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I'm also not sure I quite get the love. I got the free trial, and I've set it as my browser's default search engine for now to get used to using it. The problem
by MrJohz 3y ago
I'm also not sure I quite get the love. I got the free trial, and I've set it as my browser's default search engine for now to get used to using it. The problem for me is that it's at best equivalent to, and at worst a lot poorer than the same search in Google. Which is a shame, because I've been finding Google less and less useful recently.
Maybe I need to fiddle around with the settings more, get some better filters in there. But part of the advantage of Google is not needing to fiddle - it knows that I probably want programming results if I search for "rust" and things like that. I'll stick Kagi out a bit longer, because I really like the idea of it, but I've been fairly disappointed so far.
EDIT: one specific criticism is that I speak English but live in Germany, so I typically want English-language results except around German-specific things where I want local results more. Setting my location to Germany results in a lot of German results for unrelated searches (e.g. documentation for some library, or information about an actor), but setting it to "international" makes it harder to find the local results I'm often looking for (e.g. libraries in my local area). Google isn't great at this either, but it gets it right a lot more often.
- Dayshine 3y agoWhy not just use bangs to change from the more common to less common region on a search by search basis? Or just use the programming (or other) lens for documentation
- phlsa 3y agoThanks for mentioning bangs! I'm having the same issue as in the parent comment and didn't realize you could use bangs to set the location. Still not an ideal solution for me, because it requires me to plan ahead when typing the query (or rewriting it later, which is slower).
- Dayshine 3y agoBangs can go anywhere in the search term, and if you press "!" on the search results page it focuses the search bar and types it there.
- MrJohz 3y agoThat could work, but it's not perfect. I think part of it is that it's all very contextual - for example, if there is an English language version of the exact same content, then I almost always want the English language version, even if I'm searching within Germany, plus there's a bunch of exceptions where e.g. I always want German Amazon (because that's where my account lives). Google mostly gets this right, at least in my experience, although it's become a lot worse recently. Having to configure it with bangs might work, I'll have another go at that in the future.
- benhurmarcel 3y agoI set mine as international, and when I want a local search I add the bang for my country (that's !de for Germany).
- xigoi 3y ago> it knows that I probably want programming results if I search for "rust" and things like that. If you search for web stuff on Google, how often do you get MDN as the first result?
- MrJohz 3y agoI don't know about the first result, but I think I get it above the fold at least 70% of the time, which works well enough for me.