26 ms·

I just recently switched to Kagi. It's worth paying a few bucks to get decent results.

by imzadi 2y ago

ianbutler 2y ago
I find myself seeing nothing useful on Kagi, going to Google, seeing nothing useful, then asking ChatGPT and sometimes seeing something useful and othertimes being led on a wild goose chase. The general state of information retrieval seems bleak. Reddit is usually the solution for me, even on technical matters now.
- scarfacedeb 2y ago
  The same for me. I tried it for a month and it just didn't work well enough to make a switch :/
- hattmall 2y ago
  I typically go google -> yandex -> kagi -> chatgpt.
- ametrau 2y ago
  This describes my own experience 100% accurately.
- kelnos 2y ago
  Strange, I rarely don't find what I need on Kagi, and when I do and fall back to Google, the results there are no more helpful.
  - dingnuts 2y ago
    this is my experience as well. sometimes I accidentally search Google and I find it extremely annoying and the results to be demonstrably worse most of the time the example I like to show people is searching "how to fix a leaky faucet" Kagi shows helpful answers and videos from sites like This Old House. Google shows ads for plumbers near me. If I had wanted a plumber, I would've searched for that.
    - fuzztester 2y ago
      >>the example I like to show people is searching "how to fix a leaky faucet" >Kagi shows helpful answers and videos from sites like This Old House. >Google shows ads for plumbers near me. If I had wanted a plumber, I would've searched for that. JFC. This illustrates one of my biggest complaints about current Google (which has been the case for sometime): They make their software behave as though they know what I (you) want, better than I do (you do). So they give you the results they think you need, rather than those you really want. Infuriating squared. And idiots cubed.
      - fuzztester 2y ago
        >So they give you the results they think you need, rather than those you really want. Correction: I should say, their stupid machine learning algorithms think you need.
    - mining 2y ago
      Searching "how to fix a leaky faucet" on Google turned up the page from "This Old House" immediately (top 3 results, top 2 were wikiHow and a YouTube video that seemed OK at a glance). I'm not sure why my personal results are often so much better than posts like this one whenever I do the experiment - maybe it's based on location?
      - dpkirchner 2y ago
        Do you use an ad blocker? I can confirm the results: plumber ads that extend below the fold, followed by one useful article from Home Depot, then a useless "people also ask" blob of links, some videos (likely useful, faucets aren't complex), and another useless "people also" blob. I am in the US, if that matters.
        mining 2y ago
        I searched on mobile, so no ad blocker. There were no ads for that query, and all of the content up to maybe the 5th result was an acceptable answer to the query (i.e. on a site that wasn't plastered with ads) If I search "plumber" the first 3 results are ads. I'm in Australia.
- doctor_eval 2y ago
  These days I go chatgpt4 -> ddg -> Google. I did the Kagi trial but it wasn’t compelling. I am generally sceptical of GPT results, but also of other results, and GPT search is easier to fine tune and drill down into. For example if it gives me an obviously wrong answer, you can call BS. And it even apologises! Much more difficult to do for search engines.
- foobarian 2y ago
  Search engines worked a lot better when the internet had a higher SNR in the link graph. Nowadays it's an ocean of SEO sewage and no search engine can do a good job. It's not that Google ruined search by showing ads; it has genuinely become a harder problem. There is not much that can be done except set up a federated darknet where any commercial activity is banned; otherwise, the incentives are all wrong.
  - antihipocrat 2y ago
    The SEO spam domains could be blocked or de-prioritized by google. However, these SEO links generate significant income for Google via advertising. When OKRs are tied to revenue, no executive is going to sign off on a change that reduces it
    - foobarian 2y ago
      Even worse, besides spam domains there are countless legit enterprises that like to be at the top of results that create bad incentives. Imagine the community manages to set up a walled off non-commercial web that gains enough popularity to be interesting to advertisers. Who would be in charge of such a thing? And what would they do when Coca Cola showed up at the front door with ten million dollars in a briefcase? Federated would not be much better, they just need to pay the most influential nodes.
- hedora 2y ago
  Append a "?" to the end of the kagi query. It runs what appears to be a ChatGPT RAG query backed by a search engine index, and puts the results at the top of the normal search engine result page. It greatly outperforms any other LLM I've played with, and, as a bonus, each paragraph in the response contains working hyperlinks to primary sources. If you don't want to pay Kagi or login, you can play with it here: https://kagi.com/fastgpt https://kagi.com/fastgpt (no need to append "?" when you run queries through that form).
  - ianbutler 2y ago
    Thanks for the tip, I’ll give it a try
  - NegatioN 2y ago
    I didn't know it runs an LLM when you append a "?", but for any Kagi-users out there, you can use the bang: !fgpt $QUERY if you automatically want to jump to an LLM. The !fgpt-bang seems to be the model: "Claude 3 Haiku" going by the developer notes. Which often outperforms at least ChatGPT 3.5, easily recouping some of the money I put into Kagi every month.
- imzadi 2y ago
  Kagi lets me raise and lower sites or even block sites, so I get results more relevant to me. If I see a site that is not useful (hello Quora) I can block them. If I see something I like, I can raise it.
Melatonic 2y ago
Agreed
ed_mercer 2y ago
Kagi seems to have their heads up their asses though. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40011314 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40011314
- mm263 2y ago
  After reading the author's article and the emails, the only thing I'm convinced is that the author has an axe to grind and Vlad comes off as entirely normal and reasonable.
- yesco 2y ago
  One dude's crappy blog doesn't change the fact that Kagi has excellent search results.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]

I just recently switched to Kagi. It's worth paying a few bucks to get decent results.

by imzadi 2y ago

I just recently switched to Kagi. It's worth paying a few bucks to get decent results.

