[vitally3643]

I've been a Kagi subscriber for several years now.

If you're questioning the AI features, know that I am only barely aware they exist. I have never, not even once, accidentally or otherwise, engaged the AI features without going out of my way to do so. I've never seen what their AI is like. I have no idea what it's for or why I'd want it.

It's beautiful. Kagi has AI I suppose, but it's over there and not in my face. I don't think I've ever seen an AI nag in the UI, but their UI itself is also over there and out of my way.

Thank you, Kagi, for staying politely the hell out of my way. I love you.

[data-ottawa]

I mostly interact with their AI through bangs.

An ending question mark enables fast answers, like Google’s AI summary.

!ki sends your query to the assistant on light research mode. It runs a few searches against their index and summarizes the results.

I typically don’t need more than that. Most stuff I just find through search.

Maybe shopping is the weak area, as Google does get product feeds and Kagi doesn’t. I don’t think this bothers me at all.

[cyanydeez]

It was actually difficult to find the AI interaction section. But it was useful when I wanted to find some real info on opensource GIS stuff; it helped me aggregate and review. That's the only integration that makes sense to me.

[piva00]

Same to me, been a Kagi subscriber for 2 years and only found the AI tool accidentally when I typed a "?" at the end of the query. It was surprising to not be annoyed by a AI feature for once, now I sporadically use it when it makes sense instead of having it shoved down my throat.

[theshrike79]

It's good when you know you just want the meat of whatever you're looking for and KNOW every page answering your issue has massive amounts of fluff around it.

Something like "how can I access the root filesystem of proxmox?" and you'll get an instant answer instead of a link to the whole ass Proxmox documentation.

[Izmaki]

I'm curious: what is your use-case for a search engine that justifies Kagi over free search engines? Are you not finding your results on page one, first try, with other engines?

[vitally3643]

I grew up in the 90s, in the fourth grade we spent a whole week learning how to effectively use search engines and what research even is. So I have some pretty solid opinions on what makes a functional search engine.

A good search engine shows you the results for exactly the query you entered. A good search engine does not discard your entire query to show you what it thinks you meant.

A good search engine supports and respects modifiers and advanced queries: AND, OR, NOT, quoted strings, plus and minus. It gives you advanced parameters like publish/retreival date, categories, origin.

If there are no results for your exact, specific query, a good search engine shows you zero results. A good search engine does not waste your time with literally infinite fake results tangentially related to what the engine decided you meant instead of honoring your query.

I gleefully pay for Kagi because it's a good search engine. It does all the things a good search engine should do. It does not do the things that bad search engines do. Kagi has put great effort into designing a search engine that maximises your ability to find the thing you're looking for.

Because I pay Kagi with cold hard cash, I do not have to instead pay Kagi by consuming thousands of fake "sponsored" search results. I enter a query, and Kagi gives me precisely the results for that query and nothing more. It's really that simple. I pay for Kagi because it's a good search engine, and most other search engines are not good.

Google isn't even a search engine anymore. It's a heuristic ad delivery mechanism that happens to also surface indexed web content. Your query is a suggestion and is usually disregarded completely and replaced with a more lucrative query. Google hasn't supported advanced search in over a decade. No plus or minus or quoted strings make any difference.

I heartily encourage you to learn about search engines and try one. I doubt very strongly that you've ever used a proper search engine. You've most likely only engaged with heuristic ad machines before. Try a search engine, you'll never want to go back.

[kqr]

For what it's worth I find about the same things using Kagi as I do using DuckDuckGo. But with Kagi I get to pay for the service I use and that's their funding model and that's very healthy so I want to support that.

[yegg]

FYI, we (DuckDuckGo) now have a subscription service (https://duckduckgo.com/pro) and one could always turn off ads on our search engine (https://duckduckgo.com/settings).

[Izmaki]

I didn't know about https://duckduckgo.com/settings at all, thanks. I really liked the customization of "Startpage".

I'm also REALLY happy to see that you can actively disable not just adds but also suggestions to install tools/apps and newsletter requests. Thank you!

[yegg]

You’re welcome!

[mjamesaustin]

This is constantly the case, anytime I Google something more obscure than the front page of a top 50 website.

Even when Google gets it right (often they don't) I have to wade through a bunch of AI slop and countless ads. After that, it's dozens of SEO referral link sites trying to sell me garbage.

Kagi gives me better results by default, no ads, and I can customize results by prioritizing or blocking different domains. Very much worth the small price.

[subscribed]

[flagged]

[seviu]

The small thing that annoys me is that I am 100% sure somebody at Apple has a directive: never allow Kagi search integration.

I am truly baffled (and annoyed) about this fact.

