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I've tried Kagi, didn't find it better than Google. YMMV. You can try it yourself, free for 100 searches on their site. I felt the things that might be nice ab

I've tried Kagi, didn't find it better than Google. YMMV. You can try it yourself, free for 100 searches on their site. I felt the things that might be nice about Kagi, e.g. personalized rankings, were solved simply by using Google or Bing and scoping to that site, and bookmarking the sites I frequent. A good example of this for me is MDN web docs. another example of I'd say few people, even on here know that google has Programmable Search Engines. Once you understand how to use them you'll realize you can recreate most of the nice stuff that Kagi has for free. here's one I just made for hacker news and techcrunch (https://cse.google.com/cse?cx=13608d055ebfc44ab#gsc.tab=0&gsc.q=headphones&gsc.sort= https://cse.google.com/cse?cx=13608d055ebfc44ab#gsc.tab=0&gs...). You can even exclude sites like Pinterest. in any case it's nice to have options, though. it's probably worth the money, but I'm very particular about spending money when there are free alternatives and don't really care about Google and Microsoft tracking me with Google and Bing respectively since I consider them decent stewards of my data. If you care about your absolute privacy and willing to pay it's worth a look.

fifteen1506 3y ago
Time is money. Not saying it's worth $10, but not having to redo your search 9 times is worth something.
- endisneigh 3y ago
  if you're redoing your search queries in Google 9 times you should read the advanced search Google docs: https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/35890?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/35890?hl=en&co=G... e.g. quotes "", do not do what you think in Google. You need to explicitly go to Advanced Search and use "This exact word or phrase". I almost never do searches without site scopes. reddit is a frequent one, as well as foxnews, nyt, washingtonpost, etc. IMO searching without site scopes is just shooting in the dark. You should think about the top 3 sites that probably are good for what you're looking for and restrict to those. Kagi can help with this sort of thing, but I pretty much have it memorized so there's not much value for me.
  - bluefirebrand 3y ago
    > You should think about the top 3 sites that probably are good for what you're looking for Such an odd way that search has evolved. It used to be about finding new websites that you'd never seen before because it was related to what you were looking for. Now the best way to use it is as an index for specific sites? Except those sites mostly have their own search bars, so why not just search them directly and cut the third party search engine out entirely?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - endisneigh 3y ago
      Google is an effective way to search all of the sites simultaneously, but otherwise yes I do also use the native search sometimes.
  - foooorsyth 3y ago
    > e.g. quotes "", do not do what you think in Google So they changed this behavior without telling anyone then? Because before Google search quality went down the drain, quotes meant to search for an exact phrase. If they changed that without any notice, and users continue to perform searches with quotes expecting the legacy behavior, and Google doesn’t bother to even catch that potential confusion and direct them to the new convoluted advanced search flow, then that’s horrible UX. What a horrible loss of ingrained functionality, and a horrible loss of a shorthand for advanced users.
    - endisneigh 3y ago
      yes, at some point it was changed. I disagree with the move, but understand why it was made. the quotes have been made to be more like approximately, than exact. where the words mentioned will appear together in the order specified, but can have certain differences in punctuation.
  - gkbrk 3y ago
    > Searching without site scopes is just shooting in the dark. You should think about the top 3 sites that probably are good for what you're looking for and restrict to those. Knowing the top 3 sources for my search queries seems like the job of the search engine rather than the user. Kagi doesn't need me to restrict my search scope to the top 3 sources that I choose in order get good results.
soneca 3y ago
Doesn’t the amount of ads inserted in Google results annoys you and interferes with how many legitimate results you can scan at once to find a good one?
- endisneigh 3y ago
  no, sometimes the ads are helpful for me, but I'm not really against ads. I prefer for there to be ads so (small) companies can try to convince me to buy their stuff (the alternative for me is basically just defaulting to the big co's with their marketing budget). an example of this was that I was looking to buy some Airpod Max's and noticed Sony has XM5's that are superior and cheaper so I bought those instead.
  - fnordpiglet 3y ago
    You determined a product was superior to another via advertisements? Not using third party structurally unbiased reviews? Wow. Yes, that is squarely googles demographic.
    - endisneigh 3y ago
      no, I did not know about the XM5's to begin with. I only was introduced due to an ad, yes. I thought the latest were the XM4s at the time. The ad was a reminder if you will.
    - alphabettsy 3y ago
