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To repeat myself from a recent HN thread: I've been using Kagi for a while (almost two years now!) and it's been nothing but excellent! Lenses are very useful

To repeat myself from a recent HN thread: I've been using Kagi for a while (almost two years now!) and it's been nothing but excellent! Lenses are very useful (Reddit lens is on every second search), and I personally really like the AI features they are working on. The new more advanced assistant which is able to do searches, which can also be constrained to lenses, and lets you pick an arbitrary model, is excellent, and basically means I don't need a chatgpt/claude subscription, as Kagi covers it very well. All in all, great product which I'm happy to pay for.

eli 2y ago
Unfortunately I think Kagi only has old Reddit content now that Reddit only lets Google crawl them: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41057033 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41057033
- msmithstubbs 2y ago
  Kagi uses Google as one of its sources for search results so should be able to return the same reddit results as Google.
  - eli 2y ago
    Doesn't seem like it. Can you get it to return a reddit result from the last 6 weeks?
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - ezekg 2y ago
      I'm able to search a post I made a couple weeks ago: https://kagi.com/search?q=%22union_of%22+site%3Areddit.com https://kagi.com/search?q=%22union_of%22+site%3Areddit.com
    - msmithstubbs 2y ago
      Try this: https://kagi.com/search?q=remarkable+pro+site%3Areddit.com https://kagi.com/search?q=remarkable+pro+site%3Areddit.com It includes Reddit results from less than 24 hours ago.
      - eli 2y ago
        Ah hmm. Maybe they are doing something special with "site:reddit.com" queries. If I search for that exact Reddit post using the lens it isn't there. https://kagi.com/search?q=ReMarkable+Paper+Pro+hands-on+review%3A+The+tablet+for+writers%2C+now+in+color&l=2 https://kagi.com/search?q=ReMarkable+Paper+Pro+hands-on+revi...
        darby_nine 2y ago
        Curiously this link seems to show the "Academic" lens. Switching to the "Forums" lens pulls it right up for me.
        atombender 2y ago
        The lens ID in the URL doesn't look to be globally unique. It's just l=<number>, and the number seems to be order in the lens list under your account.
        littlecranky67 2y ago
        Well, there never was any law that required robots.txt to be honored. Big players like Google do, but I am not aware of any consequences if they wouldnt (of course UNTIL it is then regulated).
        kelnos 2y ago
        I don't think there's anything special; I very often get new-reddit results with no 'site:' qualifier. I can't think of a specific query offhand, but it happens multiple times daily for me.
        aequitas 2y ago
        For me it doesn’t show up in your link with the full article title but with this one it’s the 3rd result or so: https://kagi.com/search?q=remarkable+pro+hands+on+review https://kagi.com/search?q=remarkable+pro+hands+on+review
- lotsofpulp 2y ago
  Old Reddit (and other website) content might actually be more valuable given the higher likelihood of newer posts being spam/AI bot posts.
  - DoughnutHole 2y ago
    That disregards the fact that facts change over time. If you google “best DSLR camera reddit” it’s much less valuable if the results are 5 years old, even if they’re LLM free - the cameras on the market may very well have changed in that timeframe.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - inquirerGeneral 2y ago
      What? Old reddit isn't using old facts. I skimmed down and if this was about Kagu indexing being out of date then sorry I just realized that
      - klez 2y ago
        Not "Old reddit" as in https://old.reddit.com https://old.reddit.com. "Old Reddit" as in "Older stuff on reddit before they gave access only to Google".
- ulrikrasmussen 2y ago
  I really think it's crazy how a big site like that can get away with locking out everybody else but the search giant with a monopoly.
  - Sakos 2y ago
    Yeah, it seems blatantly anti-competitive to me and I'm surprised we haven't seen the EU say anything about it yet.
__jonas 2y ago
I really wanted to like Kagi, I'm onboard with paying for search, but I've had had a big issue with its speed when doing the trial to be honest, am I the only one bothered by this? Perhaps this is because I'm in Europe and it's faster in the US? A search request to Kagi seems to take around two seconds for me (shows as ~1s in the Kagi UI), it just feels really unpleasant compared to Google, I'm used to firing of a couple searches with different wording / terms and go through results quickly, feels like I'm being held back. Maybe I'm spoiled, but if I'm paying for search I would really like it to be at least on par with Google, the search result quality seems ok from what I can tell, lenses don't really make sense to me, they seem to filter out too many results I would have liked to actually see, but the customization like adjusting the rating of individual websites is fantastic. If they can manage to bring the speed to match that of Google, I'd be happy to pay for it I think.
- bboygravity 2y ago
  Are you using Ziggo by any chance? With the white modem? If so: that's your root cause.
- ddingus 2y ago
  Interesting!! I'm not slamming you, or your experience or preferences. That said, I find very little difference between 2 seconds and one second or less than that. Search taking a small fragment of time just isn't a big deal and I search sometimes many times per day. What is the gain for you that makes 2 seconds an exception to using the product? Just curious. Peace, live well.
  - __jonas 2y ago
    I feel like search is probably one of the most common things I do with a computer, I would say I often search many times per minute if I’m actively looking into some topic or issue. Because it’s such a common action for me, it feels like such a strong regression to go 2/3 times slower than before.
    - temporarara 2y ago
kelnos 2y ago
I've been using Kagi for a while too (wow, 2.5 years, didn't realize), and agree that the experience and search results have been excellent. I don't use lenses, but make heavy use of bangs, and I like that I can up- and down-weight domains and even ban domains outright. But I don't really care about AI assistants. If these AI integrations will improve the bog-standard search experience (I type something in the search bar, get a list of results, and click the one I think will give me what I want), that's great. But if not, this is just noise to me.
leokennis 2y ago
I was on the $10 a month plan for a while, but I canceled. Overall the experience of using Kagi was great but not "$10 per month" great compared to free alternatives. On top of that I got the feeling that Kagi is not a super "professional" company; for example by spending huge amounts of money on self-printing useless t-shirts (https://blog.kagi.com/celebrating-20k https://blog.kagi.com/celebrating-20k) or haphazardly suddenly charging tax on subscriptions. What I want most of all from a search engine is to be "internet plumbing" and mainly stay out of my way, and with Kagi I always had the feeling they would suddenly remove/change/add things because of some strong opinion their founder holds. In which case I don't want to be $108 committed for a year.
- adhi01 2y ago
  Relevant HN thread about this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40011314 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40011314
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

