[HN Gopher] How I Use Kagi
___________________________________________________________________
How I Use Kagi
Author : moebrowne
Score : 240 points
Date : 2025-07-17 15:33 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (flamedfury.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (flamedfury.com)
| Chief_Searcha wrote:
| Kagi is an interesting one, I've been meaning to test it out. I
| also made a search engine seek.ninja / searcha.page, and in
| trying to promote it I see Kagi come up a lot.
| PokemonNoGo wrote:
| Do they still use Yandex?
|
| >I've been a happy Kagi user since early 2023
|
| I was an unhappy Kagi user when I learnt it relied on Russian
| back ends fueling a war. Now I'm not a user anymore.
| ajdude wrote:
| Do you have any links / sources for this?
| bangaladore wrote:
| I think they are referring to this changelog item:
|
| > Our image search became even better with the inclusion of
| two more sources: Yandex Image Search (widely recognized as
| one of best image search services) and Openverse (vast
| collection of openly licensed images). Kagi is doing the hard
| work so that you don't have to.
|
| https://kagi.com/changelog#5340
| jwr wrote:
| They were asked to stop and refused:
|
| https://kagifeedback.org/d/5445-reconsider-yandex-
| integratio...
| junon wrote:
| They have search results from Yandex among others, yes, and
| Yandex isn't really a Russian company anymore.
| jwr wrote:
| See for example https://www.zois-
| berlin.de/en/publications/zois-spotlight/th...
| haiku2077 wrote:
| > Yandex isn't really a Russian company anymore
|
| The Dutch owners sold Yandex to a group of Russian investors.
| threetonesun wrote:
| You're gonna have a hard time using anything right now if you
| want to avoid services run in a country not spending on a war
| somewhere.
| cosmicgadget wrote:
| It's not hypocritical to set the bar at a given place, like
| an ongoing war of territorial expansion and child abduction
| run by an autocrat that won't be replaced until his death.
| One with near complete popular support.
| skrtskrt wrote:
| This could easily refer to any of the despots the US backs
| cosmicgadget wrote:
| Is that some sort of gotcha? By all means, boycott those
| countries as well. Support from the US certainly is not a
| free pass.
| skrtskrt wrote:
| Follow the logic and boycott the US as well! Now you have
| zero viable search engines
| cosmicgadget wrote:
| Can you give me a line-by-line breakdown please? For
| example, I believe term limits are still a thing.
| Ar-Curunir wrote:
| Are you talking about the United States? Like, yes, the
| Russian regime is awful, but how are you looking around at
| the the world and not applying the same standards to the
| US?
| cosmicgadget wrote:
| Can we just stop at the "yes the Russian regime (and
| oligarchy and substantial popular support) is awful"
| part? Because that is really all you need to reasonably
| boycott Yandex. Is it good to be ideologically
| consistent? Absolutely! Is it required? Not if you're
| aiming to _reduce_ the amount of evil in the world.
|
| Redirecting discussion about Russia's shittiness to a
| criticism of the US is a dumb propaganda tactic that a
| lot of people here are engaging in. And many others are
| swallowing. I'm happy to talk about the US or NATO or
| Israel, just not with the partisans who for some reason
| assume I fully support any of the above.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| Thats not at all what he said.
|
| All countries pay for their militaries. Russia invaded
| Ukraine and is actively comitting genocide.
|
| There is a difference.
| J_McQuade wrote:
| Also, the company is based in a country that has 'fueled' more
| wars in my lifetime than any other country has in the last 100
| years. Definitely avoid.
| barbazoo wrote:
| I doubted this but it's true:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kagi_(search_engine)
|
| > Country of origin: USA
| Chief_Searcha wrote:
| There have been times when I loved and times when I absolutely
| hated Yandex. That being said, I am not going to disown
| everything associated with Russia. Also they are distancing
| themselves. It's far from perfect but the more independent
| indexes the better even if you disagree with those particular
| indexes.
| mossTechnician wrote:
| Kagi is still partnered with Yandex[0], but they removed a list
| of sources they used. When asked if the list could be restored,
| Vladimir Prelovac replied "Is there any particular reason you
| are asking for this? More context will help us better
| understand the need."[1]
|
| [0]: https://kagifeedback.org/d/5445-reconsider-yandex-
| integratio...
|
| [1]: https://kagifeedback.org/d/252-show-source-of-results/49
| lostlogin wrote:
| Good links. Him making out that hiding it is to help users is
| a bit gross.
| 7373737373 wrote:
| They would rather live in a world where they can find
| everything, including 2 atrocities they indirectly fund,
| than not
| joshuaturner wrote:
| Not a great look. Even if you somehow believe partnering with
| Yandex is justifiable, you should stand by the decision.
|
| My annual plan with Kagi renews in a few months and it might
| be time to look for alternatives.
| anon7000 wrote:
| They do stand by it:
| https://kagifeedback.org/d/5445-reconsider-yandex-
| integratio...
| joshuaturner wrote:
| Removing a previously public list of sources after being
| pressed on their integration with Yandex gives me a
| different impression.
| camel-cdr wrote:
| I wonder how much of the advantages from kagi are due to their
| yandex backend.
|
| For example, I recently tried to search for a text string from
| ao3 and google, bing, brave, qwant, ... all return no results,
| while yandex and by extension kagi found it in the first search
| result.
| i_love_retros wrote:
| Do you use American products?
|
| Since, you know, America is funding Israel's genocide in Gaza
| with money and bombs.
|
| Too inconvenient to boycott amazon and google?
| Tadpole9181 wrote:
| That's one of the reasons I canceled my subscription as well.
| J_McQuade wrote:
| I always feel really grotty about evangelising for products, but
| I switched to Kagi about six months ago and it really is a better
| experience. In almost all cases, the search results are as good
| as or better than Google, and I don't have to scroll through an
| increasing number of misleading ads to see them. I'm a happy
| customer.
|
| When I first switched, I would often click the button to run the
| search on google for queries that weren't immediately giving me
| what I wanted (rather than go through the next few pages of
| results), but invariably I wouldn't find it there either. I think
| that's what gave me confidence that Kagi's results were at least
| as trustworthy as anything else. (to compare, I did the same
| thing in my multiple abortive attempts to switch to DDG and it
| always came up wanting).
| xnx wrote:
| > the search results are as good as or better than Google, and
| I don't have to scroll through an increasing number of
| misleading ads to see them.
|
| It's been a long time since I've clicked a search result or
| seen an ad. Google usually has what I need right on the page
| and uBlock removes the ads.
| rrr_oh_man wrote:
| 640 KB ought to be enough for anybody
| prophesi wrote:
| These days it's often the sites in the results themselves
| that are either ads or highly SEO-optimized low value sites.
| You can manage a blacklist and a list of sites to
| promote/demote in the search results. And manage different
| "lenses" to have different buckets of
| blacklist/promote/demote settings tailored for what you're
| researching. And can also be used for their Kagi Assistant
| when you allow it to perform web searches.
|
| edit: This is detailed in the article, but leaving this here
| for those like me who first jump to the HN comments
| thesuitonym wrote:
| IMO this is really Kagi's killer feature. If I see a poor
| behaving site (Pinterest, for example), I can easily
| exclude the domain from every search I ever make. I don't
| have to carefully craft an enormous search query of all the
| sites I don't want to be shown. Demoting news sites that
| have a reputation for promoting bad takes, and prioritizing
| results from sites that are known to be good.
|
| The quick switch to move to reddit based search, or old web
| results, are also great, but for me, it's the tailoring of
| my results to what I actually want, and more importantly,
| what I _don 't_ want is what sold me.
| lukan wrote:
| Are there some recommended curated lists, that I could
| use being new to kagi?
|
| I don't like pinterest and co. either. (Specific things
| one likely has to tweak)
| freediver wrote:
| Yes, start here https://kagi.com/stats?stat=leaderboard
| (logged in)
| jorvi wrote:
| FWIW, it's much better to downrank a page than to
| outright block it. Blocking is for a page you never, ever
| want to see.
|
| I personally dislike Pinterest and TikTok, but sometimes
| it might be the only source of an image or video.
