Thoughts on Kagi? - eviltoast

I’ve been using this search engine and I have to say I’m absolutely in love with it.

Search results are great, Google level even. Can’t tell you how happy I am after trying multiple privacy oriented engines and always feeling underwhelmed with them.

Have you tried it? What are your thoughts on it?

  • LWD@lemm.ee
    533·
    10 months ago

    I stumbled onto some comments about Kagi angling to become an AI-first search engine that actually brags about putting you in a filter bubble. From Kagi’s manifesto:

    In the future, instead of everyone sharing the same search engine, you’ll have your completely individual, personalized Mike or Julia or Jarvis - the AI. Instead of being scared to share information with it, you will volunteer your data, knowing its incentives align with yours.

    One YouTube video suggests a grim future: “Everybody has a feed uniquely tailored to them. Nobody talks about their favorite YouTubers anymore, because everybody watches different content farms. All the real creators quit a long time ago.”

    Food for thought. I don’t like the idea of these filter bubbles.

    ETA: I didn’t realize it at the time but they also promise data collection for

    • Political echo chambers: “But there will also be search companions with different abilities… You could customize an AI to be conservative or liberal”
    • Corporate brand loyalty: “Ask it for a good coffee maker, and it’ll recommend choices within your budget from your favorite brands”

    If you’re looking for an open source search engine that’s building its own data set, one exists (and it’s totally open source and free).

    https://stract.com/

    If you’re looking for something that collates other engines’ contents, SearXNG is also open source and free.

    https://searx.space

    Kagi isn’t really unique in any way here; their most unique quality appears to be linking your searches to an account, requesting money, and promising not to sell your data at a later date.

    • Solemn@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      131·
      10 months ago

      … Okay, I just tried Stract, and its results are… Mostly not helpful.

      My understanding is that Kagi makes an effort to tell you how they anonymize your search so they can’t tie it back to your account afterwards, whereas Searx is more dependent solely on the goodwill of whoever is hosting the instance. Both are good faith dependent in the end, but one has a profit motive for keeping that faith.

      Edit: I hope Stract gets there and takes off one day, but today doesn’t seem to be that day for me.

      • sudneo@lemmy.world
        42·
        10 months ago

        The privacy policy is also a legally binding document, not just a promise that the company does. If they are found violating it, the GDPR fines are going to hurt and they would lose the customer base in a blink. Their privacy policy right now is exemplary, I am one of those who read policies before using a product and kagi’s is literally the best I have seen: clear, detailed, specific and most importantly, good from the privacy perspective.

    • Scolding7300@lemmy.world
      2·
      10 months ago

      There’s some tradeoff here, keep garbage out and relevant results in. Definitely want to stay connected with others and share knowledge (such as websites that provide quality info)