Thoughts on Kagi?

JoYo , 4 months ago

From my brief interactions with the dev I believe they're doing things the very hard way when it comes to indexing.

It might be the only choice once AI poisoning becomes prolific. It's already corrupted the niche topics and soon it may overwhelm the topics with more human eyes on it.

ikidd , 4 months ago

I don't need my search history linked to my payment data for future enshittification. At least Google (and DDG or whatever) is guessing and I can make that harder with a proper browser.

denast , 4 months ago

Been using is for several months. Definitely VERY overpriced (I'd say $3-4/mo for a search engine would be fine, not $10), but the results are great, and I love the quick answer feature. It quickly summarizes info from top results, helped me a lot in college, where sometimes your brain is melting and you want the answer NOW.

TheAnonymouseJoker , 4 months ago (edited 4 months ago)

Not open source. I find Yandex to be objectively the most superior search engine for all purposes, as they work outside Western jurisdictions. Better privacy than Google/Bing.

If you want a "private" search engine, Searx metasearch with "default language (all)" option works about 85% as good as Yandex.

Edit: 85% is only meant for text/link results. Yandex also has reverse image search, video search and other things with no competition in sight.

If you want lesser private but more ordinary results, Startpage is great.

Everything else is same tier or bad/useless. DDG (western censorship), Ecosia, Qwant, Google, BingGPT and others included.

targetx , 4 months ago

At the risk of sounding incredibly naive, what kind of western censorship are you talking about? I've never noticed that as an issue with either Google, DDG or kagi.

TheAnonymouseJoker , 4 months ago

DDG (uses Bing index) censored a lot of non-mainstream portals both at socialist left and conservative right spectrum, pushing Western neoliberal agenda websites that run Washington/Brussels propaganda. This was done during Ukraine conflict and seems to be a continuing theme, probably even for Israel genocide. Some call DDG as a "diet Google", since Google/Bing have done the same thing since long ago.

I am not sure how Kagi deals with this problem, since it is a different style of search engine, putting users in their own search bubbles, and has its own indexing to begin with.

targetx , 4 months ago

Thanks for elaborating! I don't use search engines for political/news related queries so I guess that's why I never noticed (or it's so effective that I just accept it as the truth of course...). Either way, I agree that's bad and I hope it's not an issue with Kagi.

TheAnonymouseJoker , 4 months ago

I recommend keeping Yandex as second opinion, and Searx with "default languages (all)" results option as third opinion. Relying on one for news is very problematic for critical thought and truly free, democratic discourse.

Serpentian , 4 months ago

However, Yandex works under Russian jurisdictions. Brave search is ok

PrivacyWayFinder , 4 months ago

It's great using their Fastgpt which gives accurate results from various forums and websites, where other gpt based search engines lack. And got to try their Summarizer.

I recommend to use it as Secondary source (with tempmails) and Primary remains SearX for sure.

leanleft , 4 months ago

paid options for the elites: buy several multi TB hdd and host&curate a personal search index.. to supplement conventional search results.
or personal AWS storage but thats likely to be risky and more expensive. also relatively difficult.

Imprint9816 , 4 months ago

What would i be searching for that's so difficult to find that I would pay for Kagi? Especially when there are multiple options for good free search engines.

LWD , 4 months ago

From the looks of their own promotional material, the opportunity to build your own tailor-made filter bubble...

Search experience tailored to you and your needs.

We encourage you to evaluate and change results.

Lemmchen , 4 months ago (edited 4 months ago)

That's not so much a filter bubble as it is noise reduction. No, I don't want to have Pinterest results in my search engine. No, I don't have an Instagram or Twitter account and therefore can't see the content there anyway. I am developer, so I want to raise the relevance of GitHub in my results.

LWD , 4 months ago

I appreciate your rose tinted glasses, but when you wear them, red flags just look like flags.

You skipped political filter bubbles, which can be manipulative indeed. And in their aptly named manifesto, Kagi Corp promises just that:

You could customize an AI to be conservative or liberal, sweet or sassy!

In the future, instead of everyone sharing the same search engine, you’ll have your completely individual, personalized... AI. Instead of being scared to share information with it, you will volunteer your data, knowing its incentives align with yours.

Isn't that thoughtful of them? A bubble where you are alone, a bubble they want to build.

You will pay the company,
you will give up your data,
and you will be happy.

sudneo , 4 months ago

You forget the part where they mentioned a different business model that allows to dump the ad-driven one, aligning the interest of the user and the vendor. In other words, a model in which the company gets the money from the user so that it can build a product for them, rather than getting money from others (advertisers, etc.) so that the user is someone who simply has to be milked for data or sold shit. This frame, in my opinion, changes quite significantly the otherwise dystopian nature of such (future) vision. The objectives in fact are very important in this discussion. Facebook, twitter etc. need people to spend time on their platform to give value to their customers (the advertisers). Creating bubbles, fomenting incendiary content, etc. are all functional to that objective. If the business model was different, the same might not happen.