| Blocking means you don't get to see that result.
| thesuitonym wrote:
| Most of the time I agree with you, and prefer
| downranking, but I have to take issue with your example
| of Pinterest, because my experience with Pinterest is
| that if I'm searching for a specific image, I will always
| get a thumbnail of exactly what I want from Pinterest,
| but when I click on it, I'm taken to a page of completely
| unrelated results. It is beyond frustrating, and
| specifically blocking Pinterest was one of the primary
| features that sold me on Kagi.
| xnx wrote:
| I have a hard time relating to the perspective that Kagi
| returns bad results, but at least I can remove them.
| beepbooptheory wrote:
| I know I'm probably speaking to the choir but reports like
| this always make me sad. The internet and the webpages that
| filled it used to be _so cool_. Now its just like three
| websites that are only really judged by how useful they are
| to us.
| mulmen wrote:
| Cool sites are still out there. They never went away.
| Google search isn't the web.
| barbazoo wrote:
| > When I first switched, I would often click the button to run
| the search on google for queries that weren't immediately
| giving me what I wanted
|
| Same, I found it took a while to adjust my searching too. Kagi
| is much more sensitive to spelling things wrong. Google gets
| around that by only using the search query as an inspiration
| but that also introduces a lot of fuzziness in the result IMO.
| With Kagi, you get as much out of it as you put in is what it
| feels like to me. It's slightly harder to find things
| sometimes, sure, but at least we're using a product instead of
| being the product and that adds enough value for me for this to
| be the better deal overall.
| skrtskrt wrote:
| The increased fuzzy interpretation is Google's greatest
| downfall. It takes away any ability to use it as a power user
| or for super-specific stuff. No Google, you don't know better
| than me. I need something really specific and you're
| "smoothing" the results to what some average random searcher
| might want!!
|
| I am the point in my software engineering career where I
| simply don't need those dumbed down results. I need some
| niche research paper or the one guy's extremely in-depth
| benchmarking blog I found months ago but forgot to bookmark.
|
| It got to the point where Google simply could not help me in
| my day job so I see the monthly cost as an essential expense
| similar to my JetBrains sub.
| metasaval wrote:
| I'm no Google apologist (I use ecosia personally), but did
| you try using searching in quotes? That should force the
| search to only find specifically your query directly as
| spelled. Just curious if you did try it and there was still
| that "fuzziness."
| terribleperson wrote:
| Google overrides quotes whenever it feels like nowadays.
| Has for a few years.
| jorvi wrote:
| must include: herrings | missing: herrings
| barbazoo wrote:
| "Around" "every" "word" "I" "know" "should" "be"
| "contained" "in" "the" "result"? :)
| BlackjackCF wrote:
| I wasn't really sure about paying for Kagi but I was convinced
| when I couldn't find some meme video I saw only a year ago
| using Google, DDG, Bing, etc., but found it almost immediately
| using Kagi. I hadn't realized how bad most search providers had
| gotten.
| Tallain wrote:
| I'm curious because I go through this experience a little
| more often than I'd like to admit, and typically end up
| frustrated and without any results (admittedly without using
| Kagi, yet). Did you just search for a phrase from the video,
| or what did you do to find what you needed with Kagi?
| rrr_oh_man wrote:
| Try Yandex...
| throw123xz wrote:
| Not a bad solution if you're looking for things that are
| usually removed from results in the west, eg, torrents
| and stuff like that.
| rustcleaner wrote:
| So streaming _didn 't_ kill the warez scene, it just got
| massively shadowbanned?
| ujkhsjkdhf234 wrote:
| Yes and no. Because of aggressive action from IP holders
| a lot of these sites went underground and deliberately
| aren't indexed in the US and EU but providers from Russia
| or Switzerland got shadowbanned.
| throw123xz wrote:
| It's certainly not dead, but having access to cheap, high
| quality, easy to use alternatives certainly stopped many
| from using "pirated" content.
|
| With price increases, more subscriptions needed, more
| restrictions, etc, we'll probably see more people sailing
| the high seas.
| vohk wrote:
| I've not gone looking for videos specifically, but my
| experience there is that Kagi seems to focus on what you've
| explicitly searched for, where Google and others have
| increasingly leaned into interpreting your intent.
|
| Google's approach works well enough when you're searching
| for a commodity and you don't care terribly much about the
| specific source. I get the impression Google, especially
| post-LLM, wants to divorce satisfying your question from
| the underlying sources.
|
| I find Kagi is better at finding a specific thing,
| especially if you're willing to engage with it as a tool,
| ye olde search engine style. If my query doesn't find what
| I want, it's usually apparent why and I can reframe it.
| jorvi wrote:
| > I always feel really grotty about evangelising for products
|
| You shouldn't. Word-of-mouth should be the primary way people
| discover products.
|
| In ye olden days, a region's best bakery or blacksmith didn't
| become well-known because they put up signposts everywhere, but
| because the quality of their craft made their name known far
| and wide.
|
| I feel very comfortable recommending products that are actually
| good, ran by a UX-first company and reasonably priced.
| kevincox wrote:
| Exactly. If you don't advertise what is good or bad through
| word-of-mouth and true reviews then the primary method of
| learning and evaluating productions is paid marketing. As you
| may suspect the opinion given by paid marketing is not
| reflective of product quality. This means that product
| quality has very little influence on market selection and we
| end up with tons of crap like we do now.
|
| Information from trusted independent sources is the most
| useful tool we have to actually incentivize the market to
| actually create quality products that actually provide value
| to their users.
| drannex wrote:
| > In ye olden days, a region's best bakery or blacksmith
| didn't become well-known because they put up signposts
| everywhere, but because the quality of their craft made their
| name known far and wide.
|
| To be fair, advertising has always been a major thing, for
| example, The romans had a tonne of visual advertising[1]
|
| [1}; https://imperiumromanum.pl/en/article/advertising-in-
| ancient...
| LexiMax wrote:
| > You shouldn't. Word-of-mouth should be the primary way
| people discover products.
|
| I've been a satisfied customer of theirs since 2023.
|
| That said, I've been burned by far too many companies -
| especially tech companies - who grew big, then proceeded to
| squeeze every drop of prior good-will out of their success to
| make a line go up and satisfy investors.
|
| So my support goes as far as opportunistically recommending
| them for as long as they continue to be good. Which I still
| do, I use Kagi on every device and love their personal
| ranking system and translation services, and they've been a
| cornerstone of untangling my life from a Google login -
| speaking of being burned.
|
| But going out of my way to evangelize them feels a bit icky,
| and I can't help but feel like there's another shoe waiting
| to drop. It kind of stinks to feel like that, because my
| hesitancy isn't even necessarily their fault.
| coldpie wrote:
| > In almost all cases, the search results are as good as or
| better than Google
|
| Could you (or someone) share some specific search terms that
| you feel are better than Google? I've tried Kagi a few times
| and felt no significant difference in the results.
| decimalenough wrote:
| Try anything related to visas. "us esta", "canada eta".
|
| On Kagi, the official government site is always the first
| result. On Google, it's buried beneath an avalanche of scammy
| lookalike services that pay for ads and SEO.
| coldpie wrote:
| The government sites are the first result for both searches
| on Google for me.
|
| https://smokingonabike.com/images/upload/kagi_20250717_1.pn
| g
|
| https://smokingonabike.com/images/upload/kagi_20250717_2.pn
| g
| al_borland wrote:
| I had a similar experience. When using DDG my results were
| never very good and I'd always end up using !g to throw the
| search to Google. With Kagi, when I checked other engines it
| would come up empty as well. On more than one occasion I was on
| an outage call at work where there were many people using
| Google to find an answer (for hours), and I joined and did a
| quick search in Kagi and found the answer.
| Scotrix wrote:
| I switched as well and I actually use the AI assistant since
| then primarily. It's awesome to connect search directly with
| AI, almost always get what I want immediately.
| mvieira38 wrote:
| I'm curious, how is the AI assistant experience different
| from Perplexity or even ChatGPT's search feature? Is it just
| the convenience of having several models there or are the
| outputs inherently better because the results are from Kagi's
| engine instead of google?
