10 ms·

I really wish there was a way to support their amazing product without a cent going the way of the Russian government. I get that there is a stance being taken,

I really wish there was a way to support their amazing product without a cent going the way of the Russian government. I get that there is a stance being taken, and it's an attempt to be apolitical, but that's in itself a political choice.

Razengan 3mo ago
I wish there was a way to use American products without a cent going to fund American wars, police militarization or global spying.
- omnimus 3mo ago
  My thoughts exactly. And unfortunazely to be able even to access Kagi you gonna need to give US gov money in multiple places.
- TiredOfLife 3mo ago
  Putting what russia does in same sentence as what america does, shows that you are either intentionally trolling or severely handicaped.
  - Razengan 3mo ago
    Maybe I'm severely trolling the intentionally handicapped.
  - flumes_whims_ 3mo ago
    I'm sure Iraqis, Libyans, Iranians, Palestinians, etc. agree that putting Russia in the same sentence as America is stupid.
    - Razengan 3mo ago
      Don't forget Japan, Vietnam, Korea, Laos and Cambodia
      - prmph 3mo ago
        Why Japan? What do they have to complain about?
        addandsubtract 3mo ago
        Someone needs a history lesson...
        prmph 3mo ago
        There is more to my comment than meets the eye. You should not assume ignorance on my part.
        Razengan 3mo ago
        Guy...
        prmph 3mo ago
        Japan should be the last country with a complaint. Read up on unit 731, at least, if you are unaware of the rape of Nanking or it does not convince you.
        Razengan 3mo ago
        By that logic, does the USA deserve to be nuked for what they did to native Americans, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq and others?
        NordStreamYacht 3mo ago
        Unit 731's work was taken over by the US and perps were let off. By the US.
  - NordStreamYacht 3mo ago
    Yugoslavia.
dewey 3mo ago
I feel it’s more a failure of regulation, it’s almost impossible to become a new search engine these days without using an existing index. There’s not many choices for that, Google won’t give you the data, Bing won’t so there’s basically only Yandex left. I’m sure if there was an open, comparable index they would happily just use that but if you want to change the landscape and slowly build up your own index you’ll have to make some pragmatic choices that might not be so black and white.
- mghackerlady 3mo ago
  I mean, at this point Kagi could probably start their own, and there are plenty of smaller indexes (Mojeek, Yep, and Marginalia come to mind)
  - dewey 3mo ago
    Bigger search engines have a lot of custom integrations that are not just crawling the clear web. You have a lot of benefits from collecting data for a longer time in this market. I've often switched between Google and DDG but always came back to Google as in direct comparisons I was always not finding the right results in DDG. Kagi is the first time that I have not switched back a single time as nothing changed negatively in the quality and quantity of the results. It's a noble goal to have your own search index, but it's duplicating a lot of work that others with much more resources already do well.
    - zargon 3mo ago
      In practice it is no longer actually possible to create a new search index with anywhere near the breadth of Google, regardless of the amount of resources you have available. Google (and to a lesser extant the couple of other historic engines) are entrenched enough to be allowed access by webmasters in robots.txt. And in the new era of mass abusive scraping by LLM companies, there's no longer the option to ignore robots.txt and scrape anyway, as sites do anything and everything they can to block any and all scrapers besides those already firmly entrenched.
  - 3mo ago
BloondAndDoom 3mo ago
Assuming you are using American products, with the same logic how do you support that government? I’m honestly to curious, do you find that American government historians internal external politics is that much better than Russia? What’s going on with Israel and a massive track record of human rights violations including government funded torture oriented, democracy side stepping institutions like Guantanamo bay, and many more current and previous heinous acts.
- matkoniecz 3mo ago
  1) Yes, Russia is in fact worse than USA. This does not change that USA did and is doing evil things. 2) At least in my case Russia is directly targeting my country, while USA does not (in general, far away empires are less dangerous than nearby ones) 3) In addition Russia is more resource constrained so getting the same amount of funds benefits them more 4) USA is also doing plenty of non-evil things while for Russia this activity are much much smaller part of their spending
  - Altern4tiveAcc 3mo ago
    > 1) Yes, Russia is in fact worse than USA. That really depends on where you live in the world. South Americans, Palestinians and Iranians would probably disagree with you.
    - catlikesshrimp 3mo ago
      "South Americans" Nobody in my country considers going to Russia. They did in the 80's, but not since the 90's. People still go to cuba to study, but many abandon what they consider intolerable conditions, and all those I know didn't have any desire to stay after their plans. If you meant something else, excluding Venezuela, please tell me.
    - matkoniecz 3mo ago
      Yes, in Russia you have less freedom, more corruption, lower quality of life, mor thuggery etc and so on. For who is greater enemy see my point (2) and I understand that for someone directly familiar with United Fruit Company type of adventures USA may be greater enemy despite being overall less evil.

