5 ms·

I'm a Mullvad customer and will check this out. I can already see that this is not so convenient for when you're on a device or network where your Mullvad conne

by aorth 3y ago

I'm a Mullvad customer and will check this out. I can already see that this is not so convenient for when you're on a device or network where your Mullvad connection is not active. For example, I'm typing this from my work laptop on the corporate network as we speak. :P On a related note, I am also a happy Kagi customer. It's a paid, privacy-focused search engine that gives you a "magic" session link to allow easily searching from multiple devices. Very happy with the search there. Haven't used Google more than a handful of times for several months!

dharmab 3y ago
The magic session link was such a great idea. I could easily add a session to my work computer.
d4mi3n 3y ago
Both a customer (and now investor!) if Kagi’s and can’t say enough nice things about the product. It’s refreshing to have a search engine that will give you relevant results rather than shoveling ads down your throat.
unshavedyak 3y ago
Same, love Kagi. I think the biggest surprise for me was that it is getting frequent improvements. I'm so used to Subscriptions being just a drain. You "buy" the product, and then you pay just to keep using it. Which can feel, emotionally, a bit unappetizing because i'd rather just purchase it fully. The subscription just feels like a money sink with no added value. Conversely i've not had that opinion with Kagi. Not only am i happy with the product, but the frequent[1] improvements[2] make me feel like i'm buying something newer and better each month. Developments on FastGPT, increasing what i get for my dollar, integration of more features in general. I frankly assume i just joined at a good time, because this pace can't keep up.. right lol? Regardless my Kagi subscription has felt like i'm getting more value each month. From other companies i'd feel lucky to get these advancements, and if i did i'd expect it to cost me more. "5 new features? Welp, i guess i get to buy a Pro subscription tier to access it" or w/e, is what i'd expect. Really can't praise Kagi enough. [1]: within the last couple months, at least, as i'm new to the product and have only been subscribed for 2 months. [2]: You can see some here: https://blog.kagi.com/blog https://blog.kagi.com/blog
- Melatonic 3y ago
  Image search was already good and hugely improved - and the native reverse image search is also pretty cool!
- rurp 3y ago
  I really hope they improve their pricing/usage plan. I wasn't that impressed with the results when I first tried Kagi out, but was planning on giving it some more chances down the line. Sometimes it takes a few tries before a new tool really sticks for me. Unfortunately they ended that sort of trial usage with the new payment plans. I'm already wary of starting any new saas payments, and one where I need to worry about how many searches I'm doing per month is a non-starter.
  - unshavedyak 3y ago
    It's definitely worth a month, just to see what your search baseline is at. I was worried i'd be on an expensive tier but i am far lower on average than i thought. And they increased the quota by 50% recently.
  - t0bia_s 3y ago
    I'm really surprised how tech savy HN users easily tight their search queries to credit card. Isn't that worry you in terms of privacy?
- M95D 3y ago
  I never heard of Kagi before. I'm always looking for ways to increase my privacy, so I study the site a little bit and I find this: "Next, your request will find its way to our servers hosted on Google Cloud platform, where our main application is running [...]" I stopped there. I'm not going to subscribe. But I appreciate that at least they were honest.
  - unshavedyak 3y ago
    Honest question, but is there something specific you're concerned about? Do you expect Google spies on Containers running on their servers, such as decoding RAM or decoding Network Traffic (that isn't ssl encrypted, at least)? I get the paranoia, but honestly i'm more paranoid of Kagi themselves than i am of processes running on AWS or GCP. The percentage of the internet you'd be unable to use if you couldn't use any cloud provider for fears of 5 Eyes-like monitoring is kinda intense for me. So i'm not sure where realistic and excessive paranoia meet with respect to AWS or GCP infra. Thoughts?
Melatonic 3y ago
Kagi is awesome - also a paying customer on their now grandfathered in tier - and it only gets better with time! The image search function is hugely improved and the main core search is blowing away Google for most uses. Also love that they added reverse image search now Not currently a Mullvad customer ( I was in the past ) but this looks definitely like a good thing!
stavros 3y ago
Are the results really that much better? I use DDG and paying $10/mo for a search engine seems like a tall order, especially when I don't know if Kagi can be that much less broken than Google.
- Melatonic 3y ago
  I did not do an extensive comparison to DDG but I would say it is definitely worth it. Been paying for awhile now and it blows away Google. And they are constantly adding new features and improving old ones (and finding new ways to improve their back end costs as well which makes it more sustainable). I use search engines a TON though (especially for work) so 10$ a month is absolutely worth it for me. I am currently trying to convince my boss to buy it for our whole IT team
  - stavros 3y ago
    That's interesting, I'll try it for a month, thank you!
- dharmab 3y ago
  For technical info like programming language references, I get much better results in Kagi after I spent a few minutes setting my blocks and pins. I just searched "run a test suite in go" in Google, DDG and Kagi, and blogspam results were higher in Google and DDG while GoDoc and Stack Overflow was higher for me in Kagi. Many of the DDG results were about running a single test out of a suite, rather than running a suite.
  - stavros 3y ago
    Interesting, thanks, I'll try it for a month!
- artdigital 3y ago
  IMHO yes. With DDG I always felt I needed to make it work. With Kagi I forget I even use something not-Google
aio2 3y ago
May I ask why specifically Kagi? What's special about it compared to other search engines, aside from being privacy friendly? Like, you could say Searx is also nice because of that. Or Duckduckgo. Or Brave Search. What sets Kagi apart, and especially, what makes it different?
- aorth 3y ago
  After years of trying Duckduckgo and then always going back to Google, it was this 2022 interview with the Kagi founder https://dkb.blog/p/kagi-interview https://dkb.blog/p/kagi-interview that I read a few months ago that got me to try Kagi. I was shocked that they thought people would pay $10/month for a search engine. Then I thought, "if Google lets us search for free, how much must it be worth for them?" Over the last few years I've started trying to pay for things that I use, and financially supporting developers working on products I like. That's when I decided to try Kagi. And yes, I have used Google only a dozen or so times in the last few months since I went all-in on Kagi on all my devices. The search results are very good.
  - bisby 3y ago
    The thing that has held me back from Kagi (I've had the pricing tab open for the past month, just staring at it), is the usage limits. I have no idea how many searches I make in a month. I don't know if I'm looking at a $5/month situation or a $20/month situation, and my inability to predict that makes it hard for me to commit. From a single device, my firefox history says that in May I had 750 different variants of duckduckgo.com/?q=X. And thats not counting my phone, or work device. Will the $10/1000 queries be enough for me? (This isn't necessarily for you to answer, but just restating my anxiety around the product.) I too love to pay for things, and thus use a product, rather than be the product.
    - mongol 3y ago
      If you use Google, and you have not disabled it, you can visit your search history to get an idea.
    - 3y ago
replwoacause 3y ago
Kagi is excellent and I’m happy to be a paying customer.

