What Is Frinkiac? Everything You Need to Know About the Search Engine for The Simpsons

Did you know there's an exclusive search engine for The Simpsons show? Here's a look at everything you need to know about Frinkiac.

Frinkiac is a search engine exclusively for The Simpsons. It lets you match over three million screenshots with quotes from the iconic show. In 2016, three Simpsons fans came together to build the simple yet unique website named after Springfield's favorite scientist Professor Frink.

What makes Frinkiac special is that it's accurate and fast to find The Simpsons content, often more so than Google. However, that's not all that Frinkiac is good for. Let's take a look at its exciting features and technical details.

How Does Frinkiac Actually Work?

All images available in Frinkiac are indexed using the episode subtitles of The Simpsons show. Hence, you have to search for a screenshot using a quote or a term that was said during a particular Simpsons episode. You cannot search for images using the name of a character or the description of a scene yet.

Every episode's subtitle in Frinkiac is broken down to a prefix of a minimum of 2 characters before the indexing is done. For example, “ill” can be a prefix for “illegal”, or “ill-gotten”. Thus, the more you type in Frinkiac, the more accurate your search results become.

To delve into the technical details, Frinkiac is written in Go. While Google uses AI to understand your searches, Frinkiac finds the screenshots through video parsing. Frinkiac works by parsing every Simpsons scene into 100 sections. It figures out the average color that every section has and then compares it to the previous scene or image. Frinkiac only saves a screenshot when there are differences between the present scene and the previous one.

That's how you can move through each episode of The Simpsons show frame by frame in Frinkiac. It's also the reason why Frinkiac's GIFs loop really well. Though the GIFs get created in beta mode, Frinkiac's coolest function might be how clean and smooth its GIFs loops are.

Features That Make Frinkiac Great

Now that you know how Frinkiac works, here are some of the features that make it incredibly fun:

1. Its Database Covers 17 Seasons

Frinkiac features screenshots across 17 seasons of The Simpsons. It also features The Simpsons Movie that was released in 2007. The idea of Frinkiac was born when the creators encountered a setback–it was surprisingly difficult to find a relevant image for one of The Simpsons' scenes on Google.

However, the creators took it upon themselves to ensure that no other Simpsons fan encounters the same problem. And, that's why Frinkiac keeps expanding every day.

2. It Has its Own Meme & GIF Generator

When you search a term or quote on Frinkiac, it helps you find relevant frames. You can then add your own text to the frames, or choose from the available suggestions to create your own memes.

Frinkiac might have been born as a simple image generator site, but over time it has evolved to operate as a GIF generator site as well. One of the users thought it would be great if the Simpsons search engine could make GIFs too. Now, Frinkiac lets you make GIFs of up to seven seconds, covering a total of nineteen frames per GIF.

3. Frinkiac is Prompt About Feedback

If you're not happy with some Frinkiac features, or you would like to congratulate the creators for a job well done, Frinkiac gives you the chance to share your feedback anonymously as well as publicly.

For private feedback, you can send an email to the team. But if you think your feedback needs some public reception, you can reach out to the team on social media. As a matter of fact, you already know Frinkiac takes its feedback seriously. That's how the site's GIF generator feature became available for all its users.

4. It Allows Easy Downloads

Once your meme or GIF is ready, you have an extremely easy option to download it. To share a meme, you need to click the yellow box that has an arrow pointing right at the bottom right of the screen.

For a GIF, the process is the same, except for the fact that Open GIF is clearly spelled out. You can save the image, share it with your friends, or just post them on social media thereafter.

5. It Lets You Find Your Old GIFs

If you can't find the GIF you just created on one of the best episodes of The Simpsons, you can either make a new one or type up the old URL and find your GIF in Frinkiac.

That's because once you create a GIF on Frinkiac, it stays on the servers forever. Though the cache is cleared every few months, your GIF is permanently accessible at a unique URL to anyone who has the link.

6. Frinkiac Enables You to View Entire Episodes

When you search for a scene on Frinkiac, several relevant frames may show up. You choose the one that's closest to the scene you have searched for and proceed to make a meme or a GIF out of it. But, what happens if you're unable to find a frame that fits your search?

Frinkiac's View Episode feature has you covered. It lets you view the entire episode, frame by frame so that you can find the screenshot you are looking for.

Every episode of The Simpsons is broken down into a list of scenes. The list is pretty exhaustive as it features not only the quote and the screenshot, but also the time frame of every scene. So, there's no chance of a screenshot not appearing on the site, unless the episode isn't uploaded.

What Does Frinkiac Have in Store for the Future?

With interesting additions lined up, Frinkiac has a bright future. Though the creators have great plans for Frinkiac's future, they have already started working on improving searchability using complex parameters like a character name or scene description.

The creators are also planning to add a showcase/gallery of user-created images to this Simpsons search engine, while allowing users to search using different languages. Last but not the least, you will soon have the option to alter the font size and style for the memes and GIFs you make.

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