| TheBozzCL wrote:
| To me, the killer feature has been the ability to filter out
| sites from my search results. I removed all of Pinterest,
| several tabloids and conspiracy sites, any obvious AI-generated
| sites that I run into, and just with that my search result
| quality has increased drastically.
|
| It's a feature that I'd like other search engines to adopt
| natively.
| rustcleaner wrote:
| Imagine if they analyzed all the user-blacklisted domains and
| deranked them from other (new) users' results. Death of SEO!
| mebizzle wrote:
| I switched last year and haven't looked back as well. Only
| thing I miss for convenience sake is the Shopping tab but
| obviously the privacy concerns arent worth that convenience.
| jwr wrote:
| Unfortunately, Kagi works with Russian companies and pays them
| money, which in my book is a no-no. I do not want any of my money
| to contribute to the Russian economy in any way, because I know
| what is happening to people in Ukraine.
|
| (I was a Kagi subscriber, no more, because of this)
| neurobashing wrote:
| can you perhaps elaborate on which companies and in what
| capacity?
| jwr wrote:
| Yes, Yandex, they pay them for some of their search results.
| Here is their own statement, where they refuse to stop, even
| though people keep asking them:
| https://kagifeedback.org/d/5445-reconsider-yandex-
| integratio...
| jorvi wrote:
| "people", as in a perpetually offended tiny minority that
| want the entire world to bend to their comfort bubble. I'm
| fairly certain you're also one of the users that
| incessantly badgered them about excluding Brave's index,
| trying to portray it like the majority of Kagi users wanted
| that.
|
| Vlad's stance is very refreshing in the current politically
| correct world: if including an index makes for better
| search results (= a better product for the users), it will
| be included.
| cosmicgadget wrote:
| 'Offended' is a weird word to describe people choosing to
| boycott evil.
| drewbitt wrote:
| Yandex is evil?
| pphysch wrote:
| Boycott _particular examples of evil that they disagree
| with politically_.
| cosmicgadget wrote:
| I am curious about your politics that favor the invasion
| of Ukraine.
| vickychijwani wrote:
| I'm curious about _your_ politics that are comfortable
| accepting a long list of invasions by the US, but somehow
| draw the line when it comes to this particular invasion.
|
| I'm not saying it's good to favour invasive countries,
| I'm just saying this is hypocritical. I have no
| particular love for either the US or Russia.
| cosmicgadget wrote:
| Can you describe my beliefs on US foreign policy in more
| detail?
| jorvi wrote:
| The Russian government is evil. Would you describe every
| person within its borders as evil? Every company?
|
| Besides, if you spent some time on the kagifeedback
| forums you'd know that there is a particular brand of
| weird user there that wants to force Kagi to exclude or
| rejigger certain search results to be (effectively) more
| woke, which falls pretty much under the same umbrella as
| excluding whole indexes.
|
| With Kagi you get the results as-is, and you get to
| personally ignore, downrank or block any of them you
| don't like. Much better than having a minority of users
| force all of us into their bubble.
| mebizzle wrote:
| Then get your ass off of the internet because there as so
| many commercial entities profiting off of every bit of
| your use.
| cosmicgadget wrote:
| Joke's on them, I'm using private browsing mode.
| _Hackerman_
| EA-3167 wrote:
| Wait until you hear about the EU!
| https://e360.yale.edu/digest/europe-russia-ukraine-war-natur...
|
| Hell, a Spanish company just violated export sanctions and sold
| a machine used to make artillery barrels to Russia, and the
| Spanish government just shrugged. I'm not sure why Kagi has to
| be squeaky clean down to the last dollar when our own
| governments don't even have to meaningfully enforce their own
| sanctions.
| jwr wrote:
| This kind of whataboutism is what leads to the current sad
| state of the world. One can look at any moral choice issue,
| say "but what about... [insert something here]" and then
| proceed to ignore it and do nothing.
|
| I choose to take moral stands. Yes, it might be insignificant
| in the grand scheme of things, but I still choose to do so.
|
| Having read the (rather disappointing) responses: all of them
| create some sort of artificial construct and result in doing
| nothing. I cannot do nothing.
| EA-3167 wrote:
| Happily the state of the world isn't the result of
| recognizing the state of the world, and attempting to avoid
| hypocrisy. Instead the world is a complex system that
| defies easy discussions on social media, motivated by
| overly simplistic and selectively applied moralism.
|
| For example I'm able to compare the impact on the world of
| Google, AdSense, etc... and Kagi's partial reliance on
| Yandex. Something tells me that's going to be taken as
| another case of "whataboutism" rather than realism.
| dingnuts wrote:
| Oh you're taking a moral stance? So how do you get by
| without search? Because surely Google and Microsoft have
| many other moral problems, likely even the same ones.
|
| But you're morally pure so you use no search at all right?
| throw123xz wrote:
| You can install an adblocker and Google/Microsoft end up
| losing money if you use them. You can't stop Kagi from
| sending money to Yandex, unless of course you stop using
| Kagi.
| wswope wrote:
| You don't have a leg to stand on when dismissing criticism
| as whataboutisms, chief.
|
| "Kagi is superior product and a vital competitor to
| breaking the search oligopoly -- but what about their loose
| and indirect association with the Russian economy?!"
| rpdillon wrote:
| I don't find moral stands particularly compelling, because
| they're an excuse to indulge in single-factor analysis, and
| make complex decisions using only the most basic criteria.
| Kagi produces a product you find useful, and they are
| trying to run an honest business model that doesn't focus
| on surveillance, charges a subscription, and earns that by
| working to return the best results.
|
| Is it really a net win to boycott them?
| johnmaguire wrote:
| > I don't find moral stands particularly compelling,
| because they're an excuse to indulge in single-factor
| analysis, and make complex decisions using only the most
| basic criteria.
|
| I don't think this follows. While some people may use
| morals as an excuse to indulge in single-factor analysis,
| it's also entirely possible to use a moral stance as just
| one of many facets of evaluation.
|
| > Is it really a net win to boycott them?
|
| How much you value that facet is of course a personal
| decision.
|
| I personally wonder how much less useful Kagi would
| really be without Yandex? Only Kagi knows, really.
| rpdillon wrote:
| > it's also entirely possible to use a moral stance as
| just one of many facets of evaluation.
|
| Agreed. I'd need to see evidence of that, though. People
| are lazy, and they hide behind moral stances that are
| completely impractical to avoid having to think through
| the complex moral realities of the decisions we make. I
| don't have a lot of patience for this. If it's part of a
| multi-faceted analysis, then I'd expect to see that
| reflected in the comments the person makes. That's not
| true in this case.
|
| > I personally wonder how much less useful Kagi would
| really be without Yandex? Only Kagi knows, really.
|
| It's not your decision. Your decision is whether or not
| to pay Kagi for their service. Kagi produces a product
| that tries to provide the best value, and doesn't surveil
| you.
| contagiousflow wrote:
| Do you have recommendations of other search engines?
| unclad5968 wrote:
| Do you personally sanction all countries that commit atrocities
| or is it specific to Russia? I don't care what you do or don't
| support with your money, but I'm genuinely curious about the
| mindset.
| johnmaguire wrote:
| Your question doesn't seem to be made in good faith - you
| seem to be implying that there is no way OP sanctions "all
| countries that commit atrocities," because of course they
| don't - that would be impractical. And furthermore,
| "committing atrocities" leaves a lot of wiggle room.
|
| For most people there is a tradeoff that happens between
| being informed, the value provided by a service, and the
| ethical or moral cost.
|
| For something like internet search, which is a commodity,
| it's quite easy to eschew one service for another.
| margalabargala wrote:
| It is not possible for any one person to maintain 100%
| awareness of the entire planet, nor is it feasible for _most_
| people to simply live in the woods as a hunter-gatherer and
| take nothing from others who might do wrong elsewhere.
|
| Once we accept that each of us is a human rather than a
| morally perfect literal supernatural angel, each of us must
| decide: If we cannot sanction _all_ wrongdoers, does that
| mean we sanction no wrongdoers, or some?
