Comment by vitally3643
5 hours ago
I've been a Kagi subscriber for several years now.
If you're questioning the AI features, know that I am only barely aware they exist. I have never, not even once, accidentally or otherwise, engaged the AI features without going out of my way to do so. I've never seen what their AI is like. I have no idea what it's for or why I'd want it.
It's beautiful. Kagi has AI I suppose, but it's over there and not in my face. I don't think I've ever seen an AI nag in the UI, but their UI itself is also over there and out of my way.
Thank you, Kagi, for staying politely the hell out of my way. I love you.
I mostly interact with their AI through bangs.
An ending question mark enables fast answers, like Google’s AI summary.
!ki sends your query to the assistant on light research mode. It runs a few searches against their index and summarizes the results.
I typically don’t need more than that. Most stuff I just find through search.
Maybe shopping is the weak area, as Google does get product feeds and Kagi doesn’t. I don’t think this bothers me at all.
I'm curious: what is your use-case for a search engine that justifies Kagi over free search engines? Are you not finding your results on page one, first try, with other engines?
This is constantly the case, anytime I Google something more obscure than the front page of a top 50 website.
Even when Google gets it right (often they don't) I have to wade through a bunch of AI slop and countless ads. After that, it's dozens of SEO referral link sites trying to sell me garbage.
Kagi gives me better results by default, no ads, and I can customize results by prioritizing or blocking different domains. Very much worth the small price.
Kagi uses Yandex which is Russian.
But does it surface relevant search results?
Many things on the web use Yandex.
What's your point? Yandex is quite a competent search engine
Its funny because Kagi apparently also uses Google, and Microsoft and other threads were complaining about it.
It sounds like they use everything to give their subscribers good results. Which is what it sounds like I am paying for.
I use a great number of russian sites, mostly when I want to download textbooks, audiobooks, etc.
Yandex is great if youre searching for pirated content or for DMCA'd content that ended up on Gitflic.ru
Anti-drm tools are a big case in point. And so is Bypass Paywalls Clean Firefox plugin. All of these have been purged from the "Great American Corporate Firewall".
Russian people != Russian govt != Russian companies.
I just use the tools that work.
Yandex pays taxes in Russia. Which is then directly used at their attempted genocide in Ukraine.
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The small thing that annoys me is that I am 100% sure somebody at Apple has a directive: never allow Kagi search integration.
I am truly baffled (and annoyed) about this fact.
On iOS, there is an app called xSearch that integrates into Safari and sneakily hacks around the limited search engine options by watching your browsing history for queries to the search engine you've selected in Safari, then immediately rewriting the URL and navigating to the search engine you actually want.
Obviously this has security implications, but I don't ordinarily search for anything sketchy on my iPhone so I'm personally not too worried about it.
I know right. It’s simple. Google pays them over a billion dollars and Kagi doesn’t.
However, Apple does allow DDG, Ecosia, and Bing. They just don’t allow Brave or Kagi.
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I get annoyed at Whatsapp and see it as a case for antitrust but apparently Google is just as guilty of this
Using third-party browsers on iOS isn’t nearly as annoying as it was a few years ago. I had been driven to switch back to Safari a few years ago after trying to make a go of it. But last year I switched back to a third-party default browser and have been happy.
Third-party keyboards, still not usable but browsers are basically ok.
> Third-party keyboards, still not usable but browsers are basically ok.
The one third-party keyboard that seems to work is the one from Google, if you want a better experience than Apple’s.
3rd party browsers don't actually exist. iOS Chrome is just V8 bolted onto Webkit/Safari. Chromium is not part of it.
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Then don't buy Apple!
There's more to device quality than whether a monkey can operate it and looks shiny.
It was actually difficult to find the AI interaction section. But it was useful when I wanted to find some real info on opensource GIS stuff; it helped me aggregate and review. That's the only integration that makes sense to me.
Same to me, been a Kagi subscriber for 2 years and only found the AI tool accidentally when I typed a "?" at the end of the query. It was surprising to not be annoyed by a AI feature for once, now I sporadically use it when it makes sense instead of having it shoved down my throat.