How I Use Kagi • Hacker News Board

Re: How I Use Kagi

#151

Post by ffsm8 » Thu, Jul 17, 2025, 7:31 PM UTC

GoatInGrey wrote: post #125

freediver wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kagi founder here. I notice you bring this up consistently in Kagi discussions. A search engine's job is to deliver the best possible results. We evaluate API sources on search quality, not geopolitics. Yandex represents 2% of our costs but contributes meaningfully to search quality - removing it would harm all users while having minimal economic impact. We've used their API since 2019 and evaluate all sources purely…

I cancelled my kagi subscription upon seeing this response. I donate to Ukraine to defend itself from Russia. I lost a family member to Russian artillery as well while providing medical aid to civilians. I very much do not want my dollars to fund the very thing that my donations are intended to defend against. I'm going to assume you run a similar policy with Chinese search providers. After seeing Chinese warships of…

I take it you don't use any phones, especially no apple products then, right? After all, apples gigantic sponsorship of the Chinese government is well covered at this point.

Clothing is also a no-no, right? After all, there is *literally no way to purchase clothing from any store that hasn't been produced - in part - by effective slave labor and Chinese machinery.

Really, consumer boycott of nations is infeasible in a global market. The only thing you're doing is virtue signalling.

Re: How I Use Kagi

#152

Post by SLWW » Thu, Jul 17, 2025, 7:32 PM UTC

Been an Early Adopter, joined January of 2023 and I have never looked back or paused my monthly. I'm currently running with the Ultimate package which is good value for the $25/month price tag.

Beyond content to stay with Kagi, I hate shilling for products but this is one I would encourage anyone to try out. They have a free tier so you can feel it out for yourself, and even for $5/month you can still have a pretty good experience.

I use it for every search need, much like with Google back around 2012, as long as you know how to leverage the Search Engine you can almost find anything! Kagi is what Google should have been, sure it has some small short-comings but the overall experience is so good that it's easy to see past the silly things sometimes the SE pulls.

Re: How I Use Kagi

#153

Post by throw123xz » Thu, Jul 17, 2025, 7:35 PM UTC

freediver wrote: post #126

throw123xz wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if you should drop Yandex or if the alternatives are better or not, but I feel that you're missing the point here. You're looking at this purely from a technical point of view. That makes sense when trying to make the best search engine, I guess, but humans are not machines. You talk about geopolitics and search quality, when the guy you replied to is thinking about indirectly funding a machine that is b…

I understand your perspective and don't take these concerns lightly - I was a refugee of two wars myself, so I'm deeply aware of human suffering and its impact. Our mission to humanize the web means ensuring universal access to human knowledge, regardless of politics, delivered with clarity and protected with integrity - for everyone, regardless of their location or circumstances. A search engine that filters sources…

That's a completely valid position to have.

The thing to keep in mind is that for some people, and this includes some of your customers, there are things that are more important than your mission. Right now, some people avoid anything that is related to Israel. When the US invaded Iraq, some avoided US companies. I won't touch anything related to Musk after the two sieg heils and other things. The guy that complained clearly has an issue with what Russia is doing in Ukraine and doesn't want their money to end up in Russia.

It's a free market. You should do what you think it's right and then people will do the same with your product. Some will care more about search quality and pay, while others will care about the companies you decide to work with and use something else.

Re: How I Use Kagi

#154

Post by unclad5968 » Thu, Jul 17, 2025, 7:43 PM UTC

margalabargala wrote: post #78

unclad5968 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you personally sanction all countries that commit atrocities or is it specific to Russia? I don't care what you do or don't support with your money, but I'm genuinely curious about the mindset.

It is not possible for any one person to maintain 100% awareness of the entire planet, nor is it feasible for most people to simply live in the woods as a hunter-gatherer and take nothing from others who might do wrong elsewhere. Once we accept that each of us is a human rather than a morally perfect literal supernatural angel, each of us must decide: If we cannot sanction all wrongdoers, does that mean we sanction n…

I've never thought about it like that. To me, this is the most interesting part:

> If some, how do we decide which ones? One good metric would be "minimum impact on my own life". Another would be "amount of badness I'm personally aware of that entity doing". A third would be "how closely is the entity that I'm actually affecting ties to the group committing the atrocities?"

I wonder how different people decide on different metrics. For me, I probably don't even realize I'm deciding, making it mostly emotionally based I guess. Thanks for sharing with me!

Re: How I Use Kagi

#155

Post by giantfrog » Thu, Jul 17, 2025, 7:45 PM UTC

If you'd told me several years ago I'd be paying $10/month for a search engine, I'd say that's crazy talk. But it genuinely is worth it.

