Get-Star Earns a 27 Proof of Usefulness Score by Building Client-Side Parallel Search

In this interview, we talk with William Fletcher Gilreath, the creator of (get)* "Get-Star". This browser-based tool is designed to streamline information retrieval by executing parallel searches across 42 different engines and sites simultaneously.

What does (get)* "Get-Star" do? And why is now the time for it to exist?

The (get)* does parallel search on the local web browser to do search across 42 different sites and search engines. The idea is its easier to close a browser window, then to open one, enter a URL, search terms, and the click search. More in the PDF (design rationale, manifest, whitepaper) https://get-star.org/get_star_whitepaper.pdf. Now’s a good time for (get)* "Get-Star" to exist because users are increasingly seeking efficiency and broader data retrieval methods without relying on a single algorithm's filter bubble.

What is your traction to date? How many people does (get)* "Get-Star" reach?

According to Cloudflare, the last 30-days get-star.org has had 1.98k unique visitors, serving

62.8k total requests.

Who does your (get)* "Get-Star" serve? What’s exciting about your users and customers?

No notable customers, I do not track individual users. However its for anyone wanting to do a large heterogeneous web search, save time, and search more efficiently. The PDF manifesto/whitepaper explains this in much more detail.

What technologies were used in the making of (get)* "Get-Star"? And why did you choose ones most essential to your techstack?

The project relies on the fundamental building blocks of the web: HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, hosted via GitHub and Cloudflare. This "vanilla" tech stack was chosen to ensure the tool runs entirely client-side in the local browser, maximizing privacy and speed without complex backend dependencies.

What is traction to date for (get)* "Get-Star"? Around the web, who’s been noticing?

Traction has been primarily organic and observational. AI search tools have begun indexing the project as a utility for enhancing search efficiency, recognizing it as a dedicated web application for simultaneous multi-site querying.

What excites you about this (get)* "Get-Star"'s potential usefulness?

The project is useful as a static set of multiple sites, search engines that are queried in parallel. The thing that excites me is a central point of search, query but it is all done locally by the users web browser so they are the search engine, and it is local.

Walk us through your most concrete evidence of usefulness. Not vanity metrics or projections - what's the one data point that proves people genuinely need what you've built?

The number of access by users to try out (get)*.

How do you measure genuine user adoption versus "tourists" who sign up but never return? What's your retention story?

If a user likes the search, they will re-vist (get)* and reuse. Since I do not track users, or use cookies, I have no data about user retention.

If we re-score your project in 12 months, which criterion will show the biggest improvement, and what are you doing right now to make that happen?

I am improving some of the search, and working on the ability to select sites to search, and others to exclude by the user.

How Did You Hear About HackerNoon? Share With Us About Your Experience With HackerNoon.

I was searching for some technical articles, and some of the best were on HackerNoon. So I kept coming back to read articles.

With nearly 2,000 unique visitors in the last month, what channels are driving the most curiosity towards your whitepaper and tool?

Word of mouth, I am not actively promoting (get)* so by reputation.

Your approach involves opening multiple connections simultaneously; how do you plan to handle browser resource constraints or popup blockers as you scale the feature set?

The user enables pop-ups for the get-star.org website, and then will close more than leave open as they search.

You mention the "local" aspect being crucial—how does keeping the search logic client-side specifically benefit the user compared to a server-side meta-search engine?

By making the search on the client-side, it removes all the issues, challenges, and concerns of an active server. Also, it provides a central point of access, yet remains decentralized.