[smoldesu]

This seemed interesting to me, but requiring an installation is a no-go, especially for privacy-minded software. I can tell you right now that most privacy-conscious individuals won't give you a proper chance if this is how you treat the onboarding process, regardless of how David V. Goliath the situation seems.

> I hope we can drop this requirement even in Chrome when we become one of the default options.

I don't mean to be pessimistic, but the chances of 'you.com' appearing in my search engine choices is slim to none. You're welcome to drag me through the mud when you prove me wrong, but hedging your entire bet on getting added as a default option is a suicide pact for any software, particularly ones that are competing with bigger players.

> It's tough to go up against a monopoly that controls the browser too?

It's tough doing anything on someone else's platform, monopoly or not. This just reads as a vague dismissal of a frankly serious problem. I recommend taking notes out of DuckDuckGo's book, where they took proactive measures to accommodate for security-minded individuals. The fact that they let you connect without Javascript enabled is a subtle nod to their power users, who might be more concerned with that stuff. On the other side of the spectrum is you.com, which requires me to install an extension while promising that it's 'more secure' in the end. The optics are not good, particularly for the people who know what they're looking for.