Re: How I Use Kagi

#156

Post by eldaisfish » Thu, Jul 17, 2025, 7:50 PM UTC

vickychijwani wrote: post #136

eldaisfish wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is a terrible response. Where are your customers? Predominantly the West, likely the US? This is not a question of "geopolitical judgement" but rather of funding a regime that illegally invaded another country, one that is responsible for a lot of cyber crime, one that oppresses its own people and one that directly uses misinformation to sow chaos in other countries. Apply this same argument to North Korea or Ir…

It’s ironic the way you put it - the US has also invaded many countries, is responsible for a lot of cyber crime, and uses misinformation to sow chaos in other countries [1]. Should we all stop “funding“ the US? Somehow Ukranian lives are precious, but Iraqi and Bangladeshi lives are not? I have no horse in this race - I’m neither American nor Russian, nor do I particularly love either country. But I am tired of US h…

let's not pretend that US democracy, flaws included, is in any way comparable to Russia.

Please, you know this is a bad faith argument, so let's cut the false equivalence.

I dislike the US as much as anyone, but I appreciate that the US is much better than Russia.

Re: How I Use Kagi

#157

Post by throw123xz » Thu, Jul 17, 2025, 7:51 PM UTC

i_love_retros wrote: post #150

GoatInGrey wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cancelled my kagi subscription upon seeing this response. I donate to Ukraine to defend itself from Russia. I lost a family member to Russian artillery as well while providing medical aid to civilians. I very much do not want my dollars to fund the very thing that my donations are intended to defend against. I'm going to assume you run a similar policy with Chinese search providers. After seeing Chinese warships of…

[flagged]

Perhaps they don't, but some do. And those who avoid Amazon or Google might be fine with using Russian companies.

We don't have the mental bandwidth to support every good cause or the capacity to avoid every bad player. That doesn't mean that you have to be fine with and use products from every company/country.

Re: How I Use Kagi

#158

Post by hootz » Thu, Jul 17, 2025, 7:52 PM UTC

karaterobot wrote: post #108

Search engines are getting squeezed out by AI for me. Kagi's search results are less polluted by SEO trash than Google, but there's still a non-zero amount of it. When I try to answer a question using Kagi (or any search engine these days) I end up feeling frustrated: there's so much information, and none of it is useful. On the other hand, ChatGPT filters all SEO spam out for me, and typically does a decent job of a…

Kagi has an optional integrated search AI which you can activate by adding a question mark at the end of your query.

Re: How I Use Kagi

#159

Post by unclad5968 » Thu, Jul 17, 2025, 7:54 PM UTC

jwr wrote: post #81

unclad5968 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you personally sanction all countries that commit atrocities or is it specific to Russia? I don't care what you do or don't support with your money, but I'm genuinely curious about the mindset.

Let's assume the question has been asked in good faith. Yes, I actually do. And I lose money because of that, significant amounts, because I run a SaaS, where I (as an example) stopped service to all customers from Russia when the full invasion of Ukraine started. So it's not just about not paying, it's about refusing money as well. It's easy to fall into the "whataboutism" trap and do nothing, because one can always…

> It's easy to fall into the "whataboutism" trap and do nothing, because one can always say "but what about… [insert country here]". I decided to draw the line somewhere.

That's a good point. It's a nuanced topic and I was genuinely curious. I'm not involved in any international business with Russia, so it's interesting to hear about it from the perspective of someone affected by it financially.

Re: How I Use Kagi

#160

Post by throw123xz » Thu, Jul 17, 2025, 7:57 PM UTC

vickychijwani wrote: post #136

eldaisfish wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is a terrible response. Where are your customers? Predominantly the West, likely the US? This is not a question of "geopolitical judgement" but rather of funding a regime that illegally invaded another country, one that is responsible for a lot of cyber crime, one that oppresses its own people and one that directly uses misinformation to sow chaos in other countries. Apply this same argument to North Korea or Ir…

It’s ironic the way you put it - the US has also invaded many countries, is responsible for a lot of cyber crime, and uses misinformation to sow chaos in other countries [1]. Should we all stop “funding“ the US? Somehow Ukranian lives are precious, but Iraqi and Bangladeshi lives are not? I have no horse in this race - I’m neither American nor Russian, nor do I particularly love either country. But I am tired of US h…

Some people do avoid US companies for the reasons you've mentioned.

People tend to care more about what they are familiar with. Someone in Zimbabwe probably cares more about the war in Sudan and avoids dealing with the countries involved than with the Russian invasion of Ukraine and use Russian products. Same with someone in Iran, they probably care more about Syria and Palestine, and avoid Israeli products while using Yandex.

Maybe it's hypocrisy, but humans don't have the capacity to support every victim of every war.