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Ask HN: What are the best websites that the Anglosphere doesn't know about?

544 points| remolacha | 5 years ago | reply

What unique or high-quality content only exists outside the English-speaking web? Is there a Chinese equivalent to Hacker News? A Hindi StackOverflow? I would love to broaden my horizons :)

276 comments

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[+] aasasd|5 years ago|reply
If you're asking about services too: Yandex Market. It's like Google Product Search that is actually successful and widely used for searching for specific products, or Amazon that doesn't swindle you left and right.

It's basically just a large catalog of products, filled by third-parties a-la Amazon now, only it didn't sell anything itself (until recently). Instead, it had detailed characteristics for a lot of products, with corresponding filters in the catalog; and good user reviews. Since Yandex is good at dealing with unstructured text, even poor data exports by vendors end up organized decently on the service. Since Yandex had millions of users on its other services, they all could leave reviews without much hassle. And since Yandex is primarily a search engine, it knows when a bogus review is spammed across the web.

Alas, it's only available in Russian since it works with Russian shops. Every time I need to look for a product on the English web, I lament that there's no service that is quite that solid. Amazon has filters, but search results usually look like simply a bit better Aliexpress. In regard to Google Product Search I don't even know anything particular—I tried to use it a couple times, and my general impression is that it... exists. Not much else.

[+] kalleboo|5 years ago|reply
Sweden has prisjakt.nu, and Japan has kakaku.com that serve the same purpose, they're both great! It's so nice to be able to drill down into any product in any product category (for kakaku this is not just tech products but contact lenses, credit cards, movers, electricity providers, car insurance, phone plans, etc) using the specs you want, and then sort by intelligently selected columns like $/TB for a harddisk.

Amazon attempts to do some product categorization but it doesn't work at all - even when they have the category you want to filter on the results are usually wrong, and the sort options are bad and marred by their ads and recommendations.

[+] modeless|5 years ago|reply
Amazon product listings and reviews are such a cesspool these days. It's a travesty.

It's completely impossible to tell good quality stuff from useless garbage (especially since they are usually commingled in the same listing), and often it's impossible to find good quality stuff at all under the barrage of listings of the same two products with different fake brand names. The sorting options are a joke and the ratings are gamed so much they indicate nothing except how much the seller spent buying reviews.

It's amazing that Google hasn't been able to do better here.

[+] karlicoss|5 years ago|reply
Can confirm -- if I need to buy some electronic device, I'd do a search/filter on yandex.market first and compare side by side. Amazon with its fuzzy searches is garbage for such shopping.
[+] daishi424|5 years ago|reply
Looks like they've been running A/B tests recently - reviews are hidden on some products. Or maybe they hide reviews for anonymous user. I hope it won't go further than that.
[+] Black101|5 years ago|reply
Yandex reverse image search is also much better then Google's version in my experience.
[+] fy20|5 years ago|reply
There's a home automation protocol that's been around for over 20 years called KNX. It's backed by big names (ABB, Hager, Gira, Osram, Mean Well) however outside of Germany it's pretty much unknown. Compared to ZigBee or Z-Wave it's wired and the config is stored in the devices themselves, so there's no single point of failure. It has strict certification requirements so you can be guaranteed that products from different manufacturers will work together (this does mean its more expensive though). The quality of the hardware (esp. motion/presence sensors) is a lot better than what you can buy from Amazon or the 'smart home' section in your local Walmart.

There's plenty of content (in German) on YouTube about it, and forums:

https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCiCPbFz0Ld6mera2fNDRWzw

https://knx-user-forum.de/

[+] thecleaner|5 years ago|reply
Germany really needs to start documenting their work in English. This is good stuff.
[+] aGRa_kursk|5 years ago|reply
Runet (Russian-speaking part of Internet) has LOTS of it. We have HN equivalent (habr.com). We have RSDN (rsdn.org), which is somewhat like StackOverflow, but in Russian.

Social networks largely unknown outside of Russia? We have'em (vk.com, ok.ru). Reddit equivalent? See pikabu.ru. IMDB? See kinopoisk.ru.

There's a Russian browser (Yandex.Browser), Russian map service (Yandex.maps), tons of Russian e-mail, hosting and cloud services, Russian Spotify (Yandex.Music), Russian Netflix (several of them, actually), Russian Uber (Yandex.Taxi, which actually owns Russian Uber).