In any case, the current features that exist (and that are not the speculations on the future in the manifesto) allow the users to customize the rankings as they want, without AI or kagi doing it for us. If I don't want to see fox news when I search for something, I make the conscious choice and downrank it. If I want to see guardian and apnews, I uprank them. The current features empower users to curate their own results, which is very different from an opaque, black-box product doing it for us for specific reasons like might be the case of Facebook.

Ultimately, someone will make a decision about how to rank results in a page. Some algorithm needs to be used. What's a better alternative, compared to me providing strong inputs to such algorithm, that does not raise red flags?

LWD , 4 months ago

If Kagi Corp's goal is to create a user profile on you, then whether they're using your data to serve you ads or not is irrelevant.

This is the Privacy community, not the "You will give them your data and be happy" community

sudneo , 4 months ago

In reality I did not read anywhere that they intend to create a profile on you. What I read is some fuzzy idea about a future in which AIs could be customised to the individual level. So far, Kagi's attitude has been to offer features to do such customisations, rather than doing them on behalf of users, so I don't see why you are reading that and jumping to the conclusion that they want to build a profile on you, rather than giving you the tools to create that profile.
It's still "data" given to them, but it's a voluntary action which is much different from data collection in the negative sense we all mean it.

LWD , 4 months ago (edited 4 months ago)

It's still data given to them, no scare quotes needed. And if that data includes your political alignment, like they say in their manifesto, a data breach would be catastrophic. Far worse has been done with far less. (And even if there isn't one, using their manifesto to promise a dystopia where you are nestled in a political echo chamber sounds like a nightmare).

And even corporate brand loyalty is mentioned in their manifesto.

When DuckDuckGo complained about Google's filter bubble, even Google had the good sense to downplay it. Kagi seems giddy about it.

sudneo , 4 months ago

It’s still data given to them, no scare quotes needed.

It is if you decide to give it to them. If it's a voluntary feature and not pure data collection, that's the difference. Which means if you don't want to take the risk, you don't provide that data. I am sure you understand the difference between this and the data collection as a necessary condition to provide the service.

And if that data includes your political alignment, like they say in their manifesto, a data breach would be catastrophic.

Which means you will simply decide not to use that feature and not give them that data?

And even if there isn’t one, using their manifesto to promise a dystopia where you are nestled in a political echo chamber sounds like a nightmare

It depends, really. When you choose which articles and newspapers you consider reputable, you consider that an echo chamber? I don't. This is different from using profiling and data collection to provide you, without your knowledge or input, with content that matches your preference. Curating the content that I want to find online is different from Meta pushing only posts that statistically resonate with me based on the behavioral analysis they have done on top of the data collected, all behind the scenes.
I don't see where the dystopia is if I can curate my own content through tools. This is very different from megacorps curating our content for their own profit.

LWD , 4 months ago

I think there may be a miscommunication here, because I fundamentally also find great distaste with

Meta pushing only posts that statistically resonate with me based on the behavioral analysis they have done on top of the data collected

... Because based on their manifesto, that's exactly what Kagi wants to do with you as a search engine; show you the things it thinks you want to see.

if you don't want to take the risk, you don't provide that data

Every giant corporation has a privacy policy; the same could be said for what Mark Zuckerberg calls the "dumb fucks" who use Facebook.

sudneo , 4 months ago

… Because based on their manifesto, that’s exactly what Kagi wants to do with you as a search engine; show you the things it thinks you want to see.

no, based on your interpretation of the manifesto. I already mentioned that the direction that kagi has taken so far is to give the user the option to customize the tools they use. So it's not kagi that shows you the thing you want to see, but you, who tell kagi the things who want to see. I imagine a future where you can tune the AI to be your personal assistance, not the company.

Every giant corporation has a privacy policy

It is not having a policy that matters, obviously, it's what inside it that does. Facebook privacy policy is exactly what you would expect, in fact.

LWD , 4 months ago

I've been quoting the Kagi Corp manifesto. In fact, across this entire thread, you've had nothing but total charity for the corporate entity and its leadership, even accusing eyewitnesses of the CEO's bad behavior of being liars.

But your comment did allow me to find another corporate manifesto, so let's take another crack at this.

You said this is bad:

Meta pushing only posts that statistically resonate with me based on the behavioral analysis they have done on top of the data collected

Kagi Corp says this is good:

In this future, instead of everyone sharing the same Siri, we will own our truly own Mike or Julia, or maybe Donald - the AI. And when you ask your own AI a question like "does God exist?" it will answer it relying on biases you preconfigured. When you ask it to recommend a good restaurant nearby, it will do so knowing what kind of food you like to eat. The same will happen when you ask it to recommend a good coffee maker - it will know the brands you like, your likely budget and the kind of coffee you usually drink.