I find myself seeing nothing useful on Kagi, going to Google, seeing nothing useful, then asking ChatGPT and sometimes seeing something useful and othertimes being led on a wild goose chase. The general state of information retrieval seems bleak. Reddit is usually the solution for me, even on technical matters now.

scarfacedeb 2y ago
The same for me. I tried it for a month and it just didn't work well enough to make a switch :/
hattmall 2y ago
I typically go google -> yandex -> kagi -> chatgpt.
ametrau 2y ago
This describes my own experience 100% accurately.
kelnos 2y ago
Strange, I rarely don't find what I need on Kagi, and when I do and fall back to Google, the results there are no more helpful.
- dingnuts 2y ago
  this is my experience as well. sometimes I accidentally search Google and I find it extremely annoying and the results to be demonstrably worse most of the time the example I like to show people is searching "how to fix a leaky faucet" Kagi shows helpful answers and videos from sites like This Old House. Google shows ads for plumbers near me. If I had wanted a plumber, I would've searched for that.
  - fuzztester 2y ago
    >>the example I like to show people is searching "how to fix a leaky faucet" >Kagi shows helpful answers and videos from sites like This Old House. >Google shows ads for plumbers near me. If I had wanted a plumber, I would've searched for that. JFC. This illustrates one of my biggest complaints about current Google (which has been the case for sometime): They make their software behave as though they know what I (you) want, better than I do (you do). So they give you the results they think you need, rather than those you really want. Infuriating squared. And idiots cubed.
    - fuzztester 2y ago
      >So they give you the results they think you need, rather than those you really want. Correction: I should say, their stupid machine learning algorithms think you need.
  - mining 2y ago
    Searching "how to fix a leaky faucet" on Google turned up the page from "This Old House" immediately (top 3 results, top 2 were wikiHow and a YouTube video that seemed OK at a glance). I'm not sure why my personal results are often so much better than posts like this one whenever I do the experiment - maybe it's based on location?
    - dpkirchner 2y ago
      Do you use an ad blocker? I can confirm the results: plumber ads that extend below the fold, followed by one useful article from Home Depot, then a useless "people also ask" blob of links, some videos (likely useful, faucets aren't complex), and another useless "people also" blob. I am in the US, if that matters.
      - mining 2y ago
        I searched on mobile, so no ad blocker. There were no ads for that query, and all of the content up to maybe the 5th result was an acceptable answer to the query (i.e. on a site that wasn't plastered with ads) If I search "plumber" the first 3 results are ads. I'm in Australia.
doctor_eval 2y ago
These days I go chatgpt4 -> ddg -> Google. I did the Kagi trial but it wasn’t compelling. I am generally sceptical of GPT results, but also of other results, and GPT search is easier to fine tune and drill down into. For example if it gives me an obviously wrong answer, you can call BS. And it even apologises! Much more difficult to do for search engines.
foobarian 2y ago
Search engines worked a lot better when the internet had a higher SNR in the link graph. Nowadays it's an ocean of SEO sewage and no search engine can do a good job. It's not that Google ruined search by showing ads; it has genuinely become a harder problem. There is not much that can be done except set up a federated darknet where any commercial activity is banned; otherwise, the incentives are all wrong.
- antihipocrat 2y ago
  The SEO spam domains could be blocked or de-prioritized by google. However, these SEO links generate significant income for Google via advertising. When OKRs are tied to revenue, no executive is going to sign off on a change that reduces it
  - foobarian 2y ago
    Even worse, besides spam domains there are countless legit enterprises that like to be at the top of results that create bad incentives. Imagine the community manages to set up a walled off non-commercial web that gains enough popularity to be interesting to advertisers. Who would be in charge of such a thing? And what would they do when Coca Cola showed up at the front door with ten million dollars in a briefcase? Federated would not be much better, they just need to pay the most influential nodes.
hedora 2y ago
Append a "?" to the end of the kagi query. It runs what appears to be a ChatGPT RAG query backed by a search engine index, and puts the results at the top of the normal search engine result page. It greatly outperforms any other LLM I've played with, and, as a bonus, each paragraph in the response contains working hyperlinks to primary sources. If you don't want to pay Kagi or login, you can play with it here: https://kagi.com/fastgpt https://kagi.com/fastgpt (no need to append "?" when you run queries through that form).
- ianbutler 2y ago
  Thanks for the tip, I’ll give it a try
- NegatioN 2y ago
  I didn't know it runs an LLM when you append a "?", but for any Kagi-users out there, you can use the bang: !fgpt $QUERY if you automatically want to jump to an LLM. The !fgpt-bang seems to be the model: "Claude 3 Haiku" going by the developer notes. Which often outperforms at least ChatGPT 3.5, easily recouping some of the money I put into Kagi every month.
imzadi 2y ago
Kagi lets me raise and lower sites or even block sites, so I get results more relevant to me. If I see a site that is not useful (hello Quora) I can block them. If I see something I like, I can raise it.

Melatonic 2y ago

Agreed

ed_mercer 2y ago

Kagi seems to have their heads up their asses though. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40011314 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40011314

mm263 2y ago
After reading the author's article and the emails, the only thing I'm convinced is that the author has an axe to grind and Vlad comes off as entirely normal and reasonable.
yesco 2y ago
One dude's crappy blog doesn't change the fact that Kagi has excellent search results.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]