[throwaway11004]

The HN search is a demo/advertisement of Algolia search engine that they run for free. They can update it even if you didn't need any updates.

[rolph]

so what i want to know in basic language is, why was the update nessecary?

security holes?

new features?

new shiny version, is better by default?

previous version was deficient with respect to 'modern' tech?