by aorth 3y ago

dharmab 3y ago

The magic session link was such a great idea. I could easily add a session to my work computer.

d4mi3n 3y ago

Both a customer (and now investor!) if Kagi’s and can’t say enough nice things about the product. It’s refreshing to have a search engine that will give you relevant results rather than shoveling ads down your throat.

unshavedyak 3y ago

Same, love Kagi. I think the biggest surprise for me was that it is getting frequent improvements. I'm so used to Subscriptions being just a drain. You "buy" the product, and then you pay just to keep using it. Which can feel, emotionally, a bit unappetizing because i'd rather just purchase it fully. The subscription just feels like a money sink with no added value. Conversely i've not had that opinion with Kagi. Not only am i happy with the product, but the frequent[1] improvements[2] make me feel like i'm buying something newer and better each month. Developments on FastGPT, increasing what i get for my dollar, integration of more features in general. I frankly assume i just joined at a good time, because this pace can't keep up.. right lol? Regardless my Kagi subscription has felt like i'm getting more value each month. From other companies i'd feel lucky to get these advancements, and if i did i'd expect it to cost me more. "5 new features? Welp, i guess i get to buy a Pro subscription tier to access it" or w/e, is what i'd expect. Really can't praise Kagi enough. [1]: within the last couple months, at least, as i'm new to the product and have only been subscribed for 2 months. [2]: You can see some here: https://blog.kagi.com/blog https://blog.kagi.com/blog