|
| If some, how do we decide which ones? One good metric would
| be "minimum impact on my own life". Another would be "amount
| of badness I'm personally aware of that entity doing". A
| third would be "how closely is the entity that I'm actually
| affecting ties to the group committing the atrocities?"
|
| So; I personally sanction some countries that commit
| atrocities, one of which is Russia.
| lawn wrote:
| Or as the saying goes:
|
| Perfection is the enemy of good.
| lukan wrote:
| But you don't sanction the country directly, but any
| company that may or may not support the war in Ukraine.
|
| To me that seems incredibly unfair to normal russian
| people(who still exists) while still buying oil from saudi
| arabia for example. Ask Kashoggi about it. Or any of those
| other poor bastards that got rid of without anyone caring
| about them.
|
| In general, collective punishment is maybe not the way to
| improve the world I think. But targeted action or boycott.
| margalabargala wrote:
| Well, here we're discussing Yandex, there's no "may or
| may not" about that one: https://www.zois-
| berlin.de/en/publications/zois-spotlight/th...
|
| > To me that seems incredibly unfair to normal russian
| people
|
| Life's not fair. Among the unfairness experienced by a
| median Russian citizen, a random American's disinterest
| in supporting Yandex is probably low on their list.
|
| > In general, collective punishment is maybe not the way
| to improve the world I think. But targeted action or
| boycott.
|
| Sure. And again, here we are discussing the targeted
| action of boycotting Yandex and other corporations that
| are economic arms of the Russian government.
| lukan wrote:
| Ok, I did not know those specific details, thanks for
| providing. I was more talking general. Different story
| here it seems, but boycotting kagi because of it still
| sounds extreme to me.
| andoando wrote:
| So go head and sanction the US because as far as I am aware
| its still the largest imperial power in the world
| unclad5968 wrote:
| I've never thought about it like that. To me, this is the
| most interesting part:
|
| > If some, how do we decide which ones? One good metric
| would be "minimum impact on my own life". Another would be
| "amount of badness I'm personally aware of that entity
| doing". A third would be "how closely is the entity that
| I'm actually affecting ties to the group committing the
| atrocities?"
|
| I wonder how different people decide on different metrics.
| For me, I probably don't even realize I'm deciding, making
| it mostly emotionally based I guess. Thanks for sharing
| with me!
| bicepjai wrote:
| This is a well thought out response that I can connect to.
| I support the 3 metrics you laid out.
| jwr wrote:
| Let's assume the question has been asked in good faith.
|
| Yes, I actually do. And I lose money because of that,
| significant amounts, because I run a SaaS, where I (as an
| example) stopped service to all customers from Russia when
| the full invasion of Ukraine started. So it's not just about
| not paying, it's about refusing money as well.
|
| It's easy to fall into the "whataboutism" trap and do
| nothing, because one can always say "but what about...
| [insert country here]". I decided to draw the line somewhere.
| With Russia it's actually easy: an unprovoked invasion of
| another country, targeting civilians, raping and murdering,
| there have been few wars where things were so black and white
| in the history of mankind. With other countries it's more
| difficult, but I still draw a line, and state-sanctioned
| genocide falls beyond that line.
|
| Some people say one should not "punish" entire countries or
| populations for the actions of their leaders. I disagree.
| Leaders are leaders because they have been elected, and/or
| have support within the population. And in 21st century there
| should be consequences for choosing, supporting, or allowing
| the growth of power of a leader that is a war-raging lunatic.
|
| I do not accept simply doing nothing.
| lukan wrote:
| "I do not accept simply doing nothing."
|
| You can also donate to the Ukrainian army directly. Or to
| amnesty international. Or a tons of other options instead
| of collective punishment. What is the ordinary russian
| against the war supposed to do? They don't even have a real
| option of leaving the country as most other states don't
| want them because they are russian.
|
| In my opinion this helps Putin in his propaganda that the
| west just hates russia.
| throw123xz wrote:
| Just because you decide to do something, it doesn't mean
| that you have to do everything. Even if you wanted to,
| it's likely that you can't.
|
| > In my opinion this helps Putin in his propaganda that
| the west just hates russia.
|
| It does help him, but you're not going to support those
| who do nothing or feed the machine waging war just so
| Putin's propaganda gets a bit weaker.
|
| If the average Russian doesn't understand that the
| reaction is due to their (well, mostly their governments)
| actions, then that's another problem that only them can
| fix.
| unclad5968 wrote:
| > It's easy to fall into the "whataboutism" trap and do
| nothing, because one can always say "but what about...
| [insert country here]". I decided to draw the line
| somewhere.
|
| That's a good point. It's a nuanced topic and I was
| genuinely curious. I'm not involved in any international
| business with Russia, so it's interesting to hear about it
| from the perspective of someone affected by it financially.
| rand17 wrote:
| I live in the Eastern Bloc. I fear Russia. We still see the
| bulletholes in the old houses in the inner city that were
| done by the "liberators".
| gtirloni wrote:
| If we look at history, Russia government's capacity to
| withstand punishment of any kind in detriment to its own
| citizens is limitless. I applaud your determination but I
| wouldn't expect that to put any kind of pressure on Russia
| w.r.t its stance on the Ukraine invasion. Things need to get
| way uglier for Russia before its leaders take any corrective
| actions and I'd argue we'll never reach that threshold, sort of
| having (yet) another armed revolution of sorts (which I don't
| see happening either).
| cosmicgadget wrote:
| Three years of 10-20% interest rates, brain drain, and war
| casualties. Their reckoning is coming, just not yet.
| gtirloni wrote:
| How's Putin's approval rate since the invasion?
| cosmicgadget wrote:
| Dunno. Are there any credible measures of this?
| scosman wrote:
| Worth noting that it's about 2% of their search costs, so at
| most $0.20/mo of your bill is going to a Russia company
| (probably much less given they have a profit margin, employee
| costs, hosting costs, etc).
|
| I like the idea of zero going to help Russian economy (and in
| turn the war), but a bunch of major companies also do
| fractional percent business with Russia which I just don't know
| about. I don't want to over penalize the small company that's
| honest about it.
| sodapopcan wrote:
| It's a double whammy for me as I don't want to support Russia
| or the USA and I largely don't. But I also work in tech and
| need to get work done so I have to pick my battles,
| unfortunately.
| dmje wrote:
| Dig deep enough (not even very deep at all, actually) and
| you'll find evil. It's not like the US is in any way squeaky
| clean.
| freediver wrote:
| Kagi founder here. I notice you bring this up consistently in
| Kagi discussions.
|
| A search engine's job is to deliver the best possible results.
| We evaluate API sources on search quality, not geopolitics.
| Yandex represents 2% of our costs but contributes meaningfully
| to search quality - removing it would harm all users while
| having minimal economic impact. We've used their API since 2019
| and evaluate all sources purely on technical merit: result
| quality, latency, privacy terms, and legal compliance. The
| moment politics influences search results is the moment we stop
| being a search engine.
|
| I've written a longer explanation of our position and how Kagi
| works technically which you can find here
| https://kagifeedback.org/d/5445-reconsider-yandex-integratio...
| Crash0v3rid3 wrote:
| The "Google Alert" comment feels unnecessarily dismissive of
| a legitimate user concern.
|
| The core issue for many, myself included, is not about asking
| a search engine to make "geopolitical judgments" in its
| search rankings. Rather, it's a question of corporate ethics
| in selecting business partners. The decision of which
| companies to partner with and fund is inherently separate
| from the algorithm that ranks search results.
| Jonovono wrote:
| Dang, this is a refreshing take. Going to take a look at
| Kagi.
| 7373737373 wrote:
| If you can't judge that funding war criminals is a wrong
| action, you should reconsider your ability to do so morally
|
| Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised, startup founders aren't
| exactly known for putting anything else above money and their
| ideas, particularly actual human well-being.
|
| Consider that you, too, will have to live in the world that
| you help create, including the consequences of "a mere 2%"
| mm263 wrote:
| Is Yandex directly complicit in war crimes?
