932 points by kevincox 990 days ago | 148 comments on HN
| Moderate positive
Contested
Editorial · v3.7· 2026-02-28 09:17:56 0
Summary Digital Freedom & Labor Rights Advocates
Viktor Löfgren announces his full-time transition to building Marginalia Search, an independent search engine dedicated to preserving information freedom outside corporate platforms. The article engages substantively with freedom of expression and information (Article 19), freedom of conscience (Article 18), and labor rights—particularly the right to sustainable work with adequate rest and leisure (Articles 23–24). While primarily a personal memoir, it demonstrates strong advocacy for digital freedom and human dignity through both explicit values-based argument and deliberate structural practice.
Congrats to the author! Marginalia is a great service. I hope they find a way to make it viable to keep going, either through donations or some other model.
That feeling when you walk out of an office for the last time, to work on your own thing is exhilarating. I had my moment like that back in 2014 and can still remember it.
Im curious what percentage of living expenses are covered by the project for the author. I have a few products generating over 50% of my yearly expenses and am feeling like going full time is almost a possibility now.
I've been trialling Marginalia Search a little and one thing that's struck me is the latency. The only other site I use with similar latency is HN; Marginalia seems even lower despite being dynamic (HN has a much easier caching story). I wonder is it just down to having lower traffic. It's certainly a lot lower than many low-/zero-traffic blogs I've frequented though.
I've had a look at the README[0] for the Java sourcecode, but it's highly focused on crawls, database & indexing (understandable for search); would be cool to see a front-end focused write-up.
Congrats! I find I'm using Marginalia more and more, it's especially great for researching for novel writing, and can’t wait to see what the future holds! Good luck!
This is fantastic and commendable. Too many good hackers are tied up in a stable job at companies. Building something out of passion is just so different and the end result is so amazing that one cannot really fake that.
Marginalia is one of my favorite sites. Wishing you all the best.
Both of your top two projects are very interesting to me at the moment. Especially your Wikipedia mirror.
Just today I realized how distracting too many hyperlinks can be. And Wikipedia is full of them! It feels so much easier to read an article without them. Now I just wish Wikipedia had more supporting graphics to help engage readers in a more productive manner.
Otherwise - Great job on the peppy site and breath of fresh air to open the network tab and see 1 html get, and another for the CSS. And the 404 favicon that I guess the browser insists on ;)
I had seen marginalia mentioned here in HN a couple of times but never got around to use it.
I'm very impressed. Using it I get this old Internet vibe (which someone else also mentioned). Just used it to get some information on a random topic I recently tried to research with Google but failed due to all the SEO crap. It produced several hits of old pages (with the tiny font and the early 2000's graphics and design), but _full_ of information.
Not all the results are good though, it was mostly hit and miss, but the hits were _good_. Will use it from now on.
What I find quite nice about Marginalia is for discoveries outside the most popular destinations for such topics. For example, looking for a weekend movie but do not want to see all the SEO websites talking about movies. Marginalia surprises you with some unknown websites in the first page :)
I use it when I want to be surprised by the results :D
Best of luck. Easily my favorite project. Emailed Viktor last year about using the marginalia API for my side project[1] and he responded almost immediately. I use the API to get marginalia's arcane search results for a given query and choose a random link from those results to redirect. Endless fun.
Hope to see it continue to grow until the internet goes dark.
Congratulations with your courageous step. I will really root for it, might even check out if I can contribute. I think Marginalia can have an amazing impact to the web. Right now it is dying from the cancerous growth of SEO spam and informations silos ever increasing in size.
I tried Marginalia and already get amazing and fast results. This will make the web fun, creative and interesting again.
Just like, I think, fellow countryman proving the world wrong that browsers cannot be created from scratch with Ladybird I think you will succeed also. (At least with search engines the competition gets worse every day.)
I’m curious about what and how crawling is done. I did a search for my own site and didn’t find it (it’s a redirect to another site, which I’m sure doesn’t help). What’s being indexed right now (out of curiosity, not trying to game SEO - that’s why I’m not mentioning the site I searched for here.)
I left a very good job 7 years in (digital design) to go out on my own. That was more than 2 decades ago. I could write paragraphs of the rookie mistakes (business-wise) and the financial ups & downs, but one thing has never changed...
The "temporal freedom" I have in my work (Gad Saad, if you don't know the name). I love being the master of my own day, of my own time. I don't sit in Zoom meetings or have daily standups. I can get up at 5am and work until 11am, and then go hike, play with my dog, get ice cream with my daughters, workout, etc. and then work again from 7pm until midnight or whatever.
Having (almost literally) full control over my daily schedule, week-in, week-out, year after year, is invaluable to me.
One disclosure: a few times a year I do very hard things where I have very little freedom, but they allow me to have lots of freedom the rest of the year.
Not to be a jerk, but I won't be elaborating. And I realize this life isn't for everyone!
@marginalia_nu if you're reading this, please know that you're an inspiration and that I crazy appreciate what you're doing.
We need people like you in the world pushing to make interesting things that aren't necessarily profit driven, but instead seek to help add flavor and interest back into the world.
Your search engine is the kind of technology that reminds me of the technology ethos from the 90s and it's so amazing to see you get the chance to actualize it! Don't waste this chance!
No matter what, know that this is the right decision. You have fans, and we're rooting for you!
The blog is just hugo so it's 100% static files over nginx.
The search engine is serverside-rendered mustache templates via handlebars[1], via served via spark[2]. It's basically all vanilla Java. I do raw SQL queries instead of ORM, which makes it quite a bit snappier than most Java applications. The sheer size of the database also mandates that basically every query is a primary key lookup. The code is written around that constraint.
Although the search engine is a bit on the slow side since it's routed through cloudflare and I think I'm relatively far away from the closest datacenter so it adds like 100ms to the load times.