eli 2y ago

Unfortunately I think Kagi only has old Reddit content now that Reddit only lets Google crawl them: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41057033 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41057033

msmithstubbs 2y ago
Kagi uses Google as one of its sources for search results so should be able to return the same reddit results as Google.
- eli 2y ago
  Doesn't seem like it. Can you get it to return a reddit result from the last 6 weeks?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - ezekg 2y ago
    I'm able to search a post I made a couple weeks ago: https://kagi.com/search?q=%22union_of%22+site%3Areddit.com https://kagi.com/search?q=%22union_of%22+site%3Areddit.com
  - msmithstubbs 2y ago
    Try this: https://kagi.com/search?q=remarkable+pro+site%3Areddit.com https://kagi.com/search?q=remarkable+pro+site%3Areddit.com It includes Reddit results from less than 24 hours ago.
    - eli 2y ago
      Ah hmm. Maybe they are doing something special with "site:reddit.com" queries. If I search for that exact Reddit post using the lens it isn't there. https://kagi.com/search?q=ReMarkable+Paper+Pro+hands-on+review%3A+The+tablet+for+writers%2C+now+in+color&l=2 https://kagi.com/search?q=ReMarkable+Paper+Pro+hands-on+revi...
      - darby_nine 2y ago
        Curiously this link seems to show the "Academic" lens. Switching to the "Forums" lens pulls it right up for me.
        atombender 2y ago
        The lens ID in the URL doesn't look to be globally unique. It's just l=<number>, and the number seems to be order in the lens list under your account.
      - littlecranky67 2y ago
        Well, there never was any law that required robots.txt to be honored. Big players like Google do, but I am not aware of any consequences if they wouldnt (of course UNTIL it is then regulated).
      - kelnos 2y ago
        I don't think there's anything special; I very often get new-reddit results with no 'site:' qualifier. I can't think of a specific query offhand, but it happens multiple times daily for me.
      - aequitas 2y ago
        For me it doesn’t show up in your link with the full article title but with this one it’s the 3rd result or so: https://kagi.com/search?q=remarkable+pro+hands+on+review https://kagi.com/search?q=remarkable+pro+hands+on+review
lotsofpulp 2y ago
Old Reddit (and other website) content might actually be more valuable given the higher likelihood of newer posts being spam/AI bot posts.
- DoughnutHole 2y ago
  That disregards the fact that facts change over time. If you google “best DSLR camera reddit” it’s much less valuable if the results are 5 years old, even if they’re LLM free - the cameras on the market may very well have changed in that timeframe.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - inquirerGeneral 2y ago
    What? Old reddit isn't using old facts. I skimmed down and if this was about Kagu indexing being out of date then sorry I just realized that
    - klez 2y ago
      Not "Old reddit" as in https://old.reddit.com https://old.reddit.com. "Old Reddit" as in "Older stuff on reddit before they gave access only to Google".
ulrikrasmussen 2y ago
I really think it's crazy how a big site like that can get away with locking out everybody else but the search giant with a monopoly.
- Sakos 2y ago
  Yeah, it seems blatantly anti-competitive to me and I'm surprised we haven't seen the EU say anything about it yet.

