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With the usual disclaimer about my Google experience not being anyone elses Google experience: For my work Kagi is already beating Google. In fact there is is

With the usual disclaimer about my Google experience not being anyone elses Google experience: For my work Kagi is already beating Google. In fact there is is almost no competition, it is almost as if they are in completely different leagues: In one month I have once gone back to find something in Google that Kagi couldn't find. For every other query the results have been so good that I haven't even bothered to check. For comparison, if I use Google I always find myself tweaking my queries or trying with DDG or even marginalia in weird cases, and the same with DDG.

utopcell 5y ago
From Kagi's FAQ: "Our searching includes anonymized requests to traditional search indexes like Google and Bing as well as vertical sources like Wikipedia and DeepL or other APIs. We also have our own non-commercial index (Teclis), news index (TinyGem), and an AI for instant answers." So, apparently Kagi is scraping Google and Bing results via a browser extension. Is this legal ?
- eitland 5y ago
  My interpretation of this is they pay for API access and sends anonymised queries to Google and/or Bing. I'm still puzzled how they get so extremely much better results compared to using any of thise directly or using DDG which does the same only with Bing. Also a bit worried because I think there was a time when DDG felt the same before they suddenly gave in and started serving answers for queries I didn't ask just like Google but I'm not really sure.
- freediver 5y ago
  Anonymized request means that the client's IP is not passed to the server. Since both search engine have a paid search results API, it is enough to simply proxy the API request to achieve this claim. Kagi is both paying Google for API access and using Google infrastructure (GCP), helping Google make revenue that is not ad-supported.
- MomoXenosaga 5y ago
  I use startpage.com that does the same. It's just a proxy for Google search.
- utopcell 5y ago
  They are paying for results, that seems fair and fully disclosed in their FAQ. I'd be curious to see how it performs (waiting for an invite).
endisneigh 5y ago
Do you have example queries to share? I’m curious.
- eitland 5y ago
  I have stored some result pages in Joplin and will try to post some comparisons soon, but lunchbreak is over so not until later today - at earliest ;-) But basically the results are good and if I don't immediately get exactly what I want one pair of doublequotes around a key phrase sorts the rest.

utopcell 5y ago

From Kagi's FAQ: "Our searching includes anonymized requests to traditional search indexes like Google and Bing as well as vertical sources like Wikipedia and DeepL or other APIs. We also have our own non-commercial index (Teclis), news index (TinyGem), and an AI for instant answers." So, apparently Kagi is scraping Google and Bing results via a browser extension. Is this legal ?

eitland 5y ago
My interpretation of this is they pay for API access and sends anonymised queries to Google and/or Bing. I'm still puzzled how they get so extremely much better results compared to using any of thise directly or using DDG which does the same only with Bing. Also a bit worried because I think there was a time when DDG felt the same before they suddenly gave in and started serving answers for queries I didn't ask just like Google but I'm not really sure.
freediver 5y ago
Anonymized request means that the client's IP is not passed to the server. Since both search engine have a paid search results API, it is enough to simply proxy the API request to achieve this claim. Kagi is both paying Google for API access and using Google infrastructure (GCP), helping Google make revenue that is not ad-supported.
MomoXenosaga 5y ago
I use startpage.com that does the same. It's just a proxy for Google search.
utopcell 5y ago
They are paying for results, that seems fair and fully disclosed in their FAQ. I'd be curious to see how it performs (waiting for an invite).

endisneigh 5y ago

Do you have example queries to share? I’m curious.

eitland 5y ago
I have stored some result pages in Joplin and will try to post some comparisons soon, but lunchbreak is over so not until later today - at earliest ;-) But basically the results are good and if I don't immediately get exactly what I want one pair of doublequotes around a key phrase sorts the rest.