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Kagi Assistant

blog.kagi.com

171–180 of 247 posts

Re: Kagi Assistant

#171

Hmmm One feature here that I think competitors lack is that the LLM's view of search results can be constrained by Kagi's search "lens" [0] that let you exclude various categories of results. I use Kagi but haven't dug into lenses, anyone have experience ? I'm currently trying to write python script interfacing with outlook's mailterm interface (win32com.client) and it's annoying. I wonder if I can restrict search re…

> I wonder if I can restrict search results to a particular domain so it only pulