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Back to Kagi

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Re: Back to Kagi

#191

Post by crossroadsguy »

coldpie wrote: post #75

I've asked a number of times on HN threads for specific examples of searches that Kagi performs better on than DDG or Google, and never gotten a solid reply. It seems what people like about Kagi is the customization and surrounding tooling, but the actual search quality is about the same or possibly worse. That's cool, but I don't find it worth the cash personally.

What people also might (eh, this is my guess, based on what I have seen around, so I may be completely wrong :|) like about Kagi is being associated with a "paid service". Might feel so very boutique. Makes people feel they are in control (even though they just use someone else's indexes and data behind the curtains.. anyway that doesn't matter apparently). It also gives a feeling of exclusivity. What I have seen people claim about its actual usage, esp. the ones who are not from NA, that it is either below or just average wrt Google (because, well, there's no other mainstream search service to compare against). Few of them literally just say something very closely on the lines of ".. been using for X years... happy to pay". I suspect it might as well be literally just a satisfaction thing :D

Re: Back to Kagi

#192

Post by andai »

hgoel wrote: post #164

I've been using Kagi for a few years. I'd say that the biggest thing to me about it is that it does exactly what so many other sites nowadays seem to hate. It stays out of your way and allows itself to blend into the background, no sudden UI changes, no pop ups advertising some way to get more money from me and no sudden drops in result quality. I absolutely adore the ability to block/downrank domains. With Reddit tr…

> It stays out of your way and allows itself to blend into the background, no sudden UI changes, no pop ups advertising some way to get more money from me and no sudden drops in result quality.

You have described here also the opposite of YouTube, which is Google's main other product. I suspect most of YouTube's revenue comes from that thing where, when you pause the video and try to do something, but then they rearrange the UI right before you tap the screen (after about half a second of lag), so that you accidentally click an ad. It sounds stupid but I suspect a non-trivial ratio of their revenue comes from this phenomenon.

And of course, if you send them money, all the infuriating UX issues mysteriously disappear.

I suspect they're taking a similar approach with Google, with the difference that you cannot pay for Google and therefore are forced to have the crap experience all of the time.

Re: Back to Kagi

#193

Post by LucasOe »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #14
poetril wrote: post #5

I feel like half of what I do on HN is talk about Kagi. I switch to Kagi in 2023, and haven't looked back. Between vim keybinds for navigating search, explicit AI opt-in, the ability to curate search (block sites, increase others), and more. It really lets me feel like I can control my search tool, and at least so far its felt like our interests are aligned, I give them money and they make sure search is as good as p…

I dont use it anywhere near as much because it felt like I was hitting their limits too quickly, not sure if that has changed.

I do between 2,000 and 3,000 searches per month and have never hit a limit.

Re: Back to Kagi

#194

Post by alex1138 »

calessian wrote: post #91
sanderjd wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this is also why Google "sucks now". The thesis of these competitors was that Google got worse because of bad product decisions or implementation failures. But I found that to be a very questionable thesis from the start.

Google can both be worse because of the web results declining in quality and terrible product decisions. It is of course much easier to see one of the two, and make an alternative search interface possibly using different rating criteria. It just can’t solve the entire issue, because spam is also absolutely cheap to mass produce now.

This is absolutely true and yet I know from experience the product forums for years were people screaming at Google for stripping away features

And I know they removed the boolean + operator because of Google+

Re: Back to Kagi

#195

Post by ragequittah »

voidnap wrote: post #120
hbn wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trawling through bad documentation and even worse Stack Overflow answers to figure out how to use some API was not using my brain functions. It was wasting my time and making me lose the flow of the important parts of my work. I used to lose entire days trying to figure out some stupid error in a build chain or trying to upgrade through some library's breaking change. Now I can get it done in a few minutes and I don'…

> I used to lose entire days trying to figure out some stupid error in a build chain or trying to upgrade through some library's breaking change. Shouldn't the takeaway here be that depending on poorly maintained libraries is a risk? Code is a liability, not an asset. The habit that modern web developers inspired of depending on a new library for everything before ever thinkng about the problem first is bad actually.…

My challenge for anyone who still thinks like this is pay for Claude or Chatgpt and use the thinking version of the latest model for every web search you would do. See how long it takes for it to make a mistake. I can't remember the last time and I use chatgpt quite a bit every day.

The model reads the webpage before it gives it to you so the odds of a stale link are effectively nil these days. And the odds of it being exactly what you were looking for are quite high.

The models are so much better than they were even a year ago, and it seems many people have an outdated view of their capabilities.

Your idea about web devs picking a package before thinking about the problem is legitimate. What would be cool is if you could have something help you break down both the problem and the packages to choose from (or if it's worth rolling your own). AI is fantastic at this.

As said banging your head against arcane documentation or the infuriating Internet [1] isn't using your brain. And skipping the mundane parts let's you use your higher functioning brain so much it's exhausting. Thinking on the harder problems all day is exactly where I want to be.

[1]https://xkcd.com/979/

Re: Back to Kagi

#197

Post by shellfishgene »

cavoirom wrote: post #40
everfrustrated wrote: post #29

I feel sorry for Kagi. I've paid for the last couple of years as I support a better web search. But I've found my web searching is so small now with AI. I checked and I did less than 300 Kagi searches last month so downgraded my plan. I wish them the best but timing is a b**.

Beside search, I found out assistant is worth trying.

I like the assistant, but now with new fair use billing I run out after 2 weeks with the 25$/month plan. I guess the problem is not that Kagi is expensive but that the big providers subsidize plans more than Kagi could afford, so it seems expensive. Because I have to switch after the 2 weeks anyway I kinda stopped using Kagi assistant and will probably downgrade the plan.

Re: Back to Kagi

#198

Post by onetokeoverthe »

j1elo wrote: post #138
201984 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on your financial situation, but $10 is nothing these days. That's the price of a bougie coffee, half the price of going out to eat, half the price of a movie ticket, or less than 2 gallons of gas in some states. For most people here, it's probably 20min of labor after taxes or less, for something you use constantly. You pay several times more, possibly 10x more, for the internet you use Kagi on. Really not a…

So you live in one of the most expensive countries in the planet I guess, which forced you to get used to those absurdly high prices? In my corner of the first-world, I'm paying: * €6/mo mobile carrier with unlimited calls and what used to be 8 GB of data, but got raised (permanently without extra cost, across all customers) to 15 GB on last June. Paying a bit more could get you an "unlimited" plan. * €10/mo for 500…

[dead]

Re: Back to Kagi

#199

Post by konart »

201984 wrote: post #130
Gud wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of your examples are things many people are no longer doing because they can't afford them.

People are no longer buying internet to use google, nor buying gas for cars? The others I understand, I'm cutting back on them too.

>nor buying gas for cars

In many countries car is not something essential thanks to public transport.

And some people [who own a car] actually stop using one when prices for gas go over the bar unless they absolutely have to.

Re: Back to Kagi

#200

Post by ozenalp »

I started with Kagi in 2024, and sometimes across different/new browser setups I accidentally land on Google and want to immediately throw up.

Havent looked backed a single day.

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