      I don’t want ads in my searches most of the time, but I get what they mean. That said, I believe searching for AirPods alternatives or comparison would’ve reveled a similar result.
  - kuon 3y ago
    That's surprising to me. I hate ads. If I see one poping I usually blacklist the product. When I want to buy something I do technical comparison and try to find genuine reviews.
fnordpiglet 3y ago
Quality of results is comparable, wall of dark pattern ads is undesirable. Kagi is the ad free subscription Google that Google should have built.
- endisneigh 3y ago
  yes, if someone wants unlimited searches without ads they should consider Kagi. I am simply saying in my experience Google ads are not bad enough nor the results in Kagi superior enough to justify spending money. that being said I believe most people do not know how to Google search properly. if you're just typing in random stuff and hoping for the best you're doing it wrong IMO.
  - fnordpiglet 3y ago
    Google ads consume everything above the fold, and are interleaved with the results in ways that are hard to observe. Given you already have to wade through SEO garbage, which is essentially third party ads, you’re having to go through pages of results with a sprinkle of non commercial results. Kagi still has as many SEO results, sadly, but the signal to noise is structurally higher.
    - endisneigh 3y ago
      I don’t see Seo because I never make searches that aren’t restricted to specific sites to begin with, but i do see your point.
al_borland 3y ago
I've been using Kagi for about 18 months. I find the overall experience to be significantly better than Google. My browser reverted to Google once for some reason a few months ago. I didn't realize it and looked past the page header to the results and had a pretty negative visceral reaction. "What is all this trash, why is the whole page full of ads, why do these results suck...", then I looked up and saw I was in Google. It made me think that a lot of users who are happy with Google are like the frog being boiled by turning up the heat 1 degree at a time. I think I'd sooner cancel all my steaming services before I'd cancel Kagi. So far I haven't really felt the need to jump over to Google, or other search engines for anything. When I used DuckDuckGo in the past I constantly had to use !g when I couldn't find something via DDG. That has never been an issue with Kagi; I think I tried it once and Google didn't have the answer either. I've also had several situations where people came to me for help after they were coming up empty with Google, and I was able to find a solution with Kagi... of course, there could be other factors at play here, like the search query used or simply recognizing the answer when I see it. For me, Kagi is a better product with better privacy, which is a win-win.
- endisneigh 3y ago
  I think it's great that Kagi works better for you. it's good to have options, but I also used it for a long while from late 2021. I encourage people to use it and form their own opinion. personally I think most people who like Kagi just don't like having ads, and for them I'd tell them to just use Google and uBlock Origin to remove ads and various elements they dislike and save their 10 bucks a month and apply it to Youtube Premium, whose ads are more annoying to avoid.
  - al_borland 3y ago
    It's true I don't like ads. I want to support business models that aren't ad driven. If Kagi, or others, can show web services can exist without being full of ads, tracking, and other privacy nightmares, I think that is good for the industry and gives us a fighting chance at seeing more services adopt those models. I've been very unhappy seeing nearly every company on the internet think the only possible business model is to collect data and sell ads. I pay for YouTube Premium as well for the same reason. While I'm sure they still track the hell out of me, because it's Google, I still want to support a business model that isn't based on ads. I just cancelled my Amazon Prime membership after probably 15 years when I got the email about them charging an extra monthly charge (on top of the Prime membership cost) to keep Prime Videos ad free next year. I don't want a company to nickel and dime me when I'm already a paying customer. I only watch Amazon Prime a couple times per year (it's not great to begin with), so it wasn't worth paying monthly to be ad free, but they lost me as a Prime member over it, and I'm sure my overall order volume at Amazon will drop accordingly. I try to vote with my wallet where I can. Using services from a company with a business model I don't agree with, while using an ad-blocker, doesn't cast the same vote, and instead signs me up to be part of a cat and mouse game.
andrewjf 3y ago
I pay for Kagi, but it’s not because I disapprove of the tracking of other search engines, although that’s a part of it. It’s because Google is an advertising company. They have mismatched incentives to my own values. I want high quality and unmolested search results. Google is always going to be in conflict with that and it’s going to be a balancing act. Kagi isn’t hampered by that conflict.
fsckboy 3y ago
> I consider them decent stewards of my data. if Google is a decent steward of your data, how would a poor steward behave?
- endisneigh 3y ago
  I'd say a poor steward would be like the credit bureaus, who have had multiple leaks of emails and other data.
  - fsckboy 3y ago
    but just like the credit bureaus who sell your personal data?

