I apologize if this is old news, but I just noticed it. It looks like Kagi has added Fediverse Forums as a default Web search option.
heres to the painfully slow and gradual rebirth of the internet.
We learned a lot of lessons from the first one. Here’s hoping we don’t make the same mistakes.
lets see if federation can keep the hawks away. they will certainly be trying (again) once we hit critical mass.
It’s had it for at least months but even if its years old it’s still a cool feature and deserves attention
I’ve been using Kagi for the last year+.
Personally, I wish they’d tone down the AI stuff that ruined Google, but at least you can turn most of it off.
Their results are okay, a little better than Bing, but obviously they’re limited by their existing index providers, I wish they’d run their own spiders and crawl for their own data, since I think Bing fails on a lot of coverage of obscure websites.
In general I find the weighting of modern indexes to be subpar, though the SEO industry has made it a hard problem to tackle, I wish more small websites and forums were higher ranked, and AI slop significantly de rated.
TW: Self harm
Also not a huge fan of the company and a lot of it’s ardent customers, who heavily protested a suicide prevention popup if you used it to searched for how to kill yourself.
Have you tried the small web lens? They run their own index specifically to help surface the content you mention is hard to find by default.
Small web always returns 0 results for anything that isn’t extremely broad, unfortunately.
Kagi has multiple indexes of their own
And the AI stuff is all opt on from what I can tell. I’ve never gotten any AI thing except when I asked for it
They have smallweb and news indexing, but other than that AFAICT they rely completely on other providers. Which is a shame, Google allows submitting sites for indexing and notifies if they can’t.
Running a scraper doesn’t need to cover everything since they have access to other indexes, but they really should be developing that ability instead of relying on Bing and other providers to provide good results, or results at all.
Running an index is quite a massive endeavor at the scale of Google. They’re a small team.
I think it makes sense considering there’s a competitive market of indexes already. They make small ones to cover some niches and use existing ones for the rest.
Keep in mind they also add their own reranking and stuff on top of Bing Google whatever
If they were a small or free service I wouldn’t have much issue, but they do charge, I don’t think it’s too much to ask that they at least attempt to scrape the wider web.
Building their own database seems the prudent thing long-term, I don’t doubt they could shore up coverage over Bing. They don’t have to replace the other indexes wholesale, just supplement it.
Why would they do what Google etc. do, but much worse? It makes sense that they do scrape what google etc. most likely miss (and that’s what their index is about). Even a company with Microsoft resources tried and failed to scrape the web as a whole (failed in the sense results are worse).
Been using this for a month or so its nice
Does it work on lemmy content too?
Edit: thanks all!
Yeah big time
Yes it does! :)
ive been finding lemmy content on duckduckgo and other engines for a while now. dont intend to try kagi tho so cant answer your question.
Surprisingly I’ve had zero Lemmy results in my searches.
Probably because my searches aren’t “Tell me why Linux is so cool”. Lol.
Probably because my searches aren’t “Tell me why Linux is so cool”. Lol.
sucks to suck i guess :) But yeah the stuff i was searching for was vaguely software related.
Just came across https://d-shoot.net/kagi.html . Seems like there are more good reasons to avoid it besides it also using Yandex as an index.
I encourage subscribers to go make themselves heard on this post if you support being able to disable particular indexes such as Yandex.
They’re definitely stretching themselves too thin, but as long as I get better and more relevant, cleaner, no advertising search results for my knowledge work and research. With my privacy in tact.
Then I’m continuing to pay them for a product I find to be superior than the alternatives.
Thanks for the link, I’ll def be more critical about it in the future.
I’ll still use it (for now) because as a no-nonsense customizable search engine its by far the best I’ve tried.
Eh, doesn’t discouraged me from using em. For me is them or Google. As those are the only two useable engines for my type of surfing.
If someone is interested about Kagi vs Google (made by Kagi): https://mastodon.social/@kagihq/113971972586118949
Kagi is shaping up to be really cool with this and the Orion browser supporting firefox/chrome extensions on ios.
I think when I tried them out a while back they also had a usenet search? Can anyone clarify on this?
They do.
Not sure if you use that feature but does it work like an indexer and allow direct downloads of “Linux isos”?
Imagine if someone added that feature to SearX/SearXNG
I use the Kagi forum toggle so. much.
Cool, but I will still prefer to use duckduckgo and type Lemmy in the end of my query.
It’s had this for quite some time
Obligatory mention that Kagi also use the Russian search index Yandex. This aids the Russian economy and the Russian war effort.
Edit: I recommend reading my in depth explanation here https://lemmy.world/comment/15520236
Every single time with red comes up there’s always this FUD. You, specifically, don’t miss any opportunity to make mention of this. Across Lemmy, which is rather suspicious. Helping the Russian war effort? That’s a pretty big leap here.
Why?
Imagine a search engine aggregator aggregating search engine results from multiple sources for aggregation. The more indexes they support the better the results are going to be for everyone, I don’t see this as a problem for data aggregation.
Why should data aggregation give any sort of shits about geopolitics?
