How to use Goosle
Goosle has an easy to use UI, free of clutter and distractions. Hopefully this provides a pleasurable search experience. You will not find any unnessesary features or complex settings in Goosle. After-all, navigating the internet is hard and frustrating enough. Search engines should make that more easy, not harder!
All external links always open in a new tab. That way you never loose your current search results. And to make search results more useful Goosle tries to format them in a neat and clean way so they're easy to read and use.
Goosle is created by Arnan de Gans with the intent to make search more productive and fun.
Result ranking
Goosle tries to provide you with search results in the right order no matter which search engine provides them. To try and provide the best results first Goosle has a basic algorithm to rank results.
enable_web_search == 'on' || $opts->enable_image_search == 'on') { ?>For Web and Image search. If a website or image is found through multiple search engines it will rank higher. Also the amount of matching words in the title and SEO description are considered.
enable_news_search == 'on') { ?>News search is ranked by your keywords and how many times a certain link is found, but also by publish date. Newer results rank higher.
enable_magnet_search == 'on') { ?>Magnet results are sorted by most seeders (eg: availability of the download).
Safe search
Search defaults to Moderate Safe mode. To override the safe mode, prefix your search with safe:on or safe:off (example: safe:off geese gone wild).
On will use 'Strict' mode, while off will disable safe searching, this may yield results that are unsuitable for workspaces or minors.
The Not Suitable For Work (NSFW) filter for Magnet results is enabled. This is an attempt to hide adult content from results. Some search engines have categories that can be filtered out. Others rely on keyword matches. Goosle has an extensive list of 'dirty' keywords to try and find adult content and then ignore it. To override the setting use the safe:off or nsfw prefix.
For example: Search for nsfw goose on goose action or safe:off dirty geese to include adult content in the results.
Web search
Goosle Web Search gathers links through search engines and search API and shows them in a neat and organised results page. Results are ranked by relevance to your current search.
special['currency'] == 'on') { ?>Currency converter
Convert currency with a simple query.
For example: Search for 20 EUR in HKD or 14 USD to MXN and Goosle will search for it, but also a local conversion is done in a highlighted result.
Word Definition
Look up the meaning of single words. Prefix the word you want to look up with define, def or meaning.
For example: Searching for define goose will do a web search for 'goose' but will also show a dictionary definition highlighted above the search results.
IP Address lookup
Search for ip, myip or ipaddress to look up your IP Address.
Goosle knows your IP Address but the searches you do via Goosle will hide your IP address from the target sites such as Google or Limetorrents. You can see and verify the difference with this tool.
PHP.net Search
Prefix your search with php to search on php.net for a PHP function.
For example: Searching for php in_array or php trim will show you a brief description, compatible PHP versions and the basic syntax for that function.
WordPress documentation Search
Prefix your search with wordpress or wp to search on wordpress.org for a WordPress function. You can also search for hooks or filters by adding 'hook' as the 2nd keyword.
For example: Searching for wordpress the_content or wp hook admin_init will show you a brief description and the basic syntax for that function or hook/filter.
Image Search
Goosle Image Search links directly to the web page where the image is displayed, but also tries to link to the actual image itself.
You can search for images in a general size by adding size:small, size:medium, size:large or size:xlarge to the beginning of your search query (example: size:small huge goose).
enable_news_search == 'on') { ?>News search
Look for current and recent news through News Search. Search for any topic and you'll find news from the last 30 days. Search is loosely ranked by post date. Newer news ranks higher.
enable_magnet_search == 'on') { ?>
Magnet Search
Magnet Search provides Magnet links, these are special links from Torrent sites to download content from the internet. Things like Movies, TV-Shows, EBooks, Music, Games, Software and more. You'll need a Bittorrent client that accepts Magnet links to download the search results.
There are many Torrent clients that support Magnet links but if you don't know which one to choose, give Transmission BT a go as it's easy to set up and use.
Goosle will try to provide useful information about the download, which includes; Seeders, Leechers, A link to the torrent page, Download Category and Release year. Extra information may also include the Movie quality (720p, 4K etc.), Movie Runtime and the Download Size along with some other bits and bops if available. Not every website makes this available and all results take a best effort approach.
Searching for TV Shows
To do a specific search on The Pirate Bay and EZTV you search for IMDb Title IDs. These are numeric IDs prefixed with tt. This kind of search is useful when you're looking for a tv show that doesn't have a unique name, or simply if you want to use a specialized tracker for tv shows.
If you know the IMDb Title ID you can search for it through the Magnet search.
imdb_id_search == 'on') { ?>If you don't know the Title ID you can do a regular search for imdb [tv show name], for example imdb Duck and Goose.
Goosle will detect the IMDb ID from the search results and highlight it in the result as a link. This link offers you to search for downloads through a Magnet Search.
Sharing results
You can share a specific Magnet result by clicking on the share link that's behind the result information. In the popup that opens you can copy the link and share or store it anywhere you can paste text - For example in a messenger or note. This special link will perform the same search as you did yourself and highlight the result that you want to share.
hash_auth == 'off') { ?>The links can be shared with anyone since you do not run a private Goosle. Anyone who has the shared link can see the results.
The links can be shared with anyone but keep in mind that since you run a private installation you might be giving uninvited guests access to it. To prevent this from happening the share link does NOT include the passphrase hash. This means that any guests can see your shared results but searching for new things will not work for them.
Finding specific TV Show episodes and seasons
To help you narrow down results you can search for specific seasons and episodes. For example: If you search for tt7999864 S01 or Duck and Goose S01 you'll get filtered results for Duck & Goose Season 1. Searching for tt7999864 S01E02 or Duck and Goose S01E02 should find Season 1 Episode 2 and so on.
Filtering Movie and TV Show results
Likewise if you want a specific quality of a movie or tv show you can add that directly in your search. For example: If you search for Goose on the loose 720p you should primarily find that movie in 720p quality if it's available. Common screensizes are 480p, 720p, 1080p, 2160p (4K) and terms like HD-DVD, FULLHD, BLURAY etc..
You can do searches by year as well. Searching for 1080p 2006 should yield mostly movies from that year in the specified quality.
The box office
Along with Magnet search a Box Office page also appears. This is an overview page of the latest movies and other new downloads available on a few supported torrent sites. The shown results are cached just like regular search results.
Note: The things you find through magnet search are not always legal to download due to copyright or local restrictions. If possible, try to get a legal copy if you found a use for what you downloaded!
Default search engine
In some browsers you can add a custom search engine. To do so follow the browsers instruction and use the following link: https://example.com/results.php?q=%s.
Or if you use the Auth Hash as a password add the a argument, like so: https://example.com/results.php?a=YOUR_HASH&q=%s. Obviously replace example.com with your actual goosle addesss.
Most browsers will instruct you to add %s for the search query as shown in the examples. If your browser has a different value for this simply replace %s with what your browser requires.
Colorschemes
Goose comes with several colorschemes, configurable through the config.php file.
Available colorschemes are:
- "default" A dark headers and main backgrounds with light search results.
- "light" More light elements.
- "dark" More dark elements, some apps would call this dark mode.
- "auto" Let the browser decide what to use. This is typically linked to the darkmode setting of your device.
Acknowledgements:
All icons are borrowed from the IconFinder Unicons Set.
The Goose icon is borrowed from the Flaticon Farm pack.
Goosle started as a fork of LibreY, and takes some design cues from DuckDuckGo.com.