| 1shooner wrote:
| I can't vouch for the source, but this provides a factual
| chronology of Yandex's (forced) integration into Russian
| state propaganda:
|
| https://www.zois-berlin.de/en/publications/zois-
| spotlight/th...
| mm263 wrote:
| Okay, propaganda, sure. Propaganda is a different
| argument - it compromises the quality of search - and I
| will happily agree with you. I want to emphasize, that
| the claim was: using Yandex through Kagi is supporting
| war criminals. Which war criminals? Which war crimes is
| Yandex complicit in? I plainly do not accept that
| propaganda === war crimes.
| throw123xz wrote:
| Following that reasoning, is Gazprom invading a country?
| No? Then I guess we should buy their gas. Why not send
| the latest and greatest ASML lithography machine to
| Mikron? It's not like they're actually launching the
| missile using the processor they manufacture.
|
| And so on. You can see the problem with this...
| vsri wrote:
| > If you can't judge that funding war criminals is a wrong
| action
|
| Yandex does not equal Russia though.
|
| The United States gov't has participated in what many
| consider illegal acts of aggression (i.e., war crimes) and
| do so using tools like PowerPoint. Is it moral to accept
| Microsoft as a client?
|
| I'm not saying I know the right answer here, but the purity
| test you're proposing seems quite stringent.
| throw123xz wrote:
| You'll be shocked to learn that some people avoid US
| products for exactly the reasons you've mentioned. Right
| now some avoid Israeli stuff for similar reasons. And so
| it shouldn't be a shock to learn that some people don't
| want their money to end up in pockets of Russians and
| their state (via taxes).
| mebizzle wrote:
| So by your logic everyone who participates in capitalism
| (including yourself) is immoral.
| adhamsalama wrote:
| Well, the US and a lot of the US companies fund the
| Palestinian genocide, and you're OK with that, so people
| support the genocides they like. So don't be a hypocrite.
| gkoz wrote:
| A leader who on principle legitimizes and pays companies that
| are literal tools of oppression will inevitably burn his
| customers. And isn't it funny how as a paying customer one
| still has as much say in this as with Google?
| eldaisfish wrote:
| this is a terrible response.
|
| Where are your customers? Predominantly the West, likely the
| US? This is not a question of "geopolitical judgement" but
| rather of funding a regime that illegally invaded another
| country, one that is responsible for a lot of cyber crime,
| one that oppresses its own people and one that directly uses
| misinformation to sow chaos in other countries.
|
| Apply this same argument to North Korea or Iran. Assuming
| that either contributed meaningfully to the quality of your
| search results, would you be comfortable sending money to
| companies based in Iran or North Korea?
|
| You can hide behind your technocratic arguments for a while.
| Look to Google and Facebook to see where that ends.
| vickychijwani wrote:
| It's ironic the way you put it - the US has also invaded
| many countries, is responsible for a lot of cyber crime,
| and uses misinformation to sow chaos in other countries
| [1]. Should we all stop "funding" the US? Somehow Ukranian
| lives are precious, but Iraqi and Bangladeshi lives are
| not?
|
| I have no horse in this race - I'm neither American nor
| Russian, nor do I particularly love either country. But I
| _am_ tired of US hypocrisy. I don't understand how you all
| don't see it - you're all holed up in your cocoons and have
| no idea what's actually going on in the world.
|
| [1]: https://www.firstpost.com/opinion/bangladesh-coup-
| seems-stra...
| eldaisfish wrote:
| let's not pretend that US democracy, flaws included, is
| in any way comparable to Russia.
|
| Please, you know this is a bad faith argument, so let's
| cut the false equivalence.
|
| I dislike the US as much as anyone, but I appreciate that
| the US is much better than Russia.
| adhamsalama wrote:
| How many countries have Russia invaded in the last 50
| years? And the same for the US?
|
| The US invaded more and killed more innocent civilians,
| so pretending it's any better than Russia is hypocrisy at
| best.
| yoavm wrote:
| I don't think Russia has many neighbouring countries it
| can still invade, because it literally already did all of
| them (except Norway?). And with their size, they have a
| lot of neighbours. It's very comfortable to restrict your
| argument to the last 50 years, but the true story of
| Russia is completely different.
| dcow wrote:
| What makes you so certain the US is less bad than Russia?
| throw123xz wrote:
| Some people do avoid US companies for the reasons you've
| mentioned.
|
| People tend to care more about what they are familiar
| with. Someone in Zimbabwe probably cares more about the
| war in Sudan and avoids dealing with the countries
| involved than with the Russian invasion of Ukraine and
| use Russian products. Same with someone in Iran, they
| probably care more about Syria and Palestine, and avoid
| Israeli products while using Yandex.
|
| Maybe it's hypocrisy, but humans don't have the capacity
| to support every victim of every war.
| eldaisfish wrote:
| it is this plus the ability to affect the world.
|
| I have no dog in the US / Russia debate but i recognise
| that both have tremendous ability to affect the world.
| Same with China and i avoid chinese products where I can.
|
| That said, i'm much less concerned about North Korea,
| compared to Russia. The latter has sophisticated weapons
| and military tactics. North Korea may be an evil state
| but its small population and economy mean that their
| ability to sow chaos is limited.
|
| Exact same argument with Sudan, the Houthis, etc. Iran is
| in the middle of this pack but Russia is far and away the
| most significant danger.
| dcow wrote:
| So why bias the US over Russia on the morality scale?
| adhamsalama wrote:
| But someone in Zimbabwe would care if their country
| commits a genocide. But most Americans don't when their
| country does it.
| throw123xz wrote:
| We don't even have to leave the African continent do
| understand that people being okay with and performing
| genocides, waging war, etc, isn't an exclusive American
| trait.
| throw123xz wrote:
| I don't know if you should drop Yandex or if the alternatives
| are better or not, but I feel that you're missing the point
| here.
|
| You're looking at this purely from a technical point of view.
| That makes sense when trying to make the best search engine,
| I guess, but humans are not machines. You talk about
| geopolitics and search quality, when the guy you replied to
| is thinking about indirectly funding a machine that is
| bringing war to a country and killing people (I have friends
| that have been affected by it).
|
| Your profile says you're "humanizing the web". To do that, we
| can't ignore what humans are and how we work.
| freediver wrote:
| I understand your perspective and don't take these concerns
| lightly - I was a refugee of two wars myself, so I'm deeply
| aware of human suffering and its impact. Our mission to
| humanize the web means ensuring universal access to human
| knowledge, regardless of politics, delivered with clarity
| and protected with integrity - for everyone, regardless of
| their location or circumstances. A search engine that
| filters sources by political approval becomes something
| else entirely - it becomes a biased information provider
| that denies the very universal access we're fighting for.
| The most humane thing we can do is build tools that serve
| humans first by providing the best possible search results
| to everyone - before this conflict, after this conflict,
| and during all other 100+ armed conflicts taking place in
| the world today.
| gkoz wrote:
| An upstream search index is not exactly a source and boy
| is that one politically biased. Given Russia's efforts
| towards destruction of civic society everywhere and
| replacing it with post-truth one, you very much risk
| compromising integrity by touching their products.
| throw123xz wrote:
| That's a completely valid position to have.
|
| The thing to keep in mind is that for some people, and
| this includes some of your customers, there are things
| that are more important than your mission. Right now,
| some people avoid anything that is related to Israel.
| When the US invaded Iraq, some avoided US companies. I
| won't touch anything related to Musk after the two sieg
| heils and other things. The guy that complained clearly
| has an issue with what Russia is doing in Ukraine and
| doesn't want their money to end up in Russia.
|
| It's a free market. You should do what you think it's
| right and then people will do the same with your product.
| Some will care more about search quality and pay, while
| others will care about the companies you decide to work
| with and use something else.
| unfitted2545 wrote:
| Would it not be possible for the user to disallow certain
| sources for searching, so as to not pay them for the API
| call?
| irsagent wrote:
| I think is a more comfortable position to take.
| GoatInGrey wrote:
| I cancelled my kagi subscription upon seeing this response.
|
| I donate to Ukraine to defend itself from Russia. I lost a
| family member to Russian artillery as well while providing
| medical aid to civilians. I very much do not want my dollars
| to fund the very thing that my donations are intended to
| defend against.
|
| I'm going to assume you run a similar policy with Chinese
| search providers. After seeing Chinese warships off the
| Taiwanese Coast running invasion exercises (a roughly $30
| billion annual expenditure for them last I checked), I very
| much want to minimize my funding of them.
|
| I understand the argument you are making but war is far more
| serious than "politics".
| i_love_retros wrote:
| Do you boycott google and amazon who enable Israel's
| genocide in Gaza?