What you say is bad for Facebook, is what Kagi Corp wants to do.

sudneo , 4 months ago

I’ve been quoting the Kagi Corp manifesto.

Yes, but you have drawn conclusions that are not in the quotes.

Let me quote:

But there will also be search companions with different abilities offered at different price points. Depending on your budget and tolerance, you will be able to buy beginner, intermediate, or expert AIs. They’ll come with character traits like tact and wit or certain pedigrees, interests, and even adjustable bias. You could customize an AI to be conservative or liberal, sweet or sassy!

In the future, instead of everyone sharing the same search engine, you’ll have your completely individual, personalized Mike or Julia or Jarvis - the AI. Instead of being scared to share information with it, you will volunteer your data, knowing its incentives align with yours. The more you tell your assistant, the better it can help you, so when you ask it to recommend a good restaurant nearby, it’ll provide options based on what you like to eat and how far you want to drive. Ask it for a good coffee maker, and it’ll recommend choices within your budget from your favorite brands with only your best interests in mind. The search will be personal and contextual and excitingly so!

There is nothing here that says "we will collect information and build the thing for you". The message seems pretty clearly what I am claiming instead: "You tell the AI what it wants". Even if we take this as "something that is going to happen" (which is not necessarily), it clearly talks about tools to which we can input data, not tools that collect data. The difference is substantial, because data collection (a-la facebook) is a passive activity that is built-in into the functionality of the tool (which I can't use it without). Providing data to have functionalities that you want is a voluntary act that you as a user can do when you want and only for the category of data that you want, and does not preclude your use of the service (in fact, if you pay for a service and don't even use the features, it's a net positive for the company if that's how they make money!).

even accusing eyewitnesses of the CEO’s bad behavior of being liars.

What I witnessed is the ranting of a person in bad faith. You are giving credit to it simply because it fits your preconception. I criticized it based on elements within their own arguments, and concluded that for me that's not believable. If that's your only proof of "bad behavior" and that's enough for you, good for you.

What you say is bad for Facebook, is what Kagi Corp wants to do.

Let me reiterate on the above:

you will volunteer your data, knowing its incentives align with yours

Now, let's be clear because I have absolutely no intention to spending my evening repeating the same argument.
Do you see the difference between the following:

• I use a service to connect with people, share thoughts, read thoughts from others, and the service passively collects data about me so that it can serve me content that helps the company behind it maximizing their profits, and
• I use a service that I can customize and provide data to in order to customize what I see and what is displayed to me, which has no financial incentive to do anything else with that data because I - the user - am the paying customer.

?

If you don't, and you don't see the difference between the two scenarios above, there is no point for me to continue this conversation, we fundamentally disagree. If you do see the difference, then you have to appreciate that the nature of the data collection moves the agency from the company to the user, and a different system of incentive in place creates an environment in which the company doesn't have to screw you over in order to earn money.

LWD , 4 months ago

It's pretty clear that you only draw your conclusions from a predetermined trust in Kagi, a brand loyalty.

The CEO is good, therefore when he moved a public conversation to a private Discord server, anything he says about the private conversation is now true, and anyone who disagrees with him is a liar.

Kagi Corp is good, so feeding data to it is done in a good way, but Facebook Corp is bad so feeding data to it is done in a bad way.

Kagi's efforts to show you only things you want to see are good, because Kagi itself is good. When Facebook does it, it is bad.

sudneo , 4 months ago

It’s pretty clear that you only draw your conclusions from a predetermined trust in Kagi, a brand loyalty.

As I said before, I also draw this conclusion based on the direction that they have currently taken. Like the features that actually exist right now, you know.
You started this whole thing about dystopian future when talking about lenses, a feature in which the user chooses to uprank/downrank websites based on their voluntary decision. I am specifically telling that this has been the general attitude, providing tools so that users can customize stuff, and therefore I am looking at that vision with this additional element in mind.
You instead use only your own interpretation of that manifesto.

Kagi Corp is good, so feeding data to it is done in a good way, but Facebook Corp is bad so feeding data to it is done in a bad way.

You are just throwing the cards up.
If you can't see the difference between me having the ability to submit data, when I want, what I want and Facebook collecting data, there are only two options: you don't understand how this works, or you are in bad faith. Which one it is?

LWD , 4 months ago

You started this whole thing about dystopian future when talking about lenses

The "lens" feature isn't mentioned in either Kagi manifesto. That's why I consider the manifesto important: it shows what they want to produce and how willing they are to collect user data in order to produce it.

If you can't see the difference between me having the ability to submit data, when I want, what I want and Facebook collecting data

Let me quote Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook:

People just submitted it. I don't know why. They "trust me". Dumb fucks.

sudneo , 4 months ago

The “lens” feature isn’t mentioned in either Kagi manifesto.

So? It exists, unlike the vision in the manifesto. Since the manifesto can be interpreted in many ways (despite what you might claim), I think this feature can be helpful to show the Kagi intentions, since they invested work into it no? They could have build data collection and automated ranking based on your clicks, they didn't.