You'll see lots of Yandex services here, it's sort of Russian Google (except it predates Google by a year or so). Yandex's primary business is search and advertising, but just like Google, they diversify a lot. And even in primary area, they sometimes manage to beat Google. Yandex's reverse image search (when you upload the image to search for similar ones) is FAR superior to Google's.

And there's a lot of unique Russian content on global sites like Facebook, Livejournal (owned by a Russian company nowadays) or Wikipedia.

[+] ACS_Solver|5 years ago|reply
Habr is great. I don't visit other Runet sites often, but read Habr regularly - it's part HN, part Slashdot, with great original content.

The Russian Internet seems to be an overall great place to find information on old devices, old software, and the like. http://sht-rajvo.narod.ru/index.htm is a retro-looking site about retrocomputing, it has many articles from computer magazines circa 1990. Also worth noting that due to Russia's traditionally "relaxed view on copyright" it's not hard to stumble upon a site that has direct download links to e.g. versions of MS-DOS or Windows 3.1.

[+] BlueGh0st|5 years ago|reply
I can vouch for Yandex's reverse image search. It blows Google's out of the water. I think regular image search is typically better too, depending on what your needs are (Google seems to prefer stock imagery which can be frustrating).
[+] LordNight|5 years ago|reply
Besides yandex there are also rambler.ru (less popular, but even older) and mail.ru

dic.academic.ru allows you to search through several dozens encyclopedias. And bigenc.ru adds onother one (the largest and the most recent).

fantlab.ru is the best site dedicated to sci fi/fantasy literature (it is IMO 10 times better than goodreads or librarything). There are also a lot of site dedicated to literature like proza.ru lib.ru litres.ru feb-web.ru www.obshelit.su etc.

Besides habr, forum.ru-board.com ixbt.com cyberforum.ru overclockers.ru 3dnews.ru are very popular sites dedicated to hardware/software/coding.

There are a lot of sited about video games like old-games.ru goha.ru stopgame.ru riotpixels.com as well as a streaming platforms like goodgame.ru

rutube.ru exists for many years now but it's crap.

There are several sites dedicated to popular science like elementy.ru arhe.msk.ru gramota.ru histrf.ru

www.intoclassics.net and www.classicalmusicnews.ru are popular for those interested in classical music. www.darkside.ru and rock.ru for rock music.

forum.awd.ru and otzyv.ru are popular travel sites.

There several general purpose forums like forum.rcmir.com www.e1.ru/talk/forum/ In general, classic forums are still very much alive in runet (hell, even LJ is still alive) and there are a lot of niche forums you could visit.

There are more than 100 news sites, but the quality is quite average (like everywhere else). meduza.io ria.ru rbc.ru tass.ru inosmi.ru for example. sports.ru and championat.ru for sport-related news.

ozon.ru is now a russian version of amazon.

And obviously there are a lot of pirate sites from rutracker to flibusta to libgen.

[+] 082349872349872|5 years ago|reply
Maybe helpful when browsing extra-anglosphere sites: translate.yandex both has much more liberal length limits than GOOG translate and makes it easy to look up alternative translations for individual words.
[+] FridgeSeal|5 years ago|reply
Yandex is responsible for developing and maintaining my favourite columnar database: ClickHouse. It’s one of those pieces of software where everything I use it go “wow this is fast”.
[+] agent008t|5 years ago|reply
Funny to see RSDN in this list! It now has only around 20 regulars left (many of whom would appear to be posting under multiple accounts), and nobody really discusses tech any more.

But I do love the old usenet-like interface with thread trees. I wish more message boards still used a similar interface (although it is a pain to use on mobile).

[+] MichaelMoser123|5 years ago|reply
i like anekdot.ru - they have a pretty solid community, and the jokes are really funny (sometimes).
[+] ximus|5 years ago|reply
Quality docomentaries and looks on society on Arte.tv, the european culture channel

AFAIK, north americans don't know about its existence. It's available in english.

https://www.arte.tv/en/

[+] bierjunge|5 years ago|reply
A while ago ARTE started a side channel and asked users how to name it, which we all know is a bad idea in the internet. The result was "Irgendwas mit ARTE und Kultur" ("something with ARTE and culture") and they really took the name: https://www.youtube.com/c/IrgendwasmitARTEundKultur Kudos to ARTE.

BTW. it's a cooperation between french and german public televisions, is there something similar elsewhere in the world?

[+] remify|5 years ago|reply
As a French my definition of a documentary is what Arte produce.

