• joojmachine@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    13
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    3 years ago

    Still needs better UX/UI if it ever wants to get close to being used by average folk. That’s how DDG and Startpage grew so much.

      • joojmachine@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        edit-2
        3 years ago

        Oh, I had no idea it existed, I stopped using searX around that time.

        I admit some instances have a design that looks MUCH better than before, but it’s still not good enough for the general public, since most larger instances still use searX instead of searXNG and not all instances have a nice looking interface still.

        That said, I’ll give one of the instances a shot as my main search engine.

        • Echedenyan@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          edit-2
          3 years ago

          You know you can change theme in the SearX config, right?.

          The default is not attractive but there are some that are very attractive.

          The instances you saw with other theme just did that, change the default value without real customization, with the exception of Disroot one.

          • joojmachine@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            3 years ago

            yes you can, but most instances don’t use the new, nice looking theme

            those that used it by default were the only ones at least, and I don’t have the funds to host my own instance, which I’d certainly like to do tho

            • Echedenyan@lemmy.ml
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              3 years ago

              You can chance that in the configuration and will be saved for your browser.

              No need to host your own.

              The configuration is at user level when you load the website.

              • joojmachine@lemmy.ml
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                3 years ago

                Yes, but again, not all instances have the newer theme as an option.

                The newer theme I’m talking about is a newer, more modern version of the already existing simple theme. Most instances still use the older version of it, that looks terrible in comparison.

                • Echedenyan@lemmy.ml
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  3 years ago

                  You said, “Still needs better UX/UI if it ever wants to get close to being used by average folk” in the beginning.

                  I always was replying to that. Now you speak about a “specific” theme.

                  And that is explained in these sentences:

                  "The default is not attractive but there are some that are very attractive.

                  The instances you saw with other theme just did that, change the default value without real customization, with the exception of Disroot one."

                  I don’t get your point to not use searX because of the lack of good UI.

                  • joojmachine@lemmy.ml
                    link
                    fedilink
                    arrow-up
                    1
                    ·
                    3 years ago

                    “The default is not attractive but there are some that are very attractive.”

                    And that’s precisely why most people will be turned off by it. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t use it because of a lack of a good UI, I’m saying that recommending it to people while it doesn’t offer a good default experience for the average user is certain to end in either confusion or disappointment for those people, which will probably end back to Google or DDG after giving it a shot and finding it ugly to look at.

                    The worst part is the work is all there. The new simple theme looks amazing, it just needs to be the default for most instances and maybe having a better logo and that’s it. That’s all you need.

                    searX is that good.