People just submitted it. I don’t know why. They “trust me”. Dumb fucks.

Not sure what the argument is. The fact that people voluntary give data (for completely different reasons that do not benefit those users directly, but under the implicit blackmail to use the service)? I have no objections anyway against Facebook collecting the data that users submit voluntarily and that is disclosed by the policy. The problem is in the data inferred, in the behavioral data collected, which are much more sneaky, and in those collected about non users (shadow profiles through the pixel etc.). You putting Facebook and an imaginary future Kagi in the same pot, in my opinion, is completely out of place.

LWD , 4 months ago

I love how you downplay what Kagi said they want their product to become. Elsewhere, you insist we must trust their privacy policy with blind faith. These two opinions are contradictory; you want people to simultaneously believe and disbelieve Kagi.

It doesn't make sense.... unless all your opinions stem from the presumption that Kagi is unquestionably good.

Regarding "Dumb Fucks": Zuckerberg described exactly what Kagi Corp wants their users to do.

sudneo , 4 months ago

The manifesto is actually a future vision. And again, you are interpreting it in your own way.

At the same time, you are completely ignoring:

• what the product already does
• the features they actually invested to build
• their documentation in which they stress and emphasize on privacy as a core value
• their privacy policy in which they legally bind themselves to such commitment.

Because obviously who cares of facts, right? You have your own interpretation of a sentence which starts with "in the future we will have" and that counts more than anything.

Also, can you please share to me the quote where I say that I need to blindly trust the privacy policy? Thanks.

Because I remember to have said in various comments that the privacy policy is a legally binding document, and that I can make a report to a data protection authority if I suspect they are violating them, so that they will be audited.
Also, guess what! The manifesto is not a legally binding document that they need to respond of, the privacy policy is. Nobody can hold them accountable if "in the future there will not be" all that stuff that are mentioned in the manifesto, but they are accountable already today for what they put in the privacy policy.

Do you see the difference?

LWD , 4 months ago

No, I'm engaging in a good faith effort to find the corporation's words, while you downplay and reinterpret them at every turn.

I know you won't bother to look, but for my own personal amusement, Kagi Corp is clear in page after page they care about AI not privacy. Here's a third page demonstrating this:

Kagi has long heritage in AI, in fact we started as kagi.ai in 2018 and we've previously published products, research and even a sci-fi story about AI. While generative AI opens a new paradigm of search and a vast search space of queries that never previously existed we have taken special care to ensure a thoughtful user experience guided by this philosophy of AI integration

• what the corporation did: AI stuff
• the features they actually invested to build: AI integration

And this is rather ironic too:

At the same time, you are completely ignoring... their privacy policy in which they legally bind themselves to such commitment....

Also, can you please share to me the quote where I say that I need to blindly trust the privacy policy?

sudneo , 4 months ago

You are really moving the goal post eh

Developing AI feature does not mean anything in itself. None of the AI features they built do anything at all in a personalized way. For sure they seem very invested into integrating AI in their product, but so far no data is used, and all the AI features are simply summarizers and research assistants. What is this supposed to prove?

I will make it simpler anyway:

What they wrote in a manifesto is a vague expression of what will happen in a non-specified future. If the whole AI fad will fade in a year, it won't happen. In addition, we have no idea of what specifically they are going to build, we have no idea of what the impact on privacy is, what are the specific implementation choices they will take and many other things. Without all of this, your dystopian interpretation is purely arbitrary.

And this is rather ironic too:

Ironic how? Saying that a document is binding doesn't mean blindly trusting it, it means that I know the power it holds, and it means it gives the power to get their ass audited and potentially fined on that basis if anybody doesn't trust them.

Your attempt to mess with the meaning of my sentences is honestly gross. Being aware of the fact that a company is accountable has nothing do to with blind trust.

---

Just to sum it up, your arguments so far are that:

• they mention a "future" in which AI will be personalized and can act as our personal assistant, using data, in the manifesto.
• they integrated AI features in the current offering

This somehow leads you to the conclusion that they are building some dystopian nightmare in which they get your data and build a bubble around you.

My arguments are that:

• the current AI features are completely stateless and don't depend on user data in any way (this capability is not developed in general and they use external models).
• the current features are very user-centric and the users have complete agency in what they can customize, hence we can only assume that similar agency will be implemented in AI features (in opposition to data being collected passively).
• to strengthen the point above, their privacy policy is not only great, but it's also extremely clear in terms of implications of data collected. We can expect that if AI features "personalized" will come up, they will maintain the same standard in terms of clarity, so that users are informed exactly on the implication of disclosing their data. This differentiate the situation from Facebook, where the privacy policy is a book.
• the company business model also gives hope. With no other customer to serve than the users, there are no substantial incentive for kagi to somehow get data for anything else. If they can be profitable just by having users paying, then there is no economical advantage in screwing the users (in fact, the opposite). This is also clearly written in their doc, and the emphasis on the business model and incentive is also present in the manifesto.