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/12/googl
| e...
|
| And american companies in general since america funds the
| genocide?
|
| No? Too inconvenient to do that?
| throw123xz wrote:
| Perhaps they don't, but some do. And those who avoid
| Amazon or Google might be fine with using Russian
| companies.
|
| We don't have the mental bandwidth to support every good
| cause or the capacity to avoid every bad player. That
| doesn't mean that you have to be fine with and use
| products from every company/country.
| jszymborski wrote:
| Agreed. Just because acting ethically isn't always easy,
| doesn't mean you need to give up on every cause.
| dcow wrote:
| The point is not to not try and support causes you
| believe in, it's about acting in an internally consistent
| way.
|
| If you don't support war, then you cannot indirectly
| support anything that has any part in supporting any war
| anywhere. You can't pick and choose which wars and
| products are convenient enough to stand against while
| funding Google's amoral corporate, US tax paying,
| attention machine because you won't use a product which
| almost certainly undoubtably has contributed to vastly
| less harm than Kagi has (assuming we take as granted the
| premise that purchasing products of a company that is
| headquartered in a country at war has any political or
| financial significance whatsoever so as to be culpable
| for causing harm in the first place).
|
| I mean you _can_ , but the idea that you're truly doing
| any good is entirely vapid. You're just lying to yourself
| to feel good.
|
| I guess most people probably don't care if someone lies
| to themself to feel good. But to go piss on some product
| because they don't have quite the same moral alignment as
| you do is rather silly and it's entirely fair to see
| people calling this immature behavior out.
| jszymborski wrote:
| > If you don't support war...
|
| Wait, can't I just not support _this_ war? I don't think
| the invasion of a peaceful democratic country is OK, so
| that means it is morally inconsistent for me to believe
| it was right and just for the allies to go to war with
| the axis powers?
|
| > You can't pick and choose which wars and products are
| convenient enough to stand against while funding Google's
| amoral corporate, US tax paying, attention machine
| because you won't use a product which almost certainly
| undoubtably has contributed to vastly less harm than Kagi
| has.
|
| What you're saying here is that, since it's hard to stand
| for the right things, you shouldn't try standing for
| anything. If only those without sin could do good, we
| really should just pack it in.
|
| > But to go piss on some product because they don't have
| quite the same moral alignment as you do is rather silly
| and it's entirely fair to see people calling this
| immature behavior out.
|
| Listen, there are some people who won't feel good about a
| product if they think it's going to make tomorrow worse.
| It's, shockingly, not about Kagi, or about you, but
| strictly about how some people wish to govern
| _themselves_. Kagi can make the decisions it wants, it's
| not a moral entity, it's a for-profit company which means
| its sole purpose is to seek profits. In fact, I'm not
| even trying to pick on Kagi here, generally speaking I
| think my values align with the product on offer.
|
| The point stands though that corporations get to make
| decisions as to whether or not the ethical dilemmas they
| face are worth the customers (future and present) they'll
| lose over it.
|
| > ...while funding Google's amoral corporate, US tax
| paying, attention machine because you won't use a product
| which almost certainly undoubtably has contributed to
| vastly less harm than Kagi has.
|
| Why it's particularly relevant for Kagi to care about
| this sort of thing is that the users, like myself, who do
| not use Google and are willing to go through pains (be it
| worse results or monthly fees) to not fund them, are
| exactly the kind of person who won't use a service for
| not divesting from the Russian economy.
| dcow wrote:
| You are welcome to govern yourself however you want. I
| said that. But if you actually think that Kagi is going
| to make tomorrow worse then all I can say is, "good luck
| out there".
| 1shooner wrote:
| >Do you boycott google and amazon
|
| It's odd to put this as some kind of inconceivable
| checkmate. I have several family members that avoid
| Amazon, some strictly, some when possible, some when
| convenient. This thread is about Kagi, of course people
| boycott Google. 'Degoogling' has been in the zeitgeist
| for years.
| ffsm8 wrote:
| I take it you don't use any phones, especially no apple
| products then, right? After all, apples gigantic
| sponsorship of the Chinese government is well covered at
| this point.
|
| Clothing is also a no-no, right? After all, there is
| *literally no way to purchase clothing from any store that
| hasn't been produced - in part - by effective slave labor
| and Chinese machinery.
|
| Really, consumer boycott of nations is infeasible in a
| global market. The only thing you're doing is virtue
| signalling.
| ujkhsjkdhf234 wrote:
| This is a silly argument. Clothing is not optional; Kagi
| is. They are deciding to go without an optional good
| because they don't like what they spend their money on. I
| applaud them for it and I like Kagi.
| dcow wrote:
| No, internet search really isn't optional. Try it for a
| month. Good luck!
| ujkhsjkdhf234 wrote:
| I didn't say internet search was optional. I said Kagi
| was optional.
| dcow wrote:
| ... implication of my comment was: "Which search engine
| may I use that doesn't indirectly cause harm?"
| dcow wrote:
| Conversely, Vlad's strong sense of engaging in ethical
| business and utmost respect for and understanding of what
| it means to remain neutral is _precisely_ why I use Kagi,
| and why I believe Kagi will beat Google in the long run--
| why I invested in Kagi.
| dcminter wrote:
| > why I invested in Kagi
|
| Do you mean in the sense of investing in your tools, or
| do you mean that you're one of Kagi's investors?
| dcow wrote:
| Both.
| ApeWithCompiler wrote:
| Based response, I support that view.
|
| Evaluating other responses, people complain over Yandex, but
| asking for the very same experience. Only different in the
| illusion filtering happens to their wishes.
| TNorthover wrote:
| Disappointing response. Guess I'll continue to avoid Kagi.
| McDyver wrote:
| > The moment politics influences search results is the moment
| we stop being a search engine.
|
| Everything is politics, whether you acknowledge it or not.
| And right now you are taking a political stance.
| mebizzle wrote:
| Thank you for creating Kagi, sorry that you're dealing with
| misguided folks and thanks for the in-depth explanation.
| jszymborski wrote:
| Would you ever consider switching out Yandex for something
| like the Brave Search API or Bing (if they aren't already
| part of the mix)?
|
| While I do understand your position, it's important to
| understand including Yandex in your index doesn't mean that
| politics aren't influencing your results; it's not an
| apolitical position.
| dcow wrote:
| By that definition precisely noting is apolitical. And
| that's really the point, isn't it? Kagi values search
| quality over virtue signaling in line with whichever way
| the wind is blowing.
|
| Also, do Kagi's Russian users deserve to be punished
| because of their leader's actions? Is that virtuous?
| jszymborski wrote:
| > By that definition precisely noting is apolitical.
|
| I'm with you
|
| > Kagi values search quality over virtue signaling in
| line with whichever way the wind is blowing.
|
| Wait, when did I suggest that they adopt values based on
| "whichever way the wind is blowing"? I'm just asking them
| to not support the economy of a country whose invaded
| another free and democratic country for the purpose of
| expansion, and has engaged in war crimes to do so. People
| are upset about this, not because it is trendy, but
| because they think it is wrong.
| dcow wrote:
| _You're asking._
|
| There isn't a moral truth here. It's just politics. Prove
| to me that Kagi's support of Yandex has uniquely enabled
| a Russian war crime and maybe we could start having a
| real discussion about whether Kagi is morally culpable.
| Prove that Kagi is committing more harm than my other
| options. Prove that Kagi is committing more harm than the
| good that quality search results provides the world,
| provides people who are fighting and speaking against the
| war.
|
| Otherwise yes this level of guilt by hand waving
| association based on making you feel good in the moment
| is exactly the definition of virtue signaling.
