Double Zen: two searches in one without tracking and SMS
Once a month, a report about my activity in a Google account falls to me in the mail — a curious reading, because I myself can sometimes forget that I was googling at one time or another — but Google remembers everything. This may be one of, although not the only reason, to try as a main search engine to use the minimalist anonymous search aggregator “Google” and “Yandex” DzenPoisk.ru .
Zen Fox is a Zen Search
To shake up, but not to mix, the principle is not only the signature Bond cocktail, but also the legal use of the search capabilities of these two giants. Do whatever you want, as long as the results of Yandex are not under any sauce on the same page as Google’s.
Generally, it depends on your priorities. On the one hand, using only one search engine, you can often miss the useful sites available to users of other search engines. But on the other hand, it’s not that the need to compare the results of issuing two search engines was a daily necessity for a significant number of users - usually, users still have one search engine, and Zen Search does not claim to break established traditions, by default always opening a tab with the service that You used the last time.
So, rather, the “DzenPoisk” trick is in the anonymity of this very search. That, in general, becomes relevant even for the most law-abiding users in a country where the law obliges you to store data about your users for at least six months. So explain to comrade major half a year later that googled "little girls panties" because the spouse asked to buy new clothes for her daughter.
')
But the real paranoiac cannot be satisfied with simple words. What guarantees can we have that a service that promises privacy will not be an even cleverer trap than a good uncle Google? Service developers answer this question like this:
At the same time, a double search allows you to depend less on the quirks of a particular search engine - the main one of which, of course, may be the threat of blocking:
Half the power of "Vkontakte" rests on a huge collection of illegal music and movies. In fact, VK is a service where people keep friends and music - the two most important substances in the life of the millenial generation. Dragging music into a search engine is a great idea. In Soundcloud, you can really find almost everything. This is much better than what the search giants offer: for example, in recent years, my traditional script for finding music, the name I read somewhere and wanted to listen to, was: right-click in Google → click on the YouTube window in the issue → new tab with the song. Honestly, a little over the top - first, why do I need a video if I just want to hear a shortcut, and secondly, I don’t like extra tabs. In this sense, the built-in AUDIO searcher really solves my problem.
But still, to the state of killer features, the search lacks the ability to create playlists, which would directly contradict the idea of anonymity of the search engine. This could already be food for the creators of the extension, if Dzenpoisk becomes popular. In general, it is just thinking out loud. The main thing: the search for music - it is promising.
Miracles for free does not happen, so the transition to an anonymous two-headed search will require the same to get used to a number of inconveniences. What they are - I will tell below, but whether it is worth it or not is up to you.
First, that Google, that “Yandex” has long since moved away from just search results, trying to immediately give answers to the user's question: for example, the translation of a word or the exchange rate immediately on the issue screen. “Zenpoisk” has not yet been trained in such tricks, offering a more old-school version with a transition to the corresponding site.
Secondly, in the place that “Google” in its issuance uses for clever hints, it is forcibly imposed on partners by its advertising, taking 60% of its income from it. However, this is easily treated by the adblock, and in the Yandex tab, which is offered in the default search engine, there is no advertising at all.
There are a number of features of Zenpoiska - autoswitching of the issuing language for English-language queries, advanced mathematical calculator, improved maps - which, of course, will be interesting to many, but are unlikely to determine the fate of the project. With all the shortcomings peculiar to startups - and not all startups are being released already licked and abundantly fertilized with bubble from the incubators, there is still room for good old garage initiatives - Dzenpoisk looks like a very interesting attempt worth giving a chance.
I also could not resist the experiment, putting Dzenpoisk as my default search engine. Glory to Khrom, replacing the search engine with minimal stress for the user, just changing the search operator in the settings, and voila: searching through the address bar displays “Zen”, in the menu of the right button Zen appears instead of Google.
At the level of psychology, this makes the transition to a new search engine much easier than the need to memorize a new site and get used to its face. However, the main “Zen Search” with its lonely search line will appeal to lovers of minimalism, and for those who have achieved enlightenment through the settings you can leave only one text cursor at all.
One way or another, DzenPoisk is not at all harassing to its users. So why not try it.
Zen Fox is a Zen Search
To shake up, but not to mix, the principle is not only the signature Bond cocktail, but also the legal use of the search capabilities of these two giants. Do whatever you want, as long as the results of Yandex are not under any sauce on the same page as Google’s.
Why do you need it
Generally, it depends on your priorities. On the one hand, using only one search engine, you can often miss the useful sites available to users of other search engines. But on the other hand, it’s not that the need to compare the results of issuing two search engines was a daily necessity for a significant number of users - usually, users still have one search engine, and Zen Search does not claim to break established traditions, by default always opening a tab with the service that You used the last time.
