HN Explorer

Show HN: Allsearch – Making it easier to use different search engines seamlessly (allsear.ch)

53 points by WiggleGuy ↗ HN
Allsearch is a tool I made after getting fed up with Google's search results and reading up on conversations on HN about the state of search on the internet.

This is a tool I made as a spiritual successor to GnodSearch (https://www.gnod.com/search/), which I've seen in a couple conversations about search on HN. GnodSearch is great, but a bit barebones in terms of looks and functionality; Allsearch is my attempt to build off of it.

Similar to Gnod, Allsearch allows you to apply any given search query to a search engine of your choice (either through only keystrokes, or via mouse). However, it also allows you to add your own engines to its catalogue, and allows you to define macros to use multiple engines simultaneously (useful for easily comparing engines).

It's not feature complete; there are still some things I'd like to add in. There are way more engines I want to add to it's default catalogue, and I also want to add in the ability to export your settings to allow people to easily share their Allsesarch configurations.

Curious about people's thoughts on it :)

36 comments

[ 701 ms ] story [ 1279 ms ] thread
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
lionkor
Cool idea!

FYI in DuckDuckGo, you can use

!g for google

!b for bing

!y for yahoo

!w for wikipedia

!r for reddit

and a few thousand more, covering pretty much any larger search engine, wiki, or reference:

https://duckduckgo.com/bang

radonek
Opera browser had this feature since dawn of time and some others copied it.
WiggleGuy
Yeah. I've been thinking of implementing something similar to DDG's !bangs or Firefox's keywords, but at the same time I don't want to make a tool that's just a worse version of those; I'm wondering what I can do to improve on those.
guywithahat
DuckDuckGo has been getting caught in a bunch of censorship scandals recently, and unlike other search engines they're more likely to just blacklist a site in my experience. I'm not sure I would jump to use them first
lionkor
Sorry, you are misunderstanding. This is about using ddg as a sort of "meta search engine", to call other search engines from.
karlzt
Also Brave search has that same feature.
Fnoord
Yeah you can also use shortcuts within your browser, if you keep that feature enabled. Personally I find it easier to just do like I do with other URLs: enter the URL. But given people use Android and iOS apps which are (proprietary) frontends for websites powered by HTTP(S) client I am not surprised there's demand for this. Besides, DDG is usually hit for me, and if its not I refine my search first on DDG. If that wouldn't work (usually it does) I'd follow the same approach on Google.
lionkor
> ... like I do with other URLs: enter the URL.

Entering `en.cppreference.com`, waiting for it to load with my slow-ish internet, then typing `vector` into the search field, is WAY more time and effort than just typing `!cpp vector`, which leads me directly to the results I want.

KIDSSEEGHOSTS
Hi, I really like this site, how can I contact you, I have some questions like how to export the custom rules, thanks a lot.
3np
> Curious about people's thoughts on it :)

Where's the source code?

Couldn't get it to work: A 429 from `https://api.pexels.com/v1/search?orientation=landscape&query...` (why is that required?) seems to make he rest of the page noop.

WiggleGuy
Arg that probably means the API I used to get backgrounds ran into it's quota. It's strange that that causes the page to noop, in my tests the promise reflects gracefully. I'll look into that.
3np
I'm sure they'd appreciate it if you fronted it with a caching proxy of your own - might cut down the bills as well ;)
closedloop129
Have a look at https://searchaggregate.com/

I wouldn't hide the list of search engines behind options.

The macros are a good idea. Looking forward to when you allow people to share them. I would add one macro by default to allow an instant test.

kamban
Searchaggregate looks nice. I can easily switch engines depending on the search queries.
rco8786
The return of Dogpile!
rovr138
I wish it was a metasearch engine like dogpile.

It just opens a new tab with the term you entered on the search engine you clicked.

So type ‘test’, hit google and it just opens google with ‘test’.

dothis
Is it really a downside that Gnod Search is barebones?

I thought that is a conscious design decision.

Personally, I prefer to quickly go through a simple page with an input box and search buttons than to go through a page with a background image and logos.

WiggleGuy
Well the main reason I made Allsearch wasn't for the looks: I was just having fun there. The main reason was for the features that Gnod doesn't have, like the ability to add your your own engines or to define macros.
weba11y
It should probably do something when you type & hit the 'enter' key (even if its just a dialog asking what search engine you'd like to use).

Or maybe I am missing something, as you said you it can used with just a keyboard. I'm on Chrome...

WiggleGuy
Yes: engines have shortcuts associated with them. So the shortcut for Google, for example, is g. If you type something in, press enter, then just press g, it will forward your search to Google.

You can tell what shortcut an engine has by the underlined letter (or the letter in square brackets).

I'll add in a prompt.

msravi
Ok, how does one use this? I type something and press <enter> and nothing happens. The "help" page is particularly unhelpful - it says "Activate search engines by clicking on them or using their shortcuts (indicated by underlined text or [])."

Ok, clicking is fine, but how does one use the "shortcuts?"

Edit: Oh, I see now. You've to type the search term, press <enter> (which sort-of puts it into a command mode) and then type the "shortcut" key. Problem was that my tridactyl extension was interfering with the shortcut command.

WiggleGuy
I added a new feature: Allsearch Rules. Similar to !bangs, it allows the user to define rules that will automatically launch certain macros or engines based on strings in your search. Rules also allow you to replace certain strings with other strings (so, for example, @r can be replaced with site:foo.com).

Also added in the ability to import and export your Allsearch config.