| autumn-antlers wrote:
| Brave is part of the mix, and that's also the reason I
| don't use Kagi myself.
| dcminter wrote:
| This is the only issue preventing me from buying a
| subscription. Kagi looks great but this is a major stroke
| against it for most Europeans.
|
| Choosing to ignore the provenance of your suppliers is
| absolutely a political decision even if you wish it wasn't.
| rustcleaner wrote:
| Your steadfastness against the politics of the "Modern Lens"
| astounds me. You are a refreshing drink of cold water on a
| hot Mojave summer day.
| zargon wrote:
| This is like people who vigorously criticize Mozilla's moral
| failings while using Google Chrome. Heaven forbid we choose the
| option that is 2% evil instead of the one that is 98% evil.
| i_love_retros wrote:
| Do you also boycott American companies since America is funding
| a genocide in Gaza, or is that less convenient?
| ssijak wrote:
| I'm sure Google and Bing don't show Russian websites including
| Yandex in results /s
| slow_typist wrote:
| These are EU imports from Russia in 2024 in the energy sector
| alone:
|
| 52 bcm gas to 10 EU countries
|
| 13 million tonnes oil to 3 EU countries
|
| 2800 tonnes enriched uranium/fuel to 7 EU countries
|
| Source: https://energy.ec.europa.eu/strategy/repowereu-
| roadmap_en
| amendegree wrote:
| The blocklist thing is interesting, I finally took the plunge and
| installed the app and extension
| tiagod wrote:
| I took a look at the linked block list[0]. There's a lot of junk
| in it, but I'm also seeing a lot of sites that have, in my
| opinion, pretty decent content.
|
| My approach with Kagi is just to block SEO spam when it shows up
| in my results, but I don't think good SEO means it's a bad site
| with no useful results.
|
| [0] https://paste.flamedfury.com/flamedfury-kagi-block-list
| freedomben wrote:
| Indeed, I despise SEO spammy sites and block them aggressively
| in Kagi, but I see many sites on there that do have good
| content, often paired with good SEO and lots of ads. I have
| blocked sites that have good content due to invasive ads before
| so I'm not one to cast stones, but I wouldn't blindly use this
| list as you're likely going to be cutting out some potentially
| good sources.
| TehShrike wrote:
| I had the same reaction - his list includes washingtonpost.com,
| amazon.com, alternativeto.net, medium.com, twitter.com,
| msn.com, etc.
|
| He dumped his entire blocklist, which must include a bunch of
| sites that he finds personally annoying.
|
| Here is the list of domains owned by the 16 companies discussed
| in the post that he linked to:
| https://codeberg.org/bbbhltz/16CompaniesFilters/src/branch/m...
| qwertox wrote:
| I thought their maps integration was pretty bad compared to
| Google, as well as the information widgets. It stressed me, I was
| always thinking that somethin isn't right and that I'm to blame,
| because so many love it so much over Google.
| ekojs wrote:
| Maybe not a popular sentiment here on HN but I cancelled my Kagi
| subscription (9+ months) just recently. Increasingly, most of my
| queries/search have been through LLMs and Google search is just
| fine (and even better for restaurants, places, and the like). I
| don't think the improved search experience is worth the
| subscription anymore.
| baggachipz wrote:
| In Kagi, you can just ad a "?" to your query and get an instant
| answer, a la LLMs.
| VHRanger wrote:
| Or !ai to route it to kagi.com/assistant with your default
| model/agent to respond with kagi search results
| testfrequency wrote:
| Can someone who uses both Kagi and Perplexity Pro tell me how
| they compare or decide which to use?
|
| I committed to Perplexity so I can have access to most models I
| care about easily, deep research, and better online search. I'm
| happy with Perplexity, but I've been Kagi curious for years and
| now I'm even less sure how I'd approach using it.
| bbor wrote:
| As far as I use it, it's _much_ less AI-forward, providing more
| of a straightforward search experience. They are adding AI
| tools, but it 's definitely an addition rather than the core of
| the UX.
|
| I happen to prefer that and just rely on Claude to run its own
| searches via API, but I haven't used Perplexity so can't
| compare them directly. Hope that's helpful!
| testfrequency wrote:
| Thanks. If I'm understanding you here, you use both Kagi and
| Calude for general search?
|
| Assuming you default with Kagi, but switch to Claude (API?
| Raycast?) for search if you don't like the results you get?
|
| Perplexity I've found incredibly powerful for search as it's
| fast, and I love being able to toggle "Social" as a source
| quickly before sending an inquiry off - in case I want
| opinions vs sources.
|
| That said, I have found it on occasion being lackluster a
| handful of times on the first go, so I have to manually
| switch the model from the default "Best" mode (which selects
| the best model for the task) - to specifically Gemini, o3
| etc. to get a better result.
| lomlobon wrote:
| Probably they are using 'Kagi Assistant', which is
| essentially kagi acting as an intermediary to the major
| LLMs. You get a catalog and a monthly quota.
|
| Pretty handy. You can also make your assistants use the
| same custom 'lenses' you do to constrain their searches.
| testfrequency wrote:
| Interesting. The lenses sound similar to "Spaces" on
| Perplexity, where you can segment searches to a specific
| prompt every go and upload files etc for context. Safe to
| assume that's a pretty common feature now, maybe I should
| look at Kagi again - it's been a few years since I've
| last peeked at it.
| al_borland wrote:
| Kagi has their Assistant which is where you can have an AI
| chat, deeper than the AI blurb from Quick Answer. It has
| access to several different models from OpenAI, Google, Meta,
| xAI, and others.
| joshuaturner wrote:
| I really enjoy Kagi for search. It is a significantly better
| experience. I do still use Google Maps for looking up local
| things, and I kind of wish Kagi would redirect me there instead
| of their own maps implementation, which I just cannot imagine
| will ever be on par.
| dcchambers wrote:
| Happy Kagi user for many many months now. The only thing I fall
| back to Google for are local results (specifically local business
| search - like restaurants). I still have an Android phone, use
| Gmail, Drive, Docs, Maps, etc - but Kagi has almost entirely
| replaced my standard Google search results.
|
| And it's making me do something crazy. It's _so good_ that I am
| even suggesting it to non-technical friends and family. 99% of
| them look at my like I 'm crazy when I say it's a paid search
| engine, but hey - I'm trying.
|
| I also find myself using the "quick answer" feature a lot too.
| https://help.kagi.com/kagi/ai/quick-answer.html
| VHRanger wrote:
| You can trigger quick answer with a "?"
|
| But also feel free to try adding "!ai" to send the query to the
| assistant for a deeper dive
| dcchambers wrote:
| I did know about the "?" feature and use it all the time but
| I didn't know about "!ai" - very cool I'll have to try it.
| Thanks!
| skrtskrt wrote:
| Kagi completely replaced Google for me _except_ for location-
| based "food near me" type searches.
|
| I understand location/place results particularly with reviews are
| a really tough thing to do as a company, but it is one really
| helpful thing thing Google search still hasn't destroyed yet.
|
| As a side note I find Kagi Translate often far superior to Google
| too
| weinzierl wrote:
| For over a decade location-based "food near me" type searches
| are the only kind I still use Google as well.
|
| I think this their only moat, but it is a pretty deep one. They
| had decades to hone their localization, presumably spending a
| ton of money on local human quality assurance and it pays of.
|
| This will be pretty hard for any competitor to replicate,
| especially when they have to operate under more economic
| pressure than Google had to during their golden years.
| Certainly no competitor so far comes close to Google for local
| search.
| skrtskrt wrote:
| Interestingly I noticed in a bunch of places in Europe,
| TripAdvisor was much better just due to higher usage / more
| data than Google. TripAdvisor's UI is pretty clunky but the
| network effect of just having enough people using it in a
| given place seems to be by far the most important.
| terribleperson wrote:
| Yep, I still use Google maps for food discovery. It's very good
| at that, still, and Kagi maps has a ways to go.
| bobbylarrybobby wrote:
| It's hard to compare accuracy, but Kagi Translate provides so
| many knobs to tune compared to Google (formality, gender) and
| provides more translations... it's just a fantastic product.
