[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":437},["ShallowReactive",2],{"project-46417748":3},{"id":4,"name":5,"line":6,"line_source":7,"title":8,"url":9,"domain":10,"maker":11,"posted_at":12,"year":13,"points":14,"comments":15,"rank_in_year":16,"shown_in_year":17,"top":18,"tier":19,"category":20,"subcategory":21,"format":22,"keywords":23,"reception":29,"sentiment":30,"stance_mix":31,"scored_comments":36,"aspects":37,"strip":45,"post_text":48,"what":49,"said":69,"maker_in_thread":191,"shape":203,"grid":207,"attempts":399,"same_week":400,"maker_shows":294,"maker_hidden":429,"reader_version":430,"card":431},"46417748","nilch","My not-for-profit search engine with no ads, no AI, & all DDG bangs","title","Show HN: My not-for-profit search engine with no ads, no AI, & all DDG bangs","https:\u002F\u002Fnilch.org","nilch.org","UnmappedStack",1766985925,2025,199,76,329,3837,9,"notable","web_saas","search engine frontend","web_app",[24,25,26,27,28],"search engine","ddg bangs","no ads search","privacy search","non-profit search","roasted",-0.383,{"positive":32,"neutral":33,"mixed":34,"critical":35},4,10,0,16,30,{"execution":38,"idea":40,"docs":42,"design":44},{"positive":34,"critical":39},8,{"positive":32,"critical":41},6,{"positive":34,"critical":43},1,{"positive":34,"critical":43},[43,43,43,34,34,46,34,34,34,46,34,34,34,34,34,34,34,34,46,43,34,43,34,43,43,43,46,43,43,46,46,47,34,46,47,43,43,43,46,34],3,5,"I've been working on a little open source [1] search engine, nilch. I noticed that nearly all well known search engines, including the alternative ones, tend to be run by companies of various sizes with the goal to make money, so they either fill your results with ads or charge you money, and I dislike this because search is the backbone of the internet and should not be commercial, so it runs in a not-for-profit style and aims to survive on donations. Additionally I'm personally really sick of AI in my search results so I got rid of that, and I wanted DuckDuckGo bangs so it supports all of th",{"problem":50,"audience":56,"pricing":57,"motivation":61,"time_to_build":56,"stack":65,"openness":66,"stage":67,"team_size":68},{"value":51,"source":52,"evidence":53},"Search engines are ad-funded or paid; maker wants ad-free, not-for-profit, private search without AI results","maker",[54],{"id":55},"post",null,{"value":58,"source":52,"evidence":59},"Donation-funded, no ads",[60],{"id":55},{"value":62,"source":52,"evidence":63},"Believes search should not be commercial and is tired of AI in results",[64],{"id":55},[],"open_source","launched","solo",{"praise":70,"objections":83,"requests":128,"questions":151,"alternatives":163},[71],{"value":72,"source":73,"evidence":74},"Good concept of ad-free, non-profit search with DDG bangs","commenter",[75,79],{"id":76,"by":77,"text":78},"46419131","soldthat","The fact that “no ads and no AI” reads like a luxury feature set in 2025 says a lot about the state of search. Nice reset to sane defaults.",{"id":80,"by":81,"text":82},"46418169","Imustaskforhelp","Awesome project, I have a quick suggestion but can you please make adding custom ddg bangs into your project itself rather quickly? There was this project on hackernews which was…",[84,99,106,113],{"value":85,"source":73,"evidence":86},"It is just a thin frontend over the Brave Search API, not a real search engine",[87,91,95],{"id":88,"by":89,"text":90},"46418723","Tiberium","Right now it seems like the project is just a thin wrapper over Brave Search. Building a complete search engine is way harder than that. You could look into using…",{"id":92,"by":93,"text":94},"46421188","immibis","> nilch uses the Brave search API internally for results. I wish wrappers would stop being called search engines. Google is a search engine, and so is Bing, and Yandex, and…",{"id":96,"by":97,"text":98},"46418787","RadiozRadioz","So it's not a search engine, it's a frontend for a search engine.",{"value":100,"source":73,"evidence":101},"Non-profit status unverified; appears to be a sole proprietorship",[102],{"id":103,"by":104,"text":105},"46418853","dangus","You can just turn off the AI feature in Brave search so it’s sort of extra pointless. It’s possibly worth pointing out that the about page