Tell HN: (dictionary|thesaurus).reference.com is now a spam site | Hacker News Reader

Tell HN: (dictionary|thesaurus).reference.com is now a spam site

51 pointsakkartik14 comments

I use it all the time, so this must be recent.

I learned of this when users of my dictionary search site (OneLook) started complaining. I'd been in contact with folks from dictionary.com in their early days, and I've watched its rise and fall with curiosity. If whoever owns reference.com now is reading this, I'll buy it from you and I can promise to honor its original mission as I have with OneLook -- make me an offer.

FYI dictionary.com and thesaurus.com are still available on their original domains. I believe that, under prior ownership (IAC), they consolidated the traffic of their properties under reference.com in order to get higher audience numbers in ComScore and hence better ad deals. It's baffling to me that they (apparently) either let the domain expire or sold it to a spammer. It's accrued brand equity since 2008 -- and no doubt a lot of backlinks, for whatever that's worth now.

I recommend WordHippo ( https://www.wordhippo.com/ ) as a one-stop shop for word stuff.

I usually use The Free Dictionary, https://www.thefreedictionary.com.

Wiktionary (https://en.wiktionary.org/) is pretty useful and ad free.

You can use the !wt bang command on duckduckgo to query it directly. It will bring up English definitions of words in other common languages like German.

Ex: !wt Schreibtischtäter brings you to https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Schreibtischt%C3%A4ter

In the last few years I've snatched inexpensive used copies of the 1942 Webster's New International Dictionary (unabridged — Nabokov's favorite) and the Compact OED (2nd ed.). Couldn't be happier.

I once found an unabridged OED c. 1984 ed. on the side of the road in Los Gatos CA with only the cover missing.

Have you ever come across an "inverted" abridged dictionary? A dictionary of the words which are most commonly abridged (removed) from a core dictionary.

dictionary.reference.com != dictionary.com, to be clear reference.com seems to be showing spammy content.

dictionary.com itself seems to be working as usual.

I'm just curious: does your local dictionary and thesaurus lack some feature that those sites used to provide for you? Maybe I'm just in a privileged position because the dictionary and thesaurus Spotlight integration is so handy, and I'd bet that Windows doesn't have nice things, or if they have them they're now also enshittified

There's no such thing in a Windows installation as iOS and macOS offer out of the box. There are apps, though, available via the Microsoft Store. A free one, called Oxford Dictionary and Thesaurus says this in its privacy policy:

III. Types of personal data collected

3.1 While using our Service, we may ask you to provide us with certain Personal Data. The categories of Personal Data may include, but are not limited to:

• First name and surname

• Country and country code

• Email address

• Phone number (if applicable)

• Habitual residence (if applicable)

• Google, Facebook, Huawei, Microsoft and/ or Apple credentials and profile pictures (if applicable)

• Billing and payment data – credit or debit card number, bank account information (if applicable) and information about payments

So, yeah.

• Cookies and Usage Data – device type, device ID and/ or IP address, crash logs data, diagnostic data, music files data and other information as clarified below (if applicable)

• Communications and content, including audio, video, text (typed, inked, dictated, or otherwise), in a message, email, or chat (if applicable).

It's really depressing that such obvious, classical applications for computers like replacing paper dictionaries, phone directories, etc. basically can't exist because if they did, they'd have to be enshittified into tools for advertising or surveillance.

Gee you make it sound like Windows and macOS are the only games in town :)

Good point. There is also a VMS dictionary: https://docs.vmssoftware.com/vsi-openvms-dcl-dictionary-a-m/

AmigaOS had dictioary.library which AmigaWriter used as could any other app, such as Lemmings.

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