__jonas 2y ago

I really wanted to like Kagi, I'm onboard with paying for search, but I've had had a big issue with its speed when doing the trial to be honest, am I the only one bothered by this? Perhaps this is because I'm in Europe and it's faster in the US? A search request to Kagi seems to take around two seconds for me (shows as ~1s in the Kagi UI), it just feels really unpleasant compared to Google, I'm used to firing of a couple searches with different wording / terms and go through results quickly, feels like I'm being held back. Maybe I'm spoiled, but if I'm paying for search I would really like it to be at least on par with Google, the search result quality seems ok from what I can tell, lenses don't really make sense to me, they seem to filter out too many results I would have liked to actually see, but the customization like adjusting the rating of individual websites is fantastic. If they can manage to bring the speed to match that of Google, I'd be happy to pay for it I think.

bboygravity 2y ago
Are you using Ziggo by any chance? With the white modem? If so: that's your root cause.
ddingus 2y ago
Interesting!! I'm not slamming you, or your experience or preferences. That said, I find very little difference between 2 seconds and one second or less than that. Search taking a small fragment of time just isn't a big deal and I search sometimes many times per day. What is the gain for you that makes 2 seconds an exception to using the product? Just curious. Peace, live well.
- __jonas 2y ago
  I feel like search is probably one of the most common things I do with a computer, I would say I often search many times per minute if I’m actively looking into some topic or issue. Because it’s such a common action for me, it feels like such a strong regression to go 2/3 times slower than before.
  - temporarara 2y ago

kelnos 2y ago

I've been using Kagi for a while too (wow, 2.5 years, didn't realize), and agree that the experience and search results have been excellent. I don't use lenses, but make heavy use of bangs, and I like that I can up- and down-weight domains and even ban domains outright. But I don't really care about AI assistants. If these AI integrations will improve the bog-standard search experience (I type something in the search bar, get a list of results, and click the one I think will give me what I want), that's great. But if not, this is just noise to me.

leokennis 2y ago

I was on the $10 a month plan for a while, but I canceled. Overall the experience of using Kagi was great but not "$10 per month" great compared to free alternatives. On top of that I got the feeling that Kagi is not a super "professional" company; for example by spending huge amounts of money on self-printing useless t-shirts (https://blog.kagi.com/celebrating-20k https://blog.kagi.com/celebrating-20k) or haphazardly suddenly charging tax on subscriptions. What I want most of all from a search engine is to be "internet plumbing" and mainly stay out of my way, and with Kagi I always had the feeling they would suddenly remove/change/add things because of some strong opinion their founder holds. In which case I don't want to be $108 committed for a year.

adhi01 2y ago
Relevant HN thread about this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40011314 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40011314
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]