| Maybe even more better than Google Translate than Kagi Search
| is than Google Search.
| MostlyStable wrote:
| I've been learning German and, among other tools
| (dictionaries, LLMs, etc), I often use google translate for a
| sentence or two. I have _constantly_ been frustrated at the
| inability, when going from English to German, to force it to
| use a particular gender or formality level. I'm willing to
| give up at least some accuracy to get those knobs. This is an
| immediate switch for me.
| junon wrote:
| Not trying to shill LLMs but learning German is way easier
| with them. I've ditched Google translate for everything but
| simple word translations.
| seabass wrote:
| I tried to give Kagi a fair shot by using it for a few months. I
| loved a lot of features, especially the boost/block lists. But I
| always felt the responses were way too slow for something I use
| that much. I benchmarked a handful of queries and confirmed they
| were consistently ~3x slower than Google for normal searches and
| 5-10x slower for image searches on my home network. I'm sure
| there are many factors that play into that, so maybe the reason I
| haven't seen others complain about the speed has just been that
| the problem is unique to my network. But ultimately I opted to
| switch back to Google for my daily driver and just use Kagi for
| specific lenses.
| freediver wrote:
| That is unusual. Have you tried reaching out to
| support@kagi.com ?
| seabass wrote:
| Yep, they had me check my proximity to the nearest Google
| Cloud region. The ping was ~30ms, so that was pretty unlikely
| to be the cause. In my screen recordings that compared the
| exact same searches, despite the low ping, Kagi results
| wouldn't appear for around 2s. A search I did just now shows
| "39 relevant results in 1.7s". Otoh with Google it feels
| instant--0.29s for that same search. With their support team
| we never did end up finding the cause.
| freediver wrote:
| Please reach out to me at vlad@kagi.com and we'll set you
| up on an account (on us) and I'll personally get involved
| to see what is happening. Most our searches complete in
| less than 1000ms. We do dig much deeper than Google though,
| and we more often than not place what you are looking for
| in the top 3 results - and that has to count for something
| too.
| seabass wrote:
| Very kind of you! Just reached out. And I agree, the lack
| of sponsored results among the top 3 and overall quality
| of the results are valuable.
| blitzpoet wrote:
| DDG has been solid for me, and I rarely use g! anymore. I
| certainly can find better things to do with a hundred dollars
| than spend it on something I don't need and that other services
| do just as well for free.
| bbor wrote:
| How much money do you spend per year that you wouldn't
| otherwise due to brand advertisements? Answer: you'll insist
| it's 0, but it's impossible to know.
|
| How much money do you spend per year that you wouldn't
| otherwise due to clicking one of the first few links and paying
| more for some service, often without realizing it's an ad?
| Again, the answer is that it's impossible to say.
|
| Google is commonly said to own a "money-printing machine" on
| here. How can they print all that money without extracting any
| from you?
| bbor wrote:
| Awesome post, love Kagi and learned some new things. One small
| gripe tho: publishing a "block list" and implying its for SEO
| sites, but then including sites like Facebook, Medium, WebMD,
| NyPost, Quora, TikTok, etc. is just goofy. "SEO" to me means
| "overly-long articles on niche topics that provide bad info just
| to sell ads", not "news sites I don't like"!
| karaterobot wrote:
| Search engines are getting squeezed out by AI for me.
|
| Kagi's search results are less polluted by SEO trash than Google,
| but there's still a non-zero amount of it. When I try to answer a
| question using Kagi (or any search engine these days) I end up
| feeling frustrated: there's so much information, and none of it
| is useful.
|
| On the other hand, ChatGPT filters all SEO spam out for me, and
| typically does a decent job of answering my questions. I can
| follow the references it provides in its answer to verify what it
| says, and also learn more from external websites. It's a better
| user experience, with a better success rate for me.
|
| Looking at my Kagi usage stats, I guess I'm not actually using it
| less from month to month (which I would have guessed I was). But,
| subjectively it still feels like I'm _depending_ on it less for
| finding information on the web. I 've given up on it for a lot of
| use cases, or it's no longer my first choice. I think my main use
| case is bang operators at this point, and that's where the
| numbers come from.
| joaovitorbf wrote:
| Kagi has an optional integrated search AI which you can
| activate by adding a question mark at the end of your query.
| VHRanger wrote:
| You can also use !ai at the end to redirect the query.
|
| It'll redirect the query to kagi.com/assistant and use your
| default model or assistant for the search.
| patrickscoleman wrote:
| Ads are coming to ChatGPT too at some point [1]. Agree that
| ChatGPT has less spam than Google for now, but this won't
| always be the case.
|
| There are ChatGPT alternatives too (including Kagi's), so AI
| may end up taking a lot of search market share, but I still
| find myself searching most of the time. I've had enough
| hallucinations to still prefer searching for and reading
| primary sources. As always I keep monitoring and trying new
| things.
|
| [1] https://mashable.com/article/openai-ceo-sam-altman-open-
| to-a...
| qudat wrote:
| > Search engines are getting squeezed out by AI for me.
|
| I use Kagi Assistant which uses LLMs from AI companies mixed
| with their own indexes. It works great and is included with
| Kagi.
| VHRanger wrote:
| You can also use !ai at the end to redirect the query.
|
| It'll redirect the query to kagi.com/assistant and use your
| default model or assistant for the search.
|
| If you're paying for kagi, you can use ChatGPT or gpt 4.1 mini
| -- OpenAI uses bing as a backend so it'll be a strict
| improvement for you
| SLWW wrote:
| Been an Early Adopter, joined January of 2023 and I have never
| looked back or paused my monthly. I'm currently running with the
| Ultimate package which is good value for the $25/month price tag.
|
| Beyond content to stay with Kagi, I hate shilling for products
| but this is one I would encourage anyone to try out. They have a
| free tier so you can feel it out for yourself, and even for
| $5/month you can still have a pretty good experience.
|
| I use it for every search need, much like with Google back around
| 2012, as long as you know how to leverage the Search Engine you
| can almost find anything! Kagi is what Google should have been,
| sure it has some small short-comings but the overall experience
| is so good that it's easy to see past the silly things sometimes
| the SE pulls.
| giantfrog wrote:
| If you'd told me several years ago I'd be paying $10/month for a
| search engine, I'd say that's crazy talk. But it genuinely is
| worth it.
| Aldipower wrote:
| If Kagi would offer an easy to use pre-paid option, I would use
| it again.
| privacyking wrote:
| Same. It would be great if they had something like the mullvads
| cards you can buy off Amazon in most countries to credit your
| account
| sergiotapia wrote:
| Kagi seems like an old tool for a bygone age. A faster horse
| carriage, instead of a car, you know?
| VHRanger wrote:
| Use kagi.com/assistant then?
|
| The cars still use that faster horse as a core engine before
| answering.
|
| Having a better engine makes for better answers keeping the
| model constant
| nzealand wrote:
| I pay for both.
| rtrgrd wrote:
| I've never used Kagi before and wanted to try: how does Kagi
| stack up against Brave search?
| VHRanger wrote:
| Kagi results consume brave search among others before returning
| the result so should be a superset in quality
| jszymborski wrote:
| So is it truly the case that I can now pay for Kagi without my
| searches being associated to my account? And I dont mean by
| scouts pledge, but I recall reading something about anonymous
| crypto tokens?
|
| I'd consider getting an account if so.
| Tadpole9181 wrote:
| Privacy pass exists, but is limited to 1,500 tokens per month
| (3, batches of 500). Furthermore, they do not allow disabling
| safe search or customizing the results in any way (including
| your block lists) when using it.
|
| Also, since they are the token signer, make sure you use a
| different IP to get tokens signed / when logged in, otherwise
| the traffic for the "private" searches is trivially reversible.
|
| So... Kinda useless right now?
| lvl155 wrote:
| I go to Kagi to try it out. Asks me to sign in to do search.
| That's just a bad onboarding experience.
| apexskier wrote:
| As a refinement on this, if you're not comfortable blocking these
| results entirely, Kagi allows you to lower their relevance in
| your results rather than simply blocking outright.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-07-17 23:01 UTC)