fifteen1506 3y ago

Time is money. Not saying it's worth $10, but not having to redo your search 9 times is worth something.

endisneigh 3y ago
if you're redoing your search queries in Google 9 times you should read the advanced search Google docs: https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/35890?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/35890?hl=en&co=G... e.g. quotes "", do not do what you think in Google. You need to explicitly go to Advanced Search and use "This exact word or phrase". I almost never do searches without site scopes. reddit is a frequent one, as well as foxnews, nyt, washingtonpost, etc. IMO searching without site scopes is just shooting in the dark. You should think about the top 3 sites that probably are good for what you're looking for and restrict to those. Kagi can help with this sort of thing, but I pretty much have it memorized so there's not much value for me.
- bluefirebrand 3y ago
  > You should think about the top 3 sites that probably are good for what you're looking for Such an odd way that search has evolved. It used to be about finding new websites that you'd never seen before because it was related to what you were looking for. Now the best way to use it is as an index for specific sites? Except those sites mostly have their own search bars, so why not just search them directly and cut the third party search engine out entirely?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - endisneigh 3y ago
    Google is an effective way to search all of the sites simultaneously, but otherwise yes I do also use the native search sometimes.
- foooorsyth 3y ago
  > e.g. quotes "", do not do what you think in Google So they changed this behavior without telling anyone then? Because before Google search quality went down the drain, quotes meant to search for an exact phrase. If they changed that without any notice, and users continue to perform searches with quotes expecting the legacy behavior, and Google doesn’t bother to even catch that potential confusion and direct them to the new convoluted advanced search flow, then that’s horrible UX. What a horrible loss of ingrained functionality, and a horrible loss of a shorthand for advanced users.
  - endisneigh 3y ago
    yes, at some point it was changed. I disagree with the move, but understand why it was made. the quotes have been made to be more like approximately, than exact. where the words mentioned will appear together in the order specified, but can have certain differences in punctuation.
- gkbrk 3y ago
  > Searching without site scopes is just shooting in the dark. You should think about the top 3 sites that probably are good for what you're looking for and restrict to those. Knowing the top 3 sources for my search queries seems like the job of the search engine rather than the user. Kagi doesn't need me to restrict my search scope to the top 3 sources that I choose in order get good results.

soneca 3y ago

Doesn’t the amount of ads inserted in Google results annoys you and interferes with how many legitimate results you can scan at once to find a good one?

endisneigh 3y ago
no, sometimes the ads are helpful for me, but I'm not really against ads. I prefer for there to be ads so (small) companies can try to convince me to buy their stuff (the alternative for me is basically just defaulting to the big co's with their marketing budget). an example of this was that I was looking to buy some Airpod Max's and noticed Sony has XM5's that are superior and cheaper so I bought those instead.
- fnordpiglet 3y ago
  You determined a product was superior to another via advertisements? Not using third party structurally unbiased reviews? Wow. Yes, that is squarely googles demographic.
  - endisneigh 3y ago
    no, I did not know about the XM5's to begin with. I only was introduced due to an ad, yes. I thought the latest were the XM4s at the time. The ad was a reminder if you will.
  - alphabettsy 3y ago
    I don’t want ads in my searches most of the time, but I get what they mean. That said, I believe searching for AirPods alternatives or comparison would’ve reveled a similar result.
- kuon 3y ago
  That's surprising to me. I hate ads. If I see one poping I usually blacklist the product. When I want to buy something I do technical comparison and try to find genuine reviews.