In general I've had like infrequent but large influx of money from the project, so it's hard to answer. Although I have relatively long runway, no small thanks to nlnet for their generous grant.
On some level it's all a gamble. Either I try to make this work somehow, or I close up shop and keep working as an office drone, because I really can't keep doing both.
My hope is that I'm able to make it work on a wikipedia-like model donation model, maybe supplemented with selling commercial API access (access is free CC-BY-NC-SA). My burn rate is literally my living expenses plus a hundred dollars per month of service costs to I don't have to be spectacularly profitable to sustain flight. ... all that is contingent on making it work quite a lot better than it does now, so I guess I have my work cut out for me.
It's also a weird project, since it's had an almost absurdly positive reaction. For example, many people develop a search engine and get almost lynched on HN for not working exactly like Google or not dealing with some query as expected. Someone found a link to my barely working search engine that didn't properly support multiple-keyword queries and this happens: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28550764
The links were cropped so I changed them with just a word for the service. But it turns out I can't markdown today and I changed the URLs instead of the text.
I don't think it's supposed to index all sites. If you search for Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or even Hacker News you will not get any official results. It's meant to only show obscure sites but I'm unsure of the actual criteria.
I would love to (though I'm a long way off it, with not much to walk away to) but I wonder what the equivalent feeling is if you already/previously work from home? Shipping the work machine back? Turning it off for the last time? Unplugging web cam and microphone?
Algolia has stunning latency and I assume a bucketload of traffic, I suspect they just have very competent infrastructure and fast as hell code and queries, perhaps thr same is true here.
The author strongly advocates for freedom of expression and information access. Explicitly states goal is to preserve 'the parts [of web] that are still wild and creative and outside the corporate walled gardens.' Frames corporate internet as restrictive and alternative as liberatory.
FW Ratio: 50%
Observable Facts
The author explicitly states mission: 'help navigate and shape the "rest" of the web, the parts that are still wild and creative and outside the corporate walled gardens.'
The blog post is publicly accessible on a personal domain with no payment or registration barriers.
The author characterizes the project as creating alternatives to 'corporate' consolidation of information infrastructure.
Inferences
The author's core motivation is to enable freedom of expression by creating search infrastructure that is not subject to corporate editorial control.
Building an independent search engine is a structural practice demonstrating commitment to Article 19's principles of information diversity and freedom.
The characterization of corporate platforms as 'walled gardens' explicitly frames the article around freedom of information as a human right.
The author explicitly exercises and advocates for freedom of thought and conscience, choosing to pursue a vision aligned with personal values rather than external pressures.
FW Ratio: 50%
Observable Facts
The author describes the work as 'a labor of love' and states 'I think it can be shaped into a genuinely useful tool.'
The author emphasizes autonomous choice: 'I started this work just to see how far I could take it' and 'I did not expect to end up doing this' but continues deliberately.
Inferences
The author is exercising freedom of conscience by pursuing a vision driven by intrinsic values rather than external incentives or market pressures.
The decision to work independently represents affirmation that individuals have the right to determine their intellectual and creative direction.
The article is fundamentally about labor rights and working conditions. Author advocates for sustainable work that respects human need for rest and health.
FW Ratio: 50%
Observable Facts
The author states 'You can absolutely bludgeon your way forward with sheer determination... for a while. It wears on you. It requires sacrificing other things in a way that's not really sustainable long term.'
The author left structured employment specifically to 'find a balance where I can last the course' and pursue 'a somewhat saner life balance.'
The author explicitly connects work conditions to health: 'Exhaustion has been mounting for a while now. Work has been slow as a result.'
Inferences
The author recognizes that exploitative work conditions (two demanding jobs without adequate rest) violate human dignity and sustainability.
The deliberate restructuring of work life demonstrates commitment to Article 23 principles: meaningful work at sustainable pace.
The author's critique of work-life imbalance implicitly advocates for workers' rights to conditions that allow human flourishing.
The author exercises liberty by choosing to shape their own life path and work according to personal values rather than economic necessity.
FW Ratio: 50%
Observable Facts
The author explicitly states 'I left the office for the last time today' and made the deliberate choice to pursue independent work.
The decision is characterized as enabling 'time for things like sleep, exercise, and relationships'—exercising autonomy over personal life structure.
Inferences
The author's choice to leave stable employment demonstrates exercise of personal liberty to determine one's own circumstances.
The framing of this choice as enabling personal relationships and health suggests recognition that true liberty requires autonomy over one's time and commitments.
The author acknowledges importance of health (sleep, exercise) and adequate standard of living (financial resources for 2 years).
FW Ratio: 50%
Observable Facts
The author includes 'sleep, exercise' explicitly in list of things they are 'looking forward to' having time for.
The author details financial support: 'I have money for two years, some half of it from the NLnet grant and half of it is savings, as well as a trickle of donations.'
Inferences
The author recognizes that adequate health (sleep, exercise) and economic security are prerequisites for autonomous choice-making.
Financial planning demonstrates awareness that adequate standard of living is necessary to pursue one's values.
The author acknowledges that economic resources are necessary precondition for freedom and autonomy.
FW Ratio: 50%
Observable Facts
The author states 'I have money for two years, some half of it from the NLnet grant and half of it is savings, as well as a trickle of donations from Patreon.'
The author frames financial resources as enabling the choice: 'Beyond that, nothing is certain' but acknowledges money provides runway for choice.
Inferences
The author's ability to exercise freedom depends on economic resources—establishing implicit recognition that property rights enable other freedoms.
The detailed accounting of financial sources suggests awareness that economic security underlies ability to make autonomous choices.
The blog post is freely published without paywall or registration. The author's infrastructure project (Marginalia Search) is a structural embodiment of commitment to Article 19.