Wutsearch: Search Engine Launchpad

Recently launched a simple one-page website called Wutsearch. Wutsearch is a search-engine launchpad that I use for my homepage. Usually I work with several browsers open, each set to open multiple tabs on startup. For a long time, all those tabs were set to the Google homepage. Then DuckDuckGo. Now, it’s Wutsearch 🚀

Wutsearch is a launchpad with your choice of 20+ search engines.

Wutsearch.com – Options panel – Choose your search engines

Frictionless Search Launchpad

I do a LOT of searching and browsing. For all sorts of stuff. And guess what? There are some things that you just can’t find in Google. Or don’t appear in DuckDuckGo. Some topics are better researched using the Yandex search engine. Likewise Bing and other search engines each have their own pro and cons, depending on topic, location, and other factors. There is no “perfect” search engine. There’s only the optimal search engine for any given time, location, and query.

Finding stuff online is an art, and requires multiple brushes.

Wutsearch is a palette of the best search engines. A frictionless search launchpad that requires zero extra clicks. Simply type your query in any search box and hit enter to open the results in a new tab. Literally nothing could be easier.

Other methods of choosing/using multiple search engines require multiple clicks, which means more time and work getting results. For example, using the browser’s built-in search picker requires an extra click. Likewise using bookmarks requires a couple of clicks. With Wutsearch it’s liquid UX, point and shoot:

NO clicks required to use whatever search engine I want.

Screenshots

Here are some screenshots of Wutsearch (version 1.6).

Wutsearch.com – Dark mode

Wutsearch.com – Lite mode

Whether the “dark mode” or “lite mode” displays depends on your OS preferences. The dynamic lite/dark functionality happens via the following CSS queries:

@media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) { }
@media (prefers-color-scheme: light) { }

For more about how this works, check out this post by David Walsh. You can see the technique in action by examining the Wutsearch source code.

Features

Wutsearch is a simple, one-page site that provides some nice features:

• 100% Free — free for everyone always
• Universal — works in any web browser (desktop and mobile)
• No tracking — Wutsearch never tracks you, but the search engines might ;)
• JavaScript optional — works on any device, no JavaScript required
• Lightweight and fast — performance optimized, page loads quickly
• Lite/dark mode — Automatic lite/dark display based on OS preferences
• Options panel — Choose what search engines you want
• Drag-&-drop — Drag/drop ordering of search engines

Yes it’s a small project, but has become an important part of my everyday workflow. Hopefully it will help others optimize their search efforts as well.

Search is changing, don’t get left behind.

Available Search Engines

The current version of Wutsearch features drag-&-drop ordering of search boxes, plus an options panel where you can choose what search engines to display. Available search engines include (in alphabetical order):

• Alexandria
• Baidu
• Bing
• Brave
• DuckDuckGo
• Ecosia
• Gibiru
• Gigablast
• Google
• Infotiger
• Lookseek
• Metager
• Mojeek
• Peekier
• Qwant
• RightDao
• Searx
• Seznam
• Startpage
• Swisscows
• Yandex

You can find links to each search engine homepage by clicking “Choose search engines” at the top of the page. In the dialog box that opens, you can click the name of any search engine to go to its homepage.

Usage

Wutsearch is pretty much self-explanatory. It’s a one-page app that displays search boxes for all of your chosen search engines. To choose your search engines, follow these easy steps:

1. Click “Choose search engines” at the top of the page
2. A dialog box will display with 20+ search engines

From there you can do two things. You can visit the search engine(s) directly by clicking on their names. Or you can check the boxes to display any search engines on the page. That enables you to search your favorites all from Wutsearch. To give you a better idea, here is a screenshot showing the options panel:

Wutsearch.com – Options Panel – Choose your search engines

Feedback

Wutsearch was launched in July of 2020. Thanks to some good feedback, there have been some nice improvements with usability and design. The goal is to make it the best search engine launchpad possible. So if you find yourself using the site, and have any suggestions or feedback, please let me know. Your ideas always are welcome and appreciated.

Recommended Reading

Thanks to Nicholas Ferrell at the perennially virid New Leaf Journal for his excellent and thorough review of Wutsearch search-engine launchpad.

Thanks to reader 12bytes for their great article on Alternative Search Engines That Respect Your Privacy. It’s exhaustive and provides tons oof insight on alternative search engines, tracking, and more.

To dive even deeper into search, check out this list of search-engine resources over at my code snippets site, WP-Mix.com.

About the Author

Jeff Starr = Web Developer. Book Author. Secretly Important.