The reality is: we don't know. It might be that they will build something like you say, but the current track record doesn't give me any reason to think they will. I, and I am sure a substantial percentage of their user base, use their product specifically because they are good and because they are user-centric and privacy focused. If they change posture, I would dump them in a second, and a search engine is not inherently something that locks you in (like an email).
At the moment they deliver, and I am all-in for supporting businesses that use revenue models that are in opposition to ad-driven models and don't rely on free labor.
I do believe that economic and systemic incentive are the major reasons why companies are destroying user-privacy, I don't thing there is any inherent evil. That's why I can't really understand how a business which depends on users paying (kagi) can be compared to one that depends on advertisers paying (meta), where users (their data) are just a part of a product.

Like, even if we assume that what's written in the manifesto comes to life, if the data is collected by the company and only, exclusively, used to customize the AI in the way I want (not to tune it to sell me shit I don't need), within the scope I need, with the data I choose to give, with full awareness of the implication, where is the problem? This is not a dystopia. The dystopia is if google builds the same tool and tunes it automatically so that it benefits whoever pays google (not users, but the ones who want to sell you shit). If a tool is truly making my own interests and the company interest is simply that I find the tool useful, without additional goals (ad impressions, visits to pages, product sold), then that's completely acceptable in my view.

And now I will conclude this conversation, because I said what I had to, and I don't see progress.

LWD , 4 months ago

You're right. We aren't getting anywhere. I'm trying to explain how 2 + 2 = 4, but you keep insisting it's zero.

Kagi Dot AI, with a past, present and future in AI, is the first part of the equation.

Private data consumption and regurgitation, which Kagi is allegedly not injecting into its AI right now, is the other part.

Look at them side by side and you see what the company wants to do, clear as day. But for some reason, you repeatedly insist there's nothing there.

Like, even if we assume that what's written in the manifesto comes to life, if the data is collected by the company and only, exclusively, used to customize the AI in the way I want

To be clear, you want a venture capital corporation to keep you in your filter bubble regarding your political beliefs, your corporate brand choices, your political beliefs, your philosophical beliefs, etc?

The dystopia is already here for you.

And even if you feel comfortable feeding all this private data into a soulless corporation, and you're not worried about data breaches, why would you evangelize that kind of product on a privacy forum?

sudneo , 4 months ago

To be clear, you want a venture capital corporation to keep you in your filter bubble regarding your political beliefs, your corporate brand choices, your political beliefs, your philosophical beliefs, etc?

Thankfully, I kagi is not a VC-funded corp. The latest investment round was for 670k, pennies, from 42 investors, which means an average of less than 20k/investor (they also mention that most are kagi users too but who knows).

Also, it depends on what it means "being kept in a filter bubble". If I build my own bubble according to my own criteria (I don't want to see blogs filled with trackers, I want articles from reputable sources - I.e. what I consider reputable, if I am searching for code I only want rust because that's what I am using right now, etc.) and I have the option to choose when to look outside, then yes, I think it's OK. We all already do that anyway, if I see an article from fox news I won't even open it, if on the same topic I see something from somewhere else. That said, there are times where I can choose to read fox news specifically to see what conservatives think.

The crux of it all is: who is in charge? And what happens with that data? If the answers are "me" and "nothing", then it's something I consider acceptable. It doesn't mean I would use it or that I would use it for everything.

evangelize that kind of product on a privacy forum?

First, I am not evangelizing anything. That product doesn't even exist, I am simply speculating on its existence and the potential scenarios.

Second: privacy means that the data is not accessed or used by unintended parties and is not misused by the intended ones. Focus on unintended.
Privacy does not mean that no data is gathered in any case, even though this is often the best way to ensure there is no misuse. This is also completely compatible with the idea that if I can choose which data to give, and whether I want to give it at all (and of course deleting it), and that data is not used for anything else than what I want it to be used for, then my privacy is completely protected.

LWD , 4 months ago

You're correct. I saw a small red flag and missed the big one. Kagi Corp says it ultimately wants to filter out search results that don't match:

• Your favorite corporate brands
• Your political beliefs
• Your religious biases

In this future, instead of everyone sharing the same Siri, we will own our truly own Mike or Julia, or maybe Donald - the AI. And when you ask your own AI a question like "does God exist?" it will answer it relying on biases you preconfigured. When you ask it to recommend a good restaurant nearby, it will do so knowing what kind of food you like to eat. The same will happen when you ask it to recommend a good coffee maker - it will know the brands you like, your likely budget and the kind of coffee you usually drink.

Kagi has three separate pages that lay out this ideology that promotes data collection and segregation from others first, and privacy last.

Scolding7300 , 4 months ago

I find DDG not great at finding what I need, where Kagi returns less results but they are more relevant.

