I started paying for Kagi a few months ago and I'm loving it. Search results and tools are great. People balk at paying for a search engine, but at least this way I know I'm not the product.
this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2023
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I’m seeing a lot of love for Kagi as well. Not sure I’m quite ready to have to pay for search results, but I fully appreciate people that do. I have lots of subscriptions already and am trying to reduce them (i.e. self-hosting Vaultwarden as a replacement for 1Password).
I often recommend people using the "100 searches" trial of kagi to see if it might be worth it for them. I tried it and for me the price is worth it because of the custom filters and weights for results. It's really nice to search for something and all results on the first page are relevant content (no ads, seo-bait pages or stuff like Pinterest).
People don't even know what that feels like I think. Google has messed them up.
I remember the days when a Google search would usually get me what I wanted in the first result. And if not, at least it would be on the first page.
Now it's a mess of sponsored links, videos, and other irrelevant suggestions.
Kagi has been great. I'd like to see more searches on their $5 plan as 300 searches a month doesn't feel adequate. It has been great being able to promote, demote, and block sites from searching and I have found my results to be more helpful and relevant than Google alternatives I tried. I don't think I have used Google search at all since signing up. Highly recommend.
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The weird thing for me is that by paying to use, you will need to be uniquely identified, and that opens doors for losing privacy in several ways. How is that addressed by kagi?
They address this on their website and go in further detail on their privacy policy. You'd have to read through that to decide if they do enough to earn your trust. But in my opinion not having any advertising removes most of their incentive to try to collect user data. I suppose there could be a temptation to collect the data to resell, but since a large portion of their income relies on the reputation of being a search alternative that has a focus on privacy I feel the risk to their reputation would be greater than whatever revenue that would generate.
Of course there are all kinds of companies that flew too close to the sun and sold out user privacy for a Coke and a smile. I've decided to go with Kagi and have been very happy with them so far. If they ever sell out I'll cash out, but they seem to be the best option for me right now.
DuckDuckGo from the browser, because 90% of the time I can get where I want with the appropriate ! bang from the address bar.
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Just using duckduckgo. I'm not happy with my search results as they heavily prioritize clickbait CEO blogs instead of showing official documentation / sources.
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I’ve been using DuckDuckGo for years now and recommend it all the time.
I get decent, reliable results so haven’t shopped around.
This. Clean, reliable and functional. Although I’ve never wrapped my head around how they make their $$
They place ads in the search results.
If you disable your ad blocker, the first search result will almost always an Amazon ad. I test searched for "Headphones" and it also shows a row of JBL headphones at the top ala google shopping, which is an ad as well.
Really, they make their money the same way as google, they just don't track your searches and site visits.
Been a duckie for years now but I find myself going back to google for things like maps and shopping (that nearby search is a godsend) have you found any privacy mindfull alternatives?
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Using qwant because it's developed and hosted in France. Better than supporting a US company as a European.
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Default search in Firefox: SearXNG (List of Instances) (solves 60-80%)
if not the solution, I then search for "dd [term]" which goes to duckduckgo. Solves mostly the rest.
If not, and I am really desperate, I try: "dd !g [term]" so it goes to ddg, redirects to google and then I am reminded how bad a first page result can be. Only ads, sponsored entries and only big company names. Good luck finding anything from a forum or a small blog on google today. All the search words are bundled up in company results that has nothing to do with the topic.
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ddg.gg for the win.
Started using them when I confronted the Google filter bubble for the first time.
But what totally sold me? DDG provided me link for a product I had searched for in vain on Google for years at that point, using the exact same query.
I used to think Google search was clean until I used ddg. For some reason I prefer how ddg display searches.
Please reveal the product. I am consumed by curiosity.
Steel leveling jacks, manual, center screw variety, used extensively for leveling mobile homes back in the day.
First time I used DDG to look for them, BOOM, half way down the page a manufacturer in Enid, OK. G? Literally for years kept serving me up pneumatic, expensive, industrial gear or services.
That is definitely not what I was expecting
That is definitely not what I was expecting
Please reveal what you were expecting. I am consumed by curiosity.
Titanium leveling jacks most likely
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I've had a pretty similar journey to yours and I'm currently using Qwant, although the only reason I'm using them is because they're based in Europe and haven't had any scandals that I could find. If you're really concerned about privacy I've heard good things about Kagi.
They have a partnership with Microsoft. Not saying it’s a scandal but that was my reason to stop using it
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Personally, I use duck duck go as my primary search engine but I only use it to search for things. But since chatgpt4, I use perplexity.ai for actual answers. Browser wise, I use duck duck go where I can or Arc on my Mac with all the usual privacy plugins.
What are your thoughts on Arc? I tried it a couple of months ago but couldn’t really get used to the layout, etc.
Sure it’s as good a browser as any, I just wasn’t feeling it.
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Currently using Startpage and my only criticism of it is that it is noticeably slower than the other 2 that I have used DDG and Brave
I would recommend DDG for most and Startpage only for the people who don't want to use Google search anymore but want similar if not identical search results
I did change the default search engine of some of my relatives to Startpage without them knowing:)
I like the fact that brave search has an AI, that's why I use it. I might self-host a foss search engine though
I recently started using Duck Duck Go instead of Google.
I still had this thought that Google was the best technology as I went from the early web (remember... altavista.digital.com, yahoo, ...) and I remember that Google was really a game changer when it started to become popular.
I tested setting DDG as default search engine in my desktop and mobile browsers, thinking that when I don't have expected results I would go to Google... I never had to switch to Google because I was wrong, DDG is as good as Google while being better from privacy point of view.
For the browser I use Vivaldi on both android and desktop.
Does anyone have experience/thoughts about Mojeek?
I just recently learned about it and haven't really explored it, but curious.
Thanks!
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I am using startpage.com since they include Google results and DDG just has bad results sometimes
I'm using an Ad-, Tracking- etc blocker in all my devices, so I'm not too worried about using Google or Bing when I do.
But I'm hosting my own instance of SearchXNG and that's often simply the most powerful and flexible search engine.
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DDG cause the bangs are nice, but I find myself searching generally very little these days. I usually just use a bang to search a site I know I will find what I want on, if no bang then I will just navigate to that site. Search results have been shit for over a decade.
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