Regardless, the topic of this post, fediverse search, is part of their own search engine anyways afaik
I have been sick a lot lately, so have had a lot of time on my hands. I don’t have a search for Kagi or something. I wanted to use Kagi though, so I was disappointed when I realized that they want to continue this practice.
What are you implying with it being suspicious? In what way?
If Kagi pays a Russian company for a service, that company pays taxes to the Russian government.
Russia spends 32% of its budget on the Russian military. So for every dollar they get in taxes, one third is spent on the Russian military.
With a corporate tax rate of 20% that means 6.4% of Yandex profits go to the military. Since Kagi is mainly a paid service, I don’t want my money to go to the Russian military, and I guess a lot of other people don’t want this either.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-hikes-national-defence-spending-by-23-2025-2024-09-30/
The Russian people are not to blame, and I am sure a lot of great people work at Yandex and at different companies in Russia. That said, Russia chose to attack a peaceful democratic country, they are currently sanctioned by a lot of western countries in hopes that it will pressure their economy enough to force them to stop the war.
There isn’t much we can do to stop the conflict besides hurting them economically and supporting Ukraine. If we continue to use Russian products and services then that does not work. Unfortunately this affects everyone in Russia.
Thank you
I’m grateful someone mentioned it. Paying Yandex is a deal breaker for me. As much as Yandex may want to be independent, they cannot be because of the country they’re based in. With the way things are going, the same may be true of Google and Kagi itself somewhere within the next four years.
Kagi defends itself by saying it’s “only used 2% of the time” which would make a better argument that turning off the feature to distance themselves from Russia has little impact than a defence for working with them. There’s also the “but we’ve always done it like this” defence and something about “providing the best results” but neither are great arguments.
But yandex is useful for those who search in Russian. The low utilization probably comes from a mostly US/EU customer base, but when it is used, it is useful. I would disagree with disabling it. The best would be letting people decide what back ends to use, but that requires a whole rewrite of the search logic on their side, so it’s not happening any time soon…
BTW in EU we still use a lot of gas and oil from Russia, so it’s quite difficult to avoid giving them money (especially because we don’t know where energy came from for every product we buy).
Doing continuing business with Yandex at all is bad enough for me. I’m having enough trouble cutting off Russia-supporting products and services already, I’m not taking on new ones if I can avoid it.
Kagi is a great concept for a search engine, but looking at the forum posts by their CEO, their priorities clearly won’t ever align with mine. I hope they get similar competition as Google crumbles further and further, because their business model is how search engines should be making money.
Fair enough, I am also not attached to kagi, mostly I want companies with good business models to succeed in tech. I want to see ad-revenue based companies (and all the connected industry) to crumble. A man can dream…
Source?
deleted by creator
Best I can find links a sweedish page on the topic
https://fedia.io/m/[email protected]/t/1334785
It’s kind of odd I can’t find more sources which does make me a bit skeptical
and they use Brave, too.
When does anti Russian gov aggression just become racism? Does using Google aid the war in Palestine?
I see your point, but I think there is a meaningful difference.
Russia started a war with a peaceful nation. It is in no way, shape or form a provoked war.
There are a couple of ways you can react to hurt the agressor. With the goal of making them stop hurting the innocent. Military action is one, economic is another.
Most European countries have decided to hurt them economically. As a European I agree with this, and fully support it. I try my best not to support the Russian economy. If Russia as a country changes in the future, my view will probably change as well. This is a war that Putin started.
That said, I believe the support from the US to Israel was wrong. The US has been supporting genocide. One could argue that supporting the US economy supports these sorts of actions as well. However, the scale is important and how much involvement is important.
If you had mentioned an Israeli company, I would agree 100%. The difference is that the US have not been spending 1/4 to 1/3 of their entire fiscal budget fighting a peaceful democratic nation as the agressor.
Anyways, at this point I am kinda mad at the US for being a unreliable partner and going to trade war with Europe and bailing in their responsibilities when it comes to the war in Ukraine and creating uncertajnty within NATO, threatening nations etc, anyways. So not spending a lot of money on US goods and services at the moment either no.
Technically you could extend that reasoning to plenty of EU countries that also send aid to Israel (e.g., Germany, where Hetzner is located, or tuta, etc.).
At some point one has to make compromises, and everyone can place the line where they wish. Considering 1000 searches per month, the price is going to be between $0.20 and $3.84 (synchronous). So let’s say $2, which is probably an order of magnitude more than the real cost. Of that 2$, the margin is maybe 1$? That 1$ becomes profit for some Kazakh company, which ultimately means $0.2 in taxes. If this was in Russia, that would be $0.018 to the federal government, but let’s say that it doesn’t matter. Of that, 40% goes in weapons, making it $0.08/month. In 1 year, that’s $0.96.
Now, as I said I wouldn’t be surprised if this was an overestimation of 10x or more, it also assumes that absolutely nothing goes to Kazakh government, which is fully used to bypass sanctions, and a 50% margin for the company. It also assumes 1000 searches (the average was around 300 if I recall correctly) and that yandex is used for each one of them.
Every cent count, absolutely, but it’s objectively such a tiny amount that a one-time donation to UA army or some humanitarian relief org will offset you for like 15 years.
