Findy, the first and only smart mobile browser for consumers, has announced plans to take back your rights to decentralize web search – by taking on a little company called Google.
Findy co-founders Aaron Rosenthal and Jason Phillips saw an opportunity to declutter and un-sponsor the web experience, refining the way users search, explore, and discover. “We reverse-engineered the Internet,” said Rosenthal in a statement. “And Google is gonna hate us.”
Powered by community-driven AI, the result is a robust, distraction-free browsing experience that allows users to discover and consume content like never before. “Not sure why someone has not done this before,” reads a user review. Another reads, “How did I ever live without this app?”
With the ability to digest hundreds of web pages at once, Findy simultaneously searches classified sites such as Craigslist, eBay, LetGo, and OfferUp to deliver the most accurate, real-time results in an easy-to-manage, “Pinterest-like” structure. But unlike Craigslist, Google, or Pinterest, you’re not seeing ads, duplicates, scams, or sponsored results. And the real kicker? Findy doesn’t want your data. At all.
Here’s what Findy does:
• Searches thousands of sites and marketplace listings at once.
• Eliminates ads, duplicates, and sponsored results.
• Enables faster content while your data remains private on your device.
• Community-powered means it gets smarter and faster as more users engage.
• Deep links allow you to search across your favorite apps.
• Start, stop, and re-engage your searches at any time.
In an that’s industry controlled 90% by Google, Findy gives users an unbiased search option. “Some would consider this control a monopoly,” Phillips continued. “But we see this as an opportunity, and we have the data to prove it.”
About Findy:
Findy is the world’s first search engine powered by your phone, bridging websites and apps together to make it easy to find what you want – search results that adapt to your choices, tastes, and interactions. Findy eliminates the extra work of having to hop from site-to-site and provides centralized results free of ads and duplicates.
Findy is available on iOS and Android in North America with plans to expand worldwide. More information and download link via Apple’s App Store here.
MacDailyNews Take: Anything that helps to decentralize web search and provide some competition for Google’s search empire is a good thing.
Give Findy a whirl and see how it works for you.
DuckDuckGo has been doing this for years. I’ll stick with them.
Have been using duck duck go for years too but will compare to this newcomer.
Imagine what Apple’s Sherlock could have been by now if they hadn’t abandoned development of it immediately after launch.
So, this is a press release, right?
Also, if we’re pushing all of this private information through this app, what kind of background do the developers have? Whats their business model, if they aren’t doing ads?
I read the privacy policy, and it seems like there’s a lot of wiggle room for what kinds of things they can do with the data they collect. I mean: “Findy doesn’t want your data. At all.” The problem is, it doesn’t matter what they say they “want.” To make this service function, they ARE going to get a lot of data. That could be fine, or it could be a problem.
The marketing speak in the press release above is a bit over-the-top and makes me nervous:
– “take back your rights to decentralize web search” Huh? We have a right to decentralize web search? I like the idea, but it seems like an oddly-specific “right.” Perhaps this is a piece of what I believe is a right to privacy generally?
– “Powered by community-driven AI” – so, if the community is driving this, the choices users make must be going somewhere to be shared to others. That’s data collection. Again, it might be fine, but it seems weird to claim they “don’t want your data” when they absolutely DO need the data of what you choose.
– “provides centralized results” – is this in opposition to our “rights to decentralize web search” ?
Basically, this sounds like an interesting concept, but it seems like the PR is big on wonderful-sounding phrases and low on “how we actually do this” explanations.
Those phrases sound like they came right out the “Web Marketing Bullshit Generator”.
Quite bold of MDN to bite the hand that feeds it. How many Google trackers are you using now?
Eliminate the Google Analytics and Google AdSense infesting this site and then you might have the moral basis to speak out. Hypocrites.
Let’s say that the App is the Panacea it’s intended to be.
It’s possible because of Android’s open access and Google couldn’t forbid it if they wanted to.
If Google behaved like Apple, this App duplicates functionality and would have been forbidden.
It’s up to the user to determine if it’s any good.