Melatonic 3y ago
Image search was already good and hugely improved - and the native reverse image search is also pretty cool!
rurp 3y ago
I really hope they improve their pricing/usage plan. I wasn't that impressed with the results when I first tried Kagi out, but was planning on giving it some more chances down the line. Sometimes it takes a few tries before a new tool really sticks for me. Unfortunately they ended that sort of trial usage with the new payment plans. I'm already wary of starting any new saas payments, and one where I need to worry about how many searches I'm doing per month is a non-starter.
- unshavedyak 3y ago
  It's definitely worth a month, just to see what your search baseline is at. I was worried i'd be on an expensive tier but i am far lower on average than i thought. And they increased the quota by 50% recently.
- t0bia_s 3y ago
  I'm really surprised how tech savy HN users easily tight their search queries to credit card. Isn't that worry you in terms of privacy?
M95D 3y ago
I never heard of Kagi before. I'm always looking for ways to increase my privacy, so I study the site a little bit and I find this: "Next, your request will find its way to our servers hosted on Google Cloud platform, where our main application is running [...]" I stopped there. I'm not going to subscribe. But I appreciate that at least they were honest.
- unshavedyak 3y ago
  Honest question, but is there something specific you're concerned about? Do you expect Google spies on Containers running on their servers, such as decoding RAM or decoding Network Traffic (that isn't ssl encrypted, at least)? I get the paranoia, but honestly i'm more paranoid of Kagi themselves than i am of processes running on AWS or GCP. The percentage of the internet you'd be unable to use if you couldn't use any cloud provider for fears of 5 Eyes-like monitoring is kinda intense for me. So i'm not sure where realistic and excessive paranoia meet with respect to AWS or GCP infra. Thoughts?

Melatonic 3y ago

Kagi is awesome - also a paying customer on their now grandfathered in tier - and it only gets better with time! The image search function is hugely improved and the main core search is blowing away Google for most uses. Also love that they added reverse image search now Not currently a Mullvad customer ( I was in the past ) but this looks definitely like a good thing!

stavros 3y ago

Are the results really that much better? I use DDG and paying $10/mo for a search engine seems like a tall order, especially when I don't know if Kagi can be that much less broken than Google.

Melatonic 3y ago
I did not do an extensive comparison to DDG but I would say it is definitely worth it. Been paying for awhile now and it blows away Google. And they are constantly adding new features and improving old ones (and finding new ways to improve their back end costs as well which makes it more sustainable). I use search engines a TON though (especially for work) so 10$ a month is absolutely worth it for me. I am currently trying to convince my boss to buy it for our whole IT team
- stavros 3y ago
  That's interesting, I'll try it for a month, thank you!
dharmab 3y ago
For technical info like programming language references, I get much better results in Kagi after I spent a few minutes setting my blocks and pins. I just searched "run a test suite in go" in Google, DDG and Kagi, and blogspam results were higher in Google and DDG while GoDoc and Stack Overflow was higher for me in Kagi. Many of the DDG results were about running a single test out of a suite, rather than running a suite.
- stavros 3y ago
  Interesting, thanks, I'll try it for a month!
artdigital 3y ago
IMHO yes. With DDG I always felt I needed to make it work. With Kagi I forget I even use something not-Google

aio2 3y ago

May I ask why specifically Kagi? What's special about it compared to other search engines, aside from being privacy friendly? Like, you could say Searx is also nice because of that. Or Duckduckgo. Or Brave Search. What sets Kagi apart, and especially, what makes it different?

aorth 3y ago
After years of trying Duckduckgo and then always going back to Google, it was this 2022 interview with the Kagi founder https://dkb.blog/p/kagi-interview https://dkb.blog/p/kagi-interview that I read a few months ago that got me to try Kagi. I was shocked that they thought people would pay $10/month for a search engine. Then I thought, "if Google lets us search for free, how much must it be worth for them?" Over the last few years I've started trying to pay for things that I use, and financially supporting developers working on products I like. That's when I decided to try Kagi. And yes, I have used Google only a dozen or so times in the last few months since I went all-in on Kagi on all my devices. The search results are very good.
- bisby 3y ago
  The thing that has held me back from Kagi (I've had the pricing tab open for the past month, just staring at it), is the usage limits. I have no idea how many searches I make in a month. I don't know if I'm looking at a $5/month situation or a $20/month situation, and my inability to predict that makes it hard for me to commit. From a single device, my firefox history says that in May I had 750 different variants of duckduckgo.com/?q=X. And thats not counting my phone, or work device. Will the $10/1000 queries be enough for me? (This isn't necessarily for you to answer, but just restating my anxiety around the product.) I too love to pay for things, and thus use a product, rather than be the product.
  - mongol 3y ago
    If you use Google, and you have not disabled it, you can visit your search history to get an idea.
  - 3y ago

replwoacause 3y ago

Kagi is excellent and I’m happy to be a paying customer.