So, rather, the “DzenPoisk” trick is in the anonymity of this very search. That, in general, becomes relevant even for the most law-abiding users in a country where the law obliges you to store data about your users for at least six months. So explain to comrade major half a year later that googled "little girls panties" because the spouse asked to buy new clothes for her daughter.
')
But the real paranoiac cannot be satisfied with simple words. What guarantees can we have that a service that promises privacy will not be an even cleverer trap than a good uncle Google? Service developers answer this question like this:
And what guarantees, in principle, can anonymous services have? Probably none. Just if the opposite is found, such services will immediately lose their audience, which went here for anonymity. By the way, our audience, which appreciates anonymity, is only 10%. Judging by the reviews in Vkontakte "ZenPoisk" , now they and its international version MinimalSearch.com are used primarily for minimalism (50%), and only then for the opportunity to compare the output of Yandex + Google (25%). Here by the way is still a good question what is considered anonymity, 100% anonymity on the Internet does not exist in principle. For our part, we use TLS encryption, do not store and, therefore, cannot send anyone a log of search queries, visited sites, the IP address of the user, prevent the transfer of a search query to sites that are being transferred, we do not have and there will be no accounts or links to phone - in general, everything that is written in our Privacy Policy. But we don’t plan to stop on this; now we are working on using proxies, integrating with Tor, anonymity is one of the priority directions of our development.
At the same time, a double search allows you to depend less on the quirks of a particular search engine - the main one of which, of course, may be the threat of blocking:
Theoretically, of course, there is a risk and there were examples of the ban of the once popular meta-search engines from Google. But so far a) the license agreement is observed, b) the providers themselves receive income from such services + expand their market share, receive a new distribution channel, c) receive a new player, i.e. the opportunity to learn for free from his mistakes / victories, d) in the case of everything they can always be slammed - the risk remains not very large. And even if the hour X comes, we will be able to replace the provider with another, which has a decent Russian localization.
Music Search
Half the power of "Vkontakte" rests on a huge collection of illegal music and movies. In fact, VK is a service where people keep friends and music - the two most important substances in the life of the millenial generation. Dragging music into a search engine is a great idea. In Soundcloud, you can really find almost everything. This is much better than what the search giants offer: for example, in recent years, my traditional script for finding music, the name I read somewhere and wanted to listen to, was: right-click in Google → click on the YouTube window in the issue → new tab with the song. Honestly, a little over the top - first, why do I need a video if I just want to hear a shortcut, and secondly, I don’t like extra tabs. In this sense, the built-in AUDIO searcher really solves my problem.
But still, to the state of killer features, the search lacks the ability to create playlists, which would directly contradict the idea of anonymity of the search engine. This could already be food for the creators of the extension, if Dzenpoisk becomes popular. In general, it is just thinking out loud. The main thing: the search for music - it is promising.
Underwater rocks
Miracles for free does not happen, so the transition to an anonymous two-headed search will require the same to get used to a number of inconveniences. What they are - I will tell below, but whether it is worth it or not is up to you.
First, that Google, that “Yandex” has long since moved away from just search results, trying to immediately give answers to the user's question: for example, the translation of a word or the exchange rate immediately on the issue screen. “Zenpoisk” has not yet been trained in such tricks, offering a more old-school version with a transition to the corresponding site.
Secondly, in the place that “Google” in its issuance uses for clever hints, it is forcibly imposed on partners by its advertising, taking 60% of its income from it. However, this is easily treated by the adblock, and in the Yandex tab, which is offered in the default search engine, there is no advertising at all.
Final weighing
There are a number of features of Zenpoiska - autoswitching of the issuing language for English-language queries, advanced mathematical calculator, improved maps - which, of course, will be interesting to many, but are unlikely to determine the fate of the project. With all the shortcomings peculiar to startups - and not all startups are being released already licked and abundantly fertilized with bubble from the incubators, there is still room for good old garage initiatives - Dzenpoisk looks like a very interesting attempt worth giving a chance.
I also could not resist the experiment, putting Dzenpoisk as my default search engine. Glory to Khrom, replacing the search engine with minimal stress for the user, just changing the search operator in the settings, and voila: searching through the address bar displays “Zen”, in the menu of the right button Zen appears instead of Google.
At the level of psychology, this makes the transition to a new search engine much easier than the need to memorize a new site and get used to its face. However, the main “Zen Search” with its lonely search line will appeal to lovers of minimalism, and for those who have achieved enlightenment through the settings you can leave only one text cursor at all.
One way or another, DzenPoisk is not at all harassing to its users. So why not try it.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/234321/
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