[sobjornstad]

On iOS, there is an app called xSearch that integrates into Safari and sneakily hacks around the limited search engine options by watching your browsing history for queries to the search engine you've selected in Safari, then immediately rewriting the URL and navigating to the search engine you actually want.

Obviously this has security implications, but I don't ordinarily search for anything sketchy on my iPhone so I'm personally not too worried about it.

[sph]

No need for a third party app. Kagi itself has an extension to intercept queries sent to Google and redirecting them on their website.

[amelius]

Then don't buy Apple!

There's more to device quality than whether a monkey can operate it and looks shiny.

[daft_pink]

I know right. It’s simple. Google pays them over a billion dollars and Kagi doesn’t.

[BirAdam]

However, Apple does allow DDG, Ecosia, and Bing. They just don’t allow Brave or Kagi.

[trollbridge]

Easily fixed by installing Brave Browser.

[freehorse]

Or a bunch of other browsers. Nothing special about brave.

[daft_pink]

Just not very practical on iOS or iPad

[alex1138]

I get annoyed at Whatsapp and see it as a case for antitrust but apparently Google is just as guilty of this

[xp84]

Using third-party browsers on iOS isn’t nearly as annoying as it was a few years ago. I had been driven to switch back to Safari a few years ago after trying to make a go of it. But last year I switched back to a third-party default browser and have been happy.

Third-party keyboards, still not usable but browsers are basically ok.

[TylerE]

3rd party browsers don't actually exist. iOS Chrome is just V8 bolted onto Webkit/Safari. Chromium is not part of it.

[freehorse]

The point was that in a third party browser you can usually set any search provider, not which rendering engine they use.

[a1o]

> Third-party keyboards, still not usable but browsers are basically ok.

The one third-party keyboard that seems to work is the one from Google, if you want a better experience than Apple’s.

[account42]

You could always choose to use software that respects the user's freedom.

[amelius]

Kagi uses Yandex which is Russian.

[SolarNet]

Its funny because Kagi apparently also uses Google, and Microsoft and other threads were complaining about it.

It sounds like they use everything to give their subscribers good results. Which is what it sounds like I am paying for.

[mystraline]

Yandex is great if youre searching for pirated content or for DMCA'd content that ended up on Gitflic.ru

Anti-drm tools are a big case in point. And so is Bypass Paywalls Clean Firefox plugin. All of these have been purged from the "Great American Corporate Firewall".

Russian people != Russian govt != Russian companies.

I just use the tools that work.

[troad]

[flagged]

[mystraline]

> Something tells me you're not much of an ethicist.

Not at all.

Ethicists, in my experience, are hacks that cant actually do, but instead loudly pontificate and deride others who can. They basically run gish gallops and whataboutism to get the real creators to stop.

> "Who am I to refuse medical breakthroughs because they came from monstrous human experiments on prisoners of war? If it works it works!" /s

You can sarcasm-tag this all you want, but the medical experiments the Nazies did against Jews, Romani, Gay, mentally disabled, and others WERE used in this way for the US space and rocket initiatives and the creation of NASA. They were already dead, and the data collected. So yeah, we did use them. And we got further ahead by not having to run more experiments. And the data helped save our people.

Its not a great situation, sure. But whats done is done. No sense in whining and bemoaning "ethics" of corpses. Might as well get some good use out of their abject slaughter.

[recursivegirth]

But does it surface relevant search results?

Many things on the web use Yandex.

[idiotsecant]

I use a great number of russian sites, mostly when I want to download textbooks, audiobooks, etc.

[account42]

And people who have a problem with that should first fix the failure of the western world to provide equivalent services.

[vitally3643]

Do you have a point other than being overtly racist?

[troad]

Russian is a nationality, not a race. You can say prejudiced, but not racist. In this case it's not even a person, but a product.

It's not prejudice when it's based on a post-facto assessment of the Russian government's mobilisation of their companies for obscene and evil goals like clamping down on free speech, persecuting LGBT people, or trying to destroy Ukraine.

"It's Russian and therefore it's out" is a valid stance in light of all the known consequences of using a Russian product. If Russian people do not like this, they are welcome to break their links to the Russian state by emigrating and founding companies elsewhere, or stay and overthrow their government. Either works for me.

Many Russians have learnt to keep quiet about politics so they can get ahead in Russia, and they seem to harbour some deep-seated delusion that everyone from abroad should play along with this for their own convenience and profit. They whisper 'no war' to one another, by which they mean Ukraine should surrender already, so that this whole unpleasantness (to them) blows over, and the rest of the world goes back to accepting their blood money. No.

Germany has been grappling with its own horrific genocide for a hundred years and still hasn't quite figured it out. Russia is, as of the time of writing, currently undertaking one. Come back in a hundred years, maybe we can talk about Russian products then.

[QuantumFunnel]

What's your point? Yandex is quite a competent search engine