Razengan 3mo ago

I wish there was a way to use American products without a cent going to fund American wars, police militarization or global spying.

omnimus 3mo ago
My thoughts exactly. And unfortunazely to be able even to access Kagi you gonna need to give US gov money in multiple places.
TiredOfLife 3mo ago
Putting what russia does in same sentence as what america does, shows that you are either intentionally trolling or severely handicaped.
- Razengan 3mo ago
  Maybe I'm severely trolling the intentionally handicapped.
- flumes_whims_ 3mo ago
  I'm sure Iraqis, Libyans, Iranians, Palestinians, etc. agree that putting Russia in the same sentence as America is stupid.
  - Razengan 3mo ago
    Don't forget Japan, Vietnam, Korea, Laos and Cambodia
    - prmph 3mo ago
      Why Japan? What do they have to complain about?
      - addandsubtract 3mo ago
        Someone needs a history lesson...
        prmph 3mo ago
        There is more to my comment than meets the eye. You should not assume ignorance on my part.
      - Razengan 3mo ago
        Guy...
        prmph 3mo ago
        Japan should be the last country with a complaint. Read up on unit 731, at least, if you are unaware of the rape of Nanking or it does not convince you.
        Razengan 3mo ago
        By that logic, does the USA deserve to be nuked for what they did to native Americans, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq and others?
        NordStreamYacht 3mo ago
        Unit 731's work was taken over by the US and perps were let off. By the US.
- NordStreamYacht 3mo ago
  Yugoslavia.

dewey 3mo ago

I feel it’s more a failure of regulation, it’s almost impossible to become a new search engine these days without using an existing index. There’s not many choices for that, Google won’t give you the data, Bing won’t so there’s basically only Yandex left. I’m sure if there was an open, comparable index they would happily just use that but if you want to change the landscape and slowly build up your own index you’ll have to make some pragmatic choices that might not be so black and white.

mghackerlady 3mo ago
I mean, at this point Kagi could probably start their own, and there are plenty of smaller indexes (Mojeek, Yep, and Marginalia come to mind)
- dewey 3mo ago
  Bigger search engines have a lot of custom integrations that are not just crawling the clear web. You have a lot of benefits from collecting data for a longer time in this market. I've often switched between Google and DDG but always came back to Google as in direct comparisons I was always not finding the right results in DDG. Kagi is the first time that I have not switched back a single time as nothing changed negatively in the quality and quantity of the results. It's a noble goal to have your own search index, but it's duplicating a lot of work that others with much more resources already do well.
  - zargon 3mo ago
    In practice it is no longer actually possible to create a new search index with anywhere near the breadth of Google, regardless of the amount of resources you have available. Google (and to a lesser extant the couple of other historic engines) are entrenched enough to be allowed access by webmasters in robots.txt. And in the new era of mass abusive scraping by LLM companies, there's no longer the option to ignore robots.txt and scrape anyway, as sites do anything and everything they can to block any and all scrapers besides those already firmly entrenched.
- 3mo ago

BloondAndDoom 3mo ago

Assuming you are using American products, with the same logic how do you support that government? I’m honestly to curious, do you find that American government historians internal external politics is that much better than Russia? What’s going on with Israel and a massive track record of human rights violations including government funded torture oriented, democracy side stepping institutions like Guantanamo bay, and many more current and previous heinous acts.

matkoniecz 3mo ago
1) Yes, Russia is in fact worse than USA. This does not change that USA did and is doing evil things. 2) At least in my case Russia is directly targeting my country, while USA does not (in general, far away empires are less dangerous than nearby ones) 3) In addition Russia is more resource constrained so getting the same amount of funds benefits them more 4) USA is also doing plenty of non-evil things while for Russia this activity are much much smaller part of their spending
- Altern4tiveAcc 3mo ago
  > 1) Yes, Russia is in fact worse than USA. That really depends on where you live in the world. South Americans, Palestinians and Iranians would probably disagree with you.
  - catlikesshrimp 3mo ago
    "South Americans" Nobody in my country considers going to Russia. They did in the 80's, but not since the 90's. People still go to cuba to study, but many abandon what they consider intolerable conditions, and all those I know didn't have any desire to stay after their plans. If you meant something else, excluding Venezuela, please tell me.
  - matkoniecz 3mo ago
    Yes, in Russia you have less freedom, more corruption, lower quality of life, mor thuggery etc and so on. For who is greater enemy see my point (2) and I understand that for someone directly familiar with United Fruit Company type of adventures USA may be greater enemy despite being overall less evil.