I totally agree that it is a miniscule amount. I try to prioritize more effective actions for other causes I care about, but personally am uncomfortable with any compromises with Russia at the moment. Luckily it’s basically close to zero products and services that are Russian, so it’s easy to avoid. So everytime I come across something Russian, I just avoid it. Kagi is one of the really rare times.
There’s also non-economic reasons to avoid a Russian index considering their reputation with misinformation campaigns. Even a slight nudge in the direction of Russian positive propaganda is damaging. But this was not my initial argument.
There is also the information gathering aspect, knowing what people search for (even if anonymous) is valuable.
At least in Europe that’s still quite impossible, who knows what their gas and oil is used to produce. Which means you might buy some european product and also give them money. Anyway, everyone has their lines and I respect that.
I think most people are unaffected from the actual data, unless they search in russian, which is useful for me as a Russian language learner for example. I mostly search grammar stuff.
That’s nice indeed! Thanks for sharing.
The mandatory signing in to perform any search is a deal breaker. Privacy first
It’s because you have to pay for the search engine. They dont serve ads
Feel like you’re jumping the gun a bit with this opinion. Kagi is one of the best options if you prioritize privacy. Have a closer look at their policies.
Policies can change, they’re for profit, and I’ve heard leadership may be right wing/trumpy but I can’t find clear evidence of it so I want count that against them at this point.
Either way subscriptions are you giving away your identity essentially. They have you, your name, your credit card, your address, your associated searches, there is a lot to consider here more than just “look at what they say.” You are choosing to give them clear identification of you and your searches. That requires a lot of trust.
TL;DR: A lot of for profit companies say a lot of things. I am not anti-Kagi but you’re being very reductionist and ignoring valid concerns.
Edit: I am not against Kagi or spending money on quality services.
And if it changes, I will leave and stop paying. They are a user centric model. They thrive because of paying users.
This is what their Privacy Pass extension is for. Once it verifies you as an user, it doles out a bunch of generic “arcade tokens”, which don’t have any identifying information. You lose Kagi’s personalization features while using them, but your searches aren’t tied to any account beyond just “Kagi”, so you and everybody else using the privacy extension are the same person.
At least, as I understand it.
Yeah someone else told me about that, looks like it was only rolled out a few weeks ago so in my defense it’s pretty new information lol Looks legit though! Absolutely has me reconsidering that concern now.
Hoping to be constructive: how do you think search engines should operate? Or maybe how would you like one you consider “good” to operate?
Also wondering how you see something like Privacy Pass that Kagi announced recently: https://blog.kagi.com/kagi-privacy-pass
This is particularly useful in the context of a privacy-respecting paid search engine, where the Server wants to ensure that the Client can access the services, and the Client seeks strong guarantees that, for example, the searches are not associated with them.
I did not know about privacy pass - that’s a fantastic step. I need to better understand the protocol they’re using but if they truly cannot link my usage to my account and the account strictly exists for (functionally anonymous) payment then I honestly have no notes. That could be enough to assuage most of my concerns.
This is the kind of conversation, healthy, back and forth, and conceding instead of doubling down as we learn more that I wish was more common on the internet these days.
Bravo, really.
Theu don’t verify emails and the CEO has even suggested we can use a random string. Also, you can pay with Bitcoin. No forced KYC anywhere along the way.
they’re for profit
From my subscription cost, yes. This aligns my privacy goals with their need for income which is not the case for “free” advertising-supported products.
You can read the myriad of responses/chains this lead to rather than restarting the conversation as if all of this hasn’t been covered. Have a good rest of your weekend
Many blessings on you and your family
So you won’t pay for a subscription to use a search engine. Do you prefer the model that other search engines use where they take the content of your searches and use it to advertise to you?
I didn’t say anything remotely like you’re accusing me of in your comment. I’m saying making an account is no small thing because you were trivializing it. At no point did I even mention spending money (because that doesn’t bother me. I am happy to spend money on quality things/services).
I introduced nuance to your extremely reduced take and you’re trying to do it again with strawmen directed at me.
The above are valid concerns. That’s all I’ve said. Anything else beyond that is your construction.
Edit: let me ask you this - do you have accounts on porn sites?
Read my comment again, because I neither accused you of anything nor reduced your argument. I’m not the original poster you replied to
So you won’t pay for a subscription to use a search engine.
When did I say that? Point out one single line that even remotely implies this. Flagrant strawman. What else would you call it?
Do you prefer the model that other search engines use where they take the content of your searches and use it to advertise to you?
It’s a leading question and you know it. You should’ve asked “how do you think search engines should operate?” You’re implying I am content with how Google operates, which I am not.
I’ll even concede the second may have actually been unintentionally accusatory in its implication, but you literally started the comment saying I won’t pay for this service. It’s right there in front of you, you wrote it.
Maybe read your own comment again before being condescending?
When did I say that? Point out one single line that even remotely implies this. Flagrant strawman. What else would you call it?
Perhaps, I dunno, a misunderstanding?? Why do you assume everyone is out to get you? Why do you interpret everything as hostility?
How do you intend to pay for a search engine without signing in to it and having it track your search history?
They have a system for detaching your account info from searches now