doesn’t offer any indicator that this…",{"value":107,"source":73,"evidence":108},"Open ranking algorithm would help spammers",[109],{"id":110,"by":111,"text":112},"46418342","everfree","I believe an open source ranking algorithm is antithetical to good search, sadly. It hands spammers a recipe for how to push past legitimate sites to dominate the search results.",{"value":114,"source":73,"evidence":115},"Bugs with quoted searches and JSON errors",[116,120,124],{"id":117,"by":118,"text":119},"46418726","axiolite","Doesn't seem to like double-quoted search strings: ``` SyntaxError: JSON.parse: unexpected character at line 1 column 1 of the JSON data ``` Single-quotes don't seem to work…",{"id":121,"by":122,"text":123},"46418826","ILoveHorses","I get this error anytime I search anything. ``` Error loading search results. Please try again. SyntaxError: JSON.parse: unexpected keyword at line 1 column 1 of the JSON data ```",{"id":125,"by":126,"text":127},"46418827","thesdev","Searching for \"DOMContentLoaded\" gives me an error \"'noresults' is not valid JSON\" and the page gets stuck in an infinite refresh loop. Edit: It's actually unrelated to the…",[129,136,143],{"value":130,"source":73,"evidence":131},"Support DDG-style bangs anywhere in query and bare '!' to open first result",[132],{"id":133,"by":134,"text":135},"46418978","ckardaris","Interesting project. Thanks for sharing. I am also a fan of DDG bangs and I see two missing features: 1. DDG supports bangs at any place in the query (even in the middle of it).…",{"value":137,"source":73,"evidence":138},"Autocomplete suggestions",[139],{"id":140,"by":141,"text":142},"46418448","angel-","Will you include suggested autocomplete searches?",{"value":144,"source":73,"evidence":145},"Fix input validation and quoted search handling",[146,150],{"id":147,"by":148,"text":149},"46418992","supermatt","You NEED to validate\u002Fescape untrusted input. Searching “ causes an error https:\u002F\u002Fcheatsheetseries.owasp.org\u002Fcheatsheets\u002FInput_Validation_Cheat_Sheet.html",{"id":117,"by":118,"text":119},[152],{"value":153,"source":73,"evidence":154},"How is it better than Brave Search or searxng?",[155,159],{"id":156,"by":157,"text":158},"46423315","sjs382","How is it better?",{"id":160,"by":161,"text":162},"46418352","renegat0x0","How is it different from searxng then?",[164,172,176,180,184],{"value":165,"source":73,"evidence":166},"Brave Search",[167,171],{"id":168,"by":169,"text":170},"46423687","GaryBluto","Why would I use this over Brave search if I were already using it? Especially when all it seems to add is a childish rant against LLMs, \"G**gle\" and \"D*ckD*ckGo\".",{"id":103,"by":104,"text":105},{"value":173,"source":73,"evidence":174},"Kagi",[175],{"id":103,"by":104,"text":105},{"value":177,"source":73,"evidence":178},"SearXNG",[179],{"id":160,"by":161,"text":162},{"value":181,"source":73,"evidence":182},"Marginalia Search",[183],{"id":88,"by":89,"text":90},{"value":185,"source":73,"evidence":186},"YaCy",[187],{"id":188,"by":189,"text":190},"46422064","Marsymars","It's possible, see the YaCy project. It suffer from probably a couple of orders of magnitude too few resources (in the funding\u002Fdevelopment sense) to really be competitive though.",{"comments":192,"answered":46,"key":193},17,[194,197,200],{"id":195,"text":196},"46418734","Yup, it is pretty much just a better frontend for existing search. I want to build my own index and ranking algorithm in the future, but sadly it's quite resource intensive so it…",{"id":198,"text":199},"46418850","Sure, would've made for a chunky post title tho :P",{"id":201,"text":202},"46418875","That's fair enough. For the record I do intend to apply for a non-profit official entity. I would say it still has a role as opposed to Brave considering the lack of