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Kagi added a setting for removing paywalled links from search results

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Re: Kagi added a setting for removing paywalled links from search results

#281

Post by bitpush »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #91
ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, but I'd personally be okay with the paywalled article search results not showing up, since they are ads masquerading as usable search results. If the publisher wants me to subscribe (and many do publish content worth paying for), they can reach me via normal means, versus corrupting my search results.

Right. I don’t mind paying when the value is clear and I feel like my time has been respected, and paywalled link showing up in search violates the second of those two. In most of the circumstances when those show up in my search I’m looking for information for immediate use and I am not going whip out a credit card. If I run into a paywall, I’m immediately hitting the back button and moving on to the next result, so…

This sounds a bit odd to me. When I'm hungry, I dont run to McDonald's and expect to be fed for free. I whip out my card, pay for the items, patiently wait for the food to be arrive and then eat.

You could very well argue that why are you making me wait for my food when I'm hungry.

What gives?

Re: Kagi added a setting for removing paywalled links from search results

#283

Post by tensor »

Barbing wrote: post #251
tensor wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really think people are paying for these sites? I pay for my local newspaper, but I'm not going to be subscribing to dozens of newspapers, one is more than enough. If newspapers want more traffic they need to get together and offer bundle deals, because expecting people to pay $20 a month subscriptions for multiple newspapers is a fantasy.

Is the Apple News model sufficient?

I think there should be more of it. Negatives for the Apple News model is that it's Apple only and there is no ad-free tier. It's also app locked so you can't use ad-blockers.

But yes, something like Apple News with an ad-free tier that works with standard websites. E.g. the participating news sites should recognize whatever service token you have and serve unpaywalled content.

Re: Kagi added a setting for removing paywalled links from search results

#284

Post by tensor »

mstade wrote: post #218
tensor wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It truly is a game changer. I often use it before the regular search now. And no joke, it doesn't just save time, I've had it find things that I actually couldn't doing manual search. The reason is because it often knows when there are alternative names for the same sort of product and so can find things that are rebranded or the like. I agree with you that I'd love to know more about how it works. The citations to r…

I find it to be hit-and-miss, but overall more useful than not. What I like most is its relative brevity, and the response often helps me find a better prompt to ask so that's good. It's also really fast which I appreciate.

I guess I should mention that I'm using the deep research assistant, not the quick one.

Re: Kagi added a setting for removing paywalled links from search results

#285

Post by freehorse »

QwenGlazer9000 wrote: post #268
delis-thumbs-7e wrote: post #59

I think this is amazing. Love Kagi. I’m happy to pay for a good search. Nobody speaks about their AI Assistant, but it is really good. They somehow harnessed it so that it mainly searches info first and sticks to the verifiable data. I prefer it to Claude or any other, because it actually answers the question I need without fluff or “Great question! Here’s some plausible nonsense you can trip over instead of doing ac…

I just wish it were easier to keep up with which models are good for what. Especially with the introduction of the research assistant, I have no idea whether I should be using that or one of the standalone models. And don't even get me started on trying to pick the best open model, it's always fluctuating.

I often try 2 different models with the same prompt in case one misses anything. But most of the times I do not see much difference. Newer models do not seem to improve search that much, so I do not think you have to stress too much about new models etc. In general I stick with kimi 2.6 reasoning because it is very very cheap and does thorough searching. I do not see much gains with using more expensive models like opus etc, so I prefer to use multiple cheaper, open models simultaneously except for "harder" queries. The advantage of the cheaper open models is that you can prompt 2-3 of them and if you see the results unsatisfactory you can retry with more expensive ones. And ime sometimes models that are not talked much, like gemini pro, perform quite good.

I think there is a lot of space for improvement on "searching skills" though, sometimes the search strings they use are not great.

Re: Kagi added a setting for removing paywalled links from search results

#286

Post by flipbrad »

DavideNL wrote: post #199
delis-thumbs-7e wrote: post #59

I think this is amazing. Love Kagi. I’m happy to pay for a good search. Nobody speaks about their AI Assistant, but it is really good. They somehow harnessed it so that it mainly searches info first and sticks to the verifiable data. I prefer it to Claude or any other, because it actually answers the question I need without fluff or “Great question! Here’s some plausible nonsense you can trip over instead of doing ac…

> "Nobody speaks about their AI Assistant, but it is really good. " which model?

Deepseek v4 Flash and OpenAi GPT 5.6 Luna are on their free plan, which is fab. I'm not sure more is needed, for web searching.

Re: Kagi added a setting for removing paywalled links from search results

#288

Post by tjpnz »

Paywalls fucking suck. No I'm not going to subscribe to your publication just so I can read one fucking article. I would however pay 5-10 dollars a month to get access to a variety of news sites (ad free of course - albeit less of a problem using a real browser with UBO). No such service existed the last time I checked, but it doesn't feel like much of a leap for a paid service like Kagi to facilitate.

Re: Kagi added a setting for removing paywalled links from search results

#289

Post by freehorse »

nvarsj wrote: post #186
delis-thumbs-7e wrote: post #59

I think this is amazing. Love Kagi. I’m happy to pay for a good search. Nobody speaks about their AI Assistant, but it is really good. They somehow harnessed it so that it mainly searches info first and sticks to the verifiable data. I prefer it to Claude or any other, because it actually answers the question I need without fluff or “Great question! Here’s some plausible nonsense you can trip over instead of doing ac…

Yeah I pretty much soley used assistant.kagi.com the last couple months. Traditional search days are really numbered. I'm finding though ChatGPT with sol 5.6 is as good or better, so I'm using that primarily these days. Can also do actions in browsers on your behalf, so you can have it book your whole vacation, etc. Pretty rad.

> Traditional search days are really numbered.

There is a lot that agents can help with wrt search, but they also have a lot of blind spots. They work well many times, but then there are times where I find stuff that multiple llms missed. Imo this is gonna work as in many other domains, as in the more different tools one is proficient with (searching with llms, searching traditionally etc) the more successfully one solves problems.

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