I recently discovered what a documentary is for an American and it's night and day. American documentaries are entertainment package with actions and conspiracies. There's really not a lot of discovery and knowledge.

[+] drak0n1c|5 years ago|reply
NHK World is a similar website and app for phones and TV, but for Japan (and occasionally other Asian countries). An immense variety of culture, tourism, history, and food content. I believe BBC and RT also have cultural documentaries (you can ignore their news content).
[+] nicbou|5 years ago|reply
Arte has some amazing German and French documentaries on YouTube. I believe they are not accessible everywhere, but if you have access, it's worth a look.
[+] systemvoltage|5 years ago|reply
Vimeo has amazing documentaries as well. Similar to Arte.
[+] zeruch|5 years ago|reply
Arte is spectacular. I've been a fan for a while, and it keeps popping up good surprises.
[+] geza|5 years ago|reply
Sites and apps in Chinese:

Baidu Wangpan (百度网盘): file-sync service like Dropbox, but gives you 2TB (terrabytes!) of free storage

Tengxun Ketang (腾讯课堂): similar to edX/coursera, they have a lot of free courses on programming, machine learning, and technical topics

Wanmen Daxue (万门大学): similar to edX/coursera, they have a lot of free foreign language classes and lectures on economics/social sciences

HKGolden (香港高登): Hong Kong forum on tech and software, similar to reddit

Huxiu (虎嗅): tech news site

Toutiao Xinwen (头条新闻): news aggregator site, has categories and comments

Zhihu (知乎): QA platform, similar to Quora

Zhihu Zhuanlan (知乎专栏): blogging platform, similar to Medium

Ximalaya FM (喜马拉雅 FM): podcasts app

Duokan (多看): ebooks app similar to Kindle

Douyin (抖音): Chinese version of Tiktok

iQiyi (爱奇艺): video site with tons of movies and dramas

JD (京东): amazon-like marketplace with same-day delivery

Taobao (淘宝): ebay-like peer-to-peer marketplace

Weibo (新浪微博): microblogging site like Twitter

Zhifubao (支付宝): peer-to-peer payments app that works by scanning QR codes, very widely accepted in China

Wechat (微信): messaging app that also has tons of micro-apps and payment functionality built in

[+] rahimnathwani|5 years ago|reply
Nice list :)

A few things to add about some of the items:

- Baidu Wangpan's sharing model is more like the file locker sites of the early 00s: when you share a file or folder, the recipient gets a 'copy'. It's not like Dropbox where you collaborate and sync changes with each other.

- Baidu wangpan can download torrents server-side.

- Toutiao is by Bytedance, which readers here will know for their popular Tiktok product.

- Readers here may know Tengxun by its international name Tencent

- Zhifubao's English name is Alipay.

- Taobao is more than a peer-to-peer marketplace. I'd guess that over 50% of e-commerce goods purchases in China (by volume, not value) are via Taobao/Tmall. There are many 'mom and pop' stores, but also many with 10s of employees.

- Tingting FM is another good one for audio content. e.g. it has Peppa Pig episodes in Mandarin, and each episode has some commentary at the end explaining the key lessons from the story. (You can watch Peppa Pig in Mandarin on YouTube for free, but there's no commentary at the end.)

[+] yorwba|5 years ago|reply
Let me add a few more:

Bilibili Manhua (哔哩哔哩漫画): webcomic site adjacent to the Bilibili video platform https://manga.bilibili.com/

Qidian (起点): webnovels https://qidian.com/

Zhanse Nileyuan (战色逆乐园): discussion forum attached to another webnovel site with female-skewing readership, maybe slightly similar to r/twoXchromosomes https://bbs.jjwxc.net/board.php?board=20&page=1

SegmentFault: StackOverflow-like https://segmentfault.com/questions

V2EX: the closest thing to HN, except more like a traditional forum https://v2ex.com/

[+] samwestdev|5 years ago|reply
how does the p2p payment app work? No middle man?
[+] bloqs|5 years ago|reply
> Douyin (抖音): Chinese version of Tiktok

Tiktok is literally chinese??

[+] throwaway9d0291|5 years ago|reply
Deepl [0] is available in English but doesn't seem well-known outside of the non-Anglophone Western European countries. It's essentially Google Translate but generally has better quality translations for the languages it supports.