There's also AI features that can be integrated with the search results which helps.

kevincox , 4 months ago

I am currently subscribed and it is definitely a step up from other engines I have tried. The main feature is just that it seems to somewhat cut back the general blogspam and SEO fluff. It isn't perfect but whenever I do compare it to Google, Brave or Duck Duck Go it seems to be ahead, or in rare cases similar.

The ability to lower/block sites is also quite nice. I also have a few raised sites, but that is really a minor improvement compared to blocking crap like Quora and Pintrest.

That being said the small plan is a pretty small number of searches so I need to pay for the unlimited plan which is quite expensive. I currently think it is worth it but it is definitely borderline value, not a slam-dunk decision.

I also have concerns about them focusing on things I don't care about. Lots of AI features and a browser. I don't want any of that, just focus on search, there is still lots of room for improvement, even if they are currently leading the pack.

Scolding7300 , 4 months ago

Not saying you're wrong, want to share my perspective:
I agree with the AI, the quick answer saves me a ton of time by adding source links where I always click on to verify the answer (quicker than going through search results when I don't know the terminology).

As to the browser - not really sure why they're pushing for their own, isn't FF good enough?

kevincox , 4 months ago

Yeah, the AI I am lukewarm on. I'm fine having them experiment, and it does seem that they are using it tastefully. It is something that I can see improving the experience in the future even if I feel it has little to no benefit to me now.

But yes, the browser just seems like a distraction.

LWD , 4 months ago (edited 4 months ago)

I stumbled onto some comments about Kagi angling to become an AI-first search engine that actually brags about putting you in a filter bubble. From Kagi's manifesto:

In the future, instead of everyone sharing the same search engine, you’ll have your completely individual, personalized Mike or Julia or Jarvis - the AI. Instead of being scared to share information with it, you will volunteer your data, knowing its incentives align with yours.

One YouTube video suggests a grim future: "Everybody has a feed uniquely tailored to them. Nobody talks about their favorite YouTubers anymore, because everybody watches different content farms. All the real creators quit a long time ago."

Food for thought. I don't like the idea of these filter bubbles.

---

ETA: I didn't realize it at the time but they also promise data collection for

• Political echo chambers: "But there will also be search companions with different abilities... You could customize an AI to be conservative or liberal"
• Corporate brand loyalty: "Ask it for a good coffee maker, and it’ll recommend choices within your budget from your favorite brands"

---

If you're looking for an open source search engine that's building its own data set, one exists (and it's totally open source and free).

https://stract.com/

If you're looking for something that collates other engines' contents, SearXNG is also open source and free.

https://searx.space

Kagi isn't really unique in any way here; their most unique quality appears to be linking your searches to an account, requesting money, and promising not to sell your data at a later date.

Solemn , 4 months ago

... Okay, I just tried Stract, and its results are... Mostly not helpful.

My understanding is that Kagi makes an effort to tell you how they anonymize your search so they can't tie it back to your account afterwards, whereas Searx is more dependent solely on the goodwill of whoever is hosting the instance. Both are good faith dependent in the end, but one has a profit motive for keeping that faith.

Edit: I hope Stract gets there and takes off one day, but today doesn't seem to be that day for me.

sudneo , 4 months ago

The privacy policy is also a legally binding document, not just a promise that the company does. If they are found violating it, the GDPR fines are going to hurt and they would lose the customer base in a blink. Their privacy policy right now is exemplary, I am one of those who read policies before using a product and kagi's is literally the best I have seen: clear, detailed, specific and most importantly, good from the privacy perspective.

Scolding7300 , 4 months ago (edited 4 months ago)

There's some tradeoff here, keep garbage out and relevant results in. Definitely want to stay connected with others and share knowledge (such as websites that provide quality info)

MrPoopbutt , 4 months ago

Do they have an android app? I haven't been able to find anything that looks trustworthy

BearOfaTime , 4 months ago

I've used Quick Search since 2013. Simple, configurable.

Back then I had it tied to the search button (which no longer exists ☹️)

LWD , 4 months ago

The Search button is now when you long-press the Home button.

kevincox , 4 months ago

I just added the search engine to my browser. I don't see the need for an app when all of the results are going to open in the browser anyways.

chili6633 , 4 months ago

I'm currently a Kagi user. When I first used it I thought it was an excellent alternative to Google, and well worth the price. However ever since they integrated Brave results, I've noticed a significant decline in the quality of results. The only reason I'm still subscribed is because I haven't found a suitable alternative.

Gargari , 4 months ago

Yandex

nailoC5 , 4 months ago

startpage is already on google level and the defaults of some searxng instances are better the google results

noodlejetski , 4 months ago

startpage is already on google level

probably because it literally proxies Google's search results.

possiblylinux127 , 4 months ago

It is a privacy nightmare as they have your payment information on file.

sudneo , 4 months ago

https://kagi.com/privacy

Kagi only stores the information about the client that you explicitly provide by using your account, as laid out in our interface. This includes:

Your email to facilitate account access and support contact (ex: password reset)
Your account settings (ex: theme, search region, selected language)

And nothing else.

possiblylinux127 , 4 months ago

I'm so glad that all companies always follow there privacy policy.