fnordpiglet 3y ago

Quality of results is comparable, wall of dark pattern ads is undesirable. Kagi is the ad free subscription Google that Google should have built.

endisneigh 3y ago
yes, if someone wants unlimited searches without ads they should consider Kagi. I am simply saying in my experience Google ads are not bad enough nor the results in Kagi superior enough to justify spending money. that being said I believe most people do not know how to Google search properly. if you're just typing in random stuff and hoping for the best you're doing it wrong IMO.
- fnordpiglet 3y ago
  Google ads consume everything above the fold, and are interleaved with the results in ways that are hard to observe. Given you already have to wade through SEO garbage, which is essentially third party ads, you’re having to go through pages of results with a sprinkle of non commercial results. Kagi still has as many SEO results, sadly, but the signal to noise is structurally higher.
  - endisneigh 3y ago
    I don’t see Seo because I never make searches that aren’t restricted to specific sites to begin with, but i do see your point.

al_borland 3y ago

I've been using Kagi for about 18 months. I find the overall experience to be significantly better than Google. My browser reverted to Google once for some reason a few months ago. I didn't realize it and looked past the page header to the results and had a pretty negative visceral reaction. "What is all this trash, why is the whole page full of ads, why do these results suck...", then I looked up and saw I was in Google. It made me think that a lot of users who are happy with Google are like the frog being boiled by turning up the heat 1 degree at a time. I think I'd sooner cancel all my steaming services before I'd cancel Kagi. So far I haven't really felt the need to jump over to Google, or other search engines for anything. When I used DuckDuckGo in the past I constantly had to use !g when I couldn't find something via DDG. That has never been an issue with Kagi; I think I tried it once and Google didn't have the answer either. I've also had several situations where people came to me for help after they were coming up empty with Google, and I was able to find a solution with Kagi... of course, there could be other factors at play here, like the search query used or simply recognizing the answer when I see it. For me, Kagi is a better product with better privacy, which is a win-win.

endisneigh 3y ago
I think it's great that Kagi works better for you. it's good to have options, but I also used it for a long while from late 2021. I encourage people to use it and form their own opinion. personally I think most people who like Kagi just don't like having ads, and for them I'd tell them to just use Google and uBlock Origin to remove ads and various elements they dislike and save their 10 bucks a month and apply it to Youtube Premium, whose ads are more annoying to avoid.
- al_borland 3y ago
  It's true I don't like ads. I want to support business models that aren't ad driven. If Kagi, or others, can show web services can exist without being full of ads, tracking, and other privacy nightmares, I think that is good for the industry and gives us a fighting chance at seeing more services adopt those models. I've been very unhappy seeing nearly every company on the internet think the only possible business model is to collect data and sell ads. I pay for YouTube Premium as well for the same reason. While I'm sure they still track the hell out of me, because it's Google, I still want to support a business model that isn't based on ads. I just cancelled my Amazon Prime membership after probably 15 years when I got the email about them charging an extra monthly charge (on top of the Prime membership cost) to keep Prime Videos ad free next year. I don't want a company to nickel and dime me when I'm already a paying customer. I only watch Amazon Prime a couple times per year (it's not great to begin with), so it wasn't worth paying monthly to be ad free, but they lost me as a Prime member over it, and I'm sure my overall order volume at Amazon will drop accordingly. I try to vote with my wallet where I can. Using services from a company with a business model I don't agree with, while using an ad-blocker, doesn't cast the same vote, and instead signs me up to be part of a cat and mouse game.

andrewjf 3y ago

I pay for Kagi, but it’s not because I disapprove of the tracking of other search engines, although that’s a part of it. It’s because Google is an advertising company. They have mismatched incentives to my own values. I want high quality and unmolested search results. Google is always going to be in conflict with that and it’s going to be a balancing act. Kagi isn’t hampered by that conflict.

fsckboy 3y ago

> I consider them decent stewards of my data. if Google is a decent steward of your data, how would a poor steward behave?

endisneigh 3y ago
I'd say a poor steward would be like the credit bureaus, who have had multiple leaks of emails and other data.
- fsckboy 3y ago
  but just like the credit bureaus who sell your personal data?