[0]: https://www.deepl.com

[+] djaahk|5 years ago|reply
In French you have a few interesting options, notably:

- LeBonCoin.fr (“the good corner”, a Craigslist type site that’s used for everything from second-hand selling to job hunting to meet up organising),

- LesNumeriques.fr is a decent tech review media with in-depth tests and a VERY critical community providing good balance

- Gazelle which has now become backmarket.fr (also exists across other countries like Spain and the U.K.) and offers vetted second-hand tech gear - great for bargains and avoiding buying new for ecological reasons,

- LeMonde.fr/Les-Décodeurs is the fact checking arm of the French paper Le Monde and has some really interesting visualisations and articles

- Presse-Citron.fr was one of the first tech blogs in France and continues to be a reference

- priice.fr is a price comparison site I’ve heard good things about but haven’t used myself yet

- danstonchat.com is the French version of Bash.org for IRC fun

- Legorafi.fr is a satirical paper with lots of hilarious fake news - often quite timely - akin to The Onion (it’s a play on words on the famous French paper Le Figaro)

- Gandi.net is a registrar and hosting site which I’ve been using forever - they’re awesome

[+] gspr|5 years ago|reply
https://yr.no provides an API for high quality open weather data, globally, supplied by the Norwegian meteorological service. Information is available in English too, but it is perhaps not well-known in the anglosophere.
[+] Tijdreiziger|5 years ago|reply
https://tweakers.net

Dutch-language tech community. Has news, a well-moderated and active forum, product and price comparison (with many filtering options) and reviews (both by tech journalists and the community), second-hand sales, and a job board.

It was started by one guy 20 (if not more) years ago, but these days it's part of one of the big Dutch-language media conglomerates (DPG Media).

[+] kradeelav|5 years ago|reply
Pixiv! (http://pixiv.net/) If you're familiar with deviantart or artstation, it's a similar Japanese digital art site with its own culture, store, contests, and more. While the site has a pretty great English navigation, I was on there back in the day when it was 100% Japanese only, and many of its current mores stem from those days.
[+] NalNezumi|5 years ago|reply
I would mention hitta.se from Sweden. Probably a privacy nightmare to some, and very creepy to others.

On the page you can search peoples home address, phone number, date of birth, other members living in the same house, real estate value, mortgage rate, all by searching their names. I successfully once identified a parent of a owner of a lost wallet, only containing a gym card with last name on it. Found her phone number on the site, called her and gave her the wallet.

[+] underyx|5 years ago|reply
This is probably not what you're looking for, but I recently found this dump of Hungarian tech/gaming magazine scans dating back to the late 80's, and I've been looking for an excuse to share it further: https://retroujsag.com/
[+] BlueGh0st|5 years ago|reply
For some reason, the Russian web seems to rehost old drivers/software and such indefinitely without all the malicious spam you normally find in Google.

That led me to Kazus Electronic Portal[0] which seems to have just about every hardware-related piece of information you could need. Including an obscure serial driver from 2005 that I couldn't find elsewhere.

[0] http://kazus.ru/

[+] mehrzad|5 years ago|reply
Not a website, and this may be obvious, but if you are doing research on Wikipedia on a topic from a non-English speaking country, sometimes that nation's language features a longer and more in depth article. I am currently learning German and have noticed this with regard to articles regarding universities in Germany.
[+] lovelearning|5 years ago|reply
I found DW's YouTube channels to be good resources to learn about cultures, societies, current affairs and geopolitics from around the world. Auto-generated subtitles for their non-English channels are good enough to understand what is being conveyed.

[1] : https://www.youtube.com/user/deutschewelle

[2] : their other channels are listed at the bottom of [1].

[+] yread|5 years ago|reply
https://mapy.cz/

Google maps alternative with great tourist maps (also has a layer for cross-country skiing) and an app with offline maps

[+] terramex|5 years ago|reply
In Poland there is elektroda.pl - forum about electronics, electrics and programming. Is was founded in 1999 and has over 2 500 000 registered accounts.

It is a bit like polish StackOverflow - every time you google a technical problem in polish you will find an elektroda.pl thread on very top. And just like on SO, it will usually be closed by moderator for some bizarre and arcane reason.

It certainly has 'old-usenet' vibe, both the good parts (huge amount of knowledge) and the bad (pretty toxic behaviour of many power users and moderators).

[+] gspr|5 years ago|reply
Most of the techy anglosophere know CCC from the annual conferences. But they do much more: https://www.ccc.de/