Seriously though even if they don't track you an adversary could compromise them

sudneo , 4 months ago

They don't, but a company built on that premise (private search) that does otherwise would be playing with fire. It caters to users that specifically look for that. I would quit in an instant if that would be the case, for example.

Seriously though even if they don’t track you an adversary could compromise them

This is true about pretty much anything. Unless you host and write the code yourself, this is a risk. It is a risk with searXNG (malicious instance, malicious PR/code change that gets approved etc.), with email providers, with DNS providers, etc.

What solution you propose to this, that can actually scale?

BentiGorlich , 4 months ago

I love it. Personally I don't think it is too expensive, though I am probably a power user of search engines, as I need it a lot while programming all sorts of stuff... So maybe it is just me saying its worth the money, because I use it a lot

Scolding7300 , 4 months ago

To me 100$/y seems a little much compared to Proton Unlimited and the amount of features there.
Perhaps it's like that due to their size and AI features

BentiGorlich , 4 months ago

Running a search engine is just a lot more expensive than running a VPN and email service. The amount of data and processing power needed to have a useful search index is just so much higher

leraje , 4 months ago

It's ridiculously expensive. It's not private if you have to link your searches to a paid account and none of those payment providers are private. They don't seem to have open sourced any of their key functionality, meaning you have to trust them to not be collecting your activity data.

I spent a long time getting rid of software and using services that I either no longer trusted or was unable to make an informed choice due to their lack of open source code and I'm not going to take a retrograde step now. And that's without the issue with their choice (a continued choice I believe) to use Brave results, a company I'm personally not prepared to support.

PopOfAfrica , 4 months ago

If they don't cache your search history to your identity, which they claim they don't, then I'm not sure why that's a problem.

leraje , 4 months ago

Because claiming they don't is not the same as being able to verify they don't by making their code open source.

stepanzak , 4 months ago

You can never verify what's really running on their servers, even if they privided source code.

leraje , 4 months ago

Deciding to trust a provider - any provider - isn't just any one thing. So, the most basic step to me is all the relevant code being open source. The next step is getting their infrastructure audited. The step after that is seeing what happens if they get court ordered to provide data.

They do none of that and I'm just too cynical to accept 'trust me bro' as a convincing sales tactic.

mozzribo , 4 months ago

https://blog.kagi.com/security-audit

leraje , 4 months ago

That's a security audit, looking at its vulnerability to attack.

sudneo , 4 months ago

They had a security audit, they have a canary on their website, they have a privacy policy which is legally binding, and they have a business incentive.

If you so much suspect that they do collect searches and associate them with accounts (something which they claim they don't do), you can make a report to the relevant data protection authority, which then can audit them.

As someone else also commented, you can use an alias email and pay in crypto if you really wish to not associate your account with your searches. Just be advised that between IP addresses and browser fingerprinting it might always be possible to associate your searches together (even if not to you as an individual with name and surname), and this is something that big CDNs like cloudflare or imperva also provide for you. So you still rely in most cases on what the company says and what their business model is to determine whether you trust them or not.

So far kagi has both a good policy (great policy actually) and a business model that doesn't suggest any interest for them to illegally collect data to sell them.

leraje , 4 months ago

I don't suspect or accuse them of anything. Quite the reverse - what I'm saying is that without things like open source code, privacy audits etc, we're being asked to take their word for it all. They might well be the most privacy respecting company ever and they equally might not be. If you're happy to take their word for it, that's entirely your call. I'm not trying to change anyone's mind, I'm just answering OP's question with my own opinion.

sudneo , 4 months ago

And I am saying that there are tools to increase this trust.

I also want to stress that you have no tools really to verify. Open source code is useless, audits are also partially useless. I have done audits myself (as the tech contact for the audited party) and the reality is that they are extremely easy to game and anyway are just point in time snapshots. There is nothing that impedes the company tomorrow to deploy a change that invalidates what was audited. The biggest tools we have are legal protection (I mean, most companies that collect all kind of data disclose that they do nowadays) and economic incentive. Kagi seems to provide good reason to trust them from both these angles.

Obviously, if that's not enough for you, fair enough, but if you are considering a company to be intentionally malicious or deceptive, then even the guarantees you suggest do not guarantee anything, so at this point I really wonder if or how you trust anybody, starting from your ISP, your DNS provider, your browser etc.

leraje , 4 months ago

Again, I'm not considering them to be intentionally malicious or deceptive, I'm saying without the basics in place, we're being asked to just trust them.

I'm aware of the limitations you describe and you're right that there's no way to 100% guarantee anything, there has to be some element of trust. So the services/software I choose to use have done all the things I mention, or I run them locally. Does that mean they're 100% perfect? No, of course not but the fact they've gone to great lengths to establish at least a basis for trust means a lot to me. Some of them have gone on to be tested in some sort of legal encounter where again, they performed well.