advertising…",{"commenters":204,"max_depth":41,"maker_replies":192,"first_comment_mins":205,"lifespan_hours":206},49,102,268,[208,210,212,214,216,218,219,222,226,229,233,234,237,240,242,245,247,250,253,257,258,261,264,266,268,271,273,275,277,280,283,285,287,290,293,296,299,302,303,306,308,309,311,314,315,316,318,320,323,325,329,330,332,333,335,338,340,342,346,348,352,354,357,360,362,364,368,372,376,379,380,383,388,392,394,396],[88,34,43,209,89,34],"project\u002Fcritical\u002Fexecution",[195,34,34,211,11,43],"maker\u002Fneutral\u002Fidea",[96,34,43,213,97,34],"project\u002Fcritical\u002Fidea",[198,34,34,215,11,43],"maker\u002Fneutral\u002Fnone",[103,34,43,217,104,34],"project\u002Fcritical\u002Fdocs",[201,34,34,215,11,43],[220,34,34,221,104,34],"46419624","commenter\u002Fneutral\u002Fnone",[223,34,34,224,225,34],"46418953","other\u002Fneutral\u002Fidea","Fnoord",[227,34,34,224,228,34],"46428345","windexh8er",[230,34,34,231,232,34],"46419817","other\u002Fneutral\u002Fnone","riedel",[156,34,46,211,157,34],[235,43,34,224,236,34],"46418424","DeepSeaTortoise",[238,43,34,231,239,34],"46418446","grey-area",[241,43,34,221,11,43],"46418480",[243,43,34,231,244,34],"46418457","BrenBarn",[246,43,34,221,11,43],"46418464",[248,43,34,221,249,34],"46418510","NitpickLawyer",[251,43,34,252,11,43],"46418525","project\u002Fneutral\u002Fpricing",[254,43,46,255,256,34],"46420868","project\u002Fneutral\u002Fidea","Intermernet",[188,43,34,224,189,34],[259,43,34,221,260,34],"46418984","YetAnotherNick",[262,43,34,221,263,34],"46419211","ranguna",[265,43,34,221,260,34],"46420561",[267,43,34,221,263,34],"46551835",[269,43,34,231,270,34],"46418582","barrell",[272,43,34,231,236,34],"46420040",[274,43,34,221,118,34],"46418783",[276,43,34,221,260,34],"46418981",[278,43,34,231,279,34],"46419468","input_sh",[281,43,34,221,282,34],"46420048","topaz0",[284,43,34,221,260,34],"46420596",[286,43,34,231,236,34],"46420779",[288,43,34,231,289,34],"46420428","stevage",[291,43,34,231,292,34],"46421808","Zardoz84",[133,294,46,295,134,34],2,"project\u002Fneutral\u002Fexecution",[297,294,34,298,11,43],"46419001","maker\u002Fneutral\u002Fexecution",[300,294,46,295,301,34],"46440762","jbaber",[168,46,43,213,169,34],[304,46,34,221,305,34],"46423998","inetknght",[307,46,34,221,169,34],"46426680",[110,32,43,213,111,34],[310,32,34,255,11,43],"46418367",[312,32,34,224,313,34],"46418669","Tepix",[92,47,43,213,93,34],[147,41,43,209,148,34],[317,41,34,298,11,43],"46419048",[121,319,43,209,122,34],7,[321,319,43,209,322,34],"46418869","BaudouinVH",[324,319,34,298,11,43],"46418882",[326,39,47,327,328,34],"46429864","project\u002Fpositive\u002Fidea","AmiteK",[125,18,43,209,126,34],[331,18,34,298,11,43],"46418995",[117,33,43,209,118,34],[334,33,34,298,11,43],"46418727",[336,33,43,209,337,34],"46418819","consp",[160,339,46,255,161,34],11,[341,339,34,211,11,43],"46418361",[343,339,46,344,345,34],"46419068","project\u002Fneutral\u002Fdesign","KomoD",[80,347,47,327,81,34],12,[349,347,34,350,351,34],"46418230","other\u002Fneutral\u002Fprivacy","prmoustache",[353,347,34,221,11,43],"46418370",[355,347,34,356,11,43],"46418349","maker\u002Fneutral\u002Fpricing",[358,347,46,255,359,34],"46430546","Leftium",[361,347,46,255,81,34],"46436339",[363,347,46,255,359,34],"46436753",[365,366,47,327,367,34],"46424428",13,"mesosan",[369,370,34,231,371,34],"46419534",14,"ngc6677",[373,374,43,213,375,34],"46424889",15,"amortka",[377,35,43,213,378,34],"46422664","throwatdem12311",[140,192,46,344,141,34],[381,192,34,382,11,43],"46418470","maker\u002Fneutral\u002Fdesign",[384,385,43,386,387,34],"46446420",18,"project\u002Fcritical\u002Fdesign","Terretta",[389,390,43,209,391,34],"46419402",19,"nubinetwork",[76,393,47,327,77,34],20,[395,393,34,211,11,43],"46419158",[397,393,34,224,398,34],"46421484","IshKebab",[],[401,406,411,416,420,424],{"id":402,"name":403,"points":404,"category":405},"46435308","HackerBook",730,"data",{"id":407,"name":408,"points":409,"category":410},"46392910","Witr",526,"dev_tools",{"id":412,"name":413,"points":414,"category":415},"46417815","Z80-μLM",514,"ai",{"id":417,"name":418,"points":419,"category":410},"46400251","Ez FFmpeg",420,{"id":421,"name":422,"points":423,"category":405},"46442245","exopriors.com",397,{"id":425,"name":426,"points":427,"category":428},"46420453","balajmarius.com",284,"creative",false,"v2",{"id":432,"name":5,"line":6,"ai":429,"cat":20,"year":13,"points":14,"comments":15,"rec":29,"s":433,"top":18,"kw":434,"maker":11,"domain":10,"tier":19,"attempts":34,"strip":435,"url":9,"mix":436,"praise":72,"objection":85,"sub":21},46417748,-0.38,[24,25,26,27,28],"1110030003000000003101011131133503511130",[32,33,34,35],1794036688330]