That’s the task Chris Hong has set himself, writes Paul Durman. Harvard-educated Hong, who previously worked for Ernst & Young, is the founder of Previewseek, a British firm that claims to have developed a search engine that is “significantly better than Google in at least five ways”.

That’s quite a boast for a year-old company that is still reliant on “angel” investors for funding. In contrast, the mighty Google is awash with cash — it recently announced plans to raise another $4 billion — which it is using to add new features and services.

Previewseek aims to improve searches by using artificial intelligence and online databases to understand more clearly what the user is looking for, and cut through the ambiguities.

One example Hong cites is Java — which is simultaneously an Indonesian island, a variety of coffee, a town in South Dakota and a computer programming language. Key Java into Google and you may wade through pages of technology sites before you find anything on an island bordering the Indian ocean.

Previewseek avoids this by presenting a summary box with all the different meanings of Java, making it easy to select the one you are looking for. However, it’s not exactly hard to type “Java coffee” or “Java Dakota” into Google.

The somewhat inelegant name refers to Previewseek’s ability to preview the content of websites it finds. It does this by providing a small image of the page, giving some idea of its content, and by allowing you to look at the web page without actually visiting it.

The search engine also organises information well, making it easier to sort through the numerous listings for, say, Tony Blair or David Beckham.

One impressive feature is that Previewseek pulls together the information it finds to produce a summary of a topic.

The test version of the search engine is not comprehensive at the moment, and is better at dealing with American queries. This should be addressed by the time Previewseek launches the UK version in November.

Previewseek is worth trying. Hong does not expect to displace Google but hopes Previewseek will find its niche in a huge and growing market.

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