwiftUI to write a single search app for your service. Flutter is pretty good also, then you could cover Windows and Linux also.

Go to search_engine.com in Safari. Share button. Add to Home Screen.

This is not a bad solution; I appreciate your browser rage.

Adding a shortcut to a website to the home screen is a nice convenience. Unfortunately, it doesn't add it as a search engine to your iPhone search, or to Safari. Even with a PWA (progressive web app), the App is just a wrapper on Safari. For a startup like us, it is probably the best option currently available, and we've tried to make it a good experience. But it does suffer the same drawbacks as a regular App as a browser replacement. If you swipe down from the home screen and type something into your iPhone's search bar, you're still using Google and Safari.

It takes approx. 5 seconds to add a new search engine to Safari on macOS.

What?

That's simply not true. Even as a technical user who knows what you're doing, you get a hard-coded choice of exactly five - Google, Bing, Yahoo, DDG or Ecosia. You can't add new ones at all. If you wanted to add a new search engine (like the one I'm working on, or any other), there is no way to do it.

But let's try it. Go to Safari > Preferences > Search and choose the "Search engine" dropdown, and you'll see you have a dropdown with only five options.

Google reportedly pays $15B per year for that top spot.

A work around is to add a safari extension like "Keyword Search" and associate a key word to your search. Its nothing like setting a default search engine for a normal user, but atleast there is a way for the slightly more technical user.

Though, I couldn't add a keyword to your site in firefox with its "Add a keyword" feature. Might be due to the javascript calling some url behind the screen.

Google pays Apple for the privilege to be the first.

Another way to think it is that Google pays Apple, so that they don't create their own search engine.

I actually don't think Apple could build a good search engine. They believe in privacy, and will be compared to engines that track you everywhere.

Or, it might be possible. But their constraints will make it far harder to build even a comparable search.

DDG is already a comparable privacy first search engine. Apple would just need to buy them in they cared, but instead they just promote them.

Wouldn’t the search be like the old days of google before they personalised everything?

Apple is operating a search engine right under our noses, hiding behind Siri. Applebot is regularly crawling the web. They’re probably much further along toward a privacy-focused search product than any of us would know.

I thought Siri's web results were returned from tour chosen search engine in settings. Does it use its own search?

"Web results" are. "Siri Suggested Websites" and "Siri Knowledge" are not — those are fed by Applebot. "Applebot is the web crawler for Apple. Products like Siri and Spotlight Suggestions use Applebot." — Apple's support document about Applebot.

I've wondered why no one has bought wolfram alpha and used it to power knowledge bases. Certainly it seems cheaper for Apple to have down that as a start point than to start from scratch. Maybe it's too technical for most users?

Doesn’t apple already have a search engine? Where do the results for Siri suggestions come from? (I really don’t know)

Just this morning I searched “air purifier” in safari and it suggested the wirecutter “best air purifiers” article

Siri uses Google by default.

xSearch for Safari makes the search experience on the Apple ecosystem much better. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/xsearch-for-safari/id157990206... Makes switching search engines easy and you can use "bangs" like in DuckDuckGo to use other search engines within safari.

The drop down options are limited though.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com