Trust is a personal thing, we all have different perceptions of what makes an org trustable - if Kagi match yours, good for you.

sudneo , 4 months ago

I am not understanding something then.

The basics in this case are a legally binding document saying they don't do x and y.
Them doing x or y means that they would be doing something illegal, and they are being intentionally deceptive (because they say they don't do it).

So, the way I see it, the risk you are trying to mitigate it is a company which actively tries to deceive you. I completely agree that this can happen, but I think this is quite rare and unfortunately a problem with everything, that does not have a solution generally (or to be more specific, that what you consider basics - open source code and an audit - do not mitigate).

Other than that, I consider a legally binding privacy policy a much stronger "basic" compared to open source code which is much harder to review and to keep track of changes.

Again, I get your point and whatever your threshold of trust is, that's up to you, but I disagree with the weight of what you consider "the basics" when it comes to privacy guarantees to build trust. And I believe that in your risk mapping your mitigations do not match properly with the threat actors.

leraje , 4 months ago

That's absolutely your call mate. I'm not here to tell you you're wrong. I just know what it is that I personally consider to be active steps towards establishing trust and that I base my opinion on them. If yours and mine don't align, so be it - to each their own.

sudneo , 4 months ago

Sure, but if you are considering a malicious party in the kagi case, your steps don't help. What you propose can totally work if you are considering good faith parties.

In other words: assume you use searXNG. If you now want to consider a malicious party running an instance, what guarantees do you have? The source code is useless, as the instance owner could have modified it.
I don't see a privacy policy for example on https://searxng.site/searxng/ and I don't see any infrastructure audit that confirms they are running an unmodified version of the code, which - let's assume - has been verified to respect your privacy.

How do you trust them?

I am curious, what do you use as your search engine?

leraje , 4 months ago

I self host just about every service I can, including search.

You're asking for a guarantee, which I've repeatedly admitted I can't offer because absolutely no one can provide that. No provider, no service, no software. All we can do is decide what we each consider to be actions/behaviours indicative of trust and use their offering in a way that maximises privacy for us as individuals. I put more trust in software/services that has code that anyone can read, that has been independently audited, that is trusted by the community and possibly tested in a legal environment. You might put more trust in things like privacy policies and other legally binding documents. Neither of us can guarantee anything however. I've lost count of the number of companies who've violated privacy laws and users only find out years or even decades after the fact.

But I'll say it again - whats right for me might not be right for you and that's fine.

sudneo , 4 months ago

OK guarantee was too strong of a word, I meant more like "assurance" or "elements to believe".

Either way, my point stand: you did not audit the code you are running, even if open source (let's be honest). I am a selfhoster myself and I don't do either.

You are simply trusting the software author and contributors not to screw you up, and in general, you are right. And that's because people are assholes for a gain, usually, and because there is a chance that someone else might found out the bad code in the project (far from a guarantee).
That's why I quoted both the policy and the business model for kagi not to screw me over. Not only it would be illegal, but would also be completely devastating for their business if they were to be caught.

But yeah, generally hosting yourself, looking at the code, building controls around the code (like namespaces, network policies, DNS filtering) is a stronger guarantee that no funny business is going on compared to a legal compliance and I agree.
That said, despite being a selfhoster myself, I do have a problem with the open source ecosystem and the inherent dependency on free labour, so I understand the idea of proprietary code. Ultimately this is what allowed kagi to build features that make kagi much more powerful than searXNG for example.

leraje , 4 months ago

I think the thing with open source (re: your free labour point) is that it's entirely voluntary free labour - I know that wasn't the thrust of your point but there are pros and cons to it. The lead dev could one day say 'fuck it' and walk away, but for a project of any size/popularity there's a lot of people ready and willing to fork it or ask for ownership to be transferred. It's not very often a very popular bit of code is totally abandoned.

Open source, to me, offers a sort of peer review system. Most people developing open source stuff already care about code quality and privacy, contributors also do and the myriad of people using it have a core set of people who also do. That's a lot of eyes. There's also tools to diff code so its pretty easy to spot changes. And I do do that.

But I take your wider point - it all eventually comes down to trust. But that's true of legal requirements too. And also organisation behaviour. Brave for example have been caught at least 3 times doing very dodgy stuff and yet as far as I can tell they continue to grow. I don't necessarily accept that one instance of law breaking or otherwise poor behaviour is instant death for a company. If it was, G and Meta would be long gone.

All I can do is reiterate that all of us have different things that we choose to place some trust in and we all have different ways of assessing what leads us to trust. But at the end of the day, there are no cast iron guarantees.

Research8165 , 4 months ago

Current Kagi user paying for it privately. They offer top ups to your account with crypto. I do xmr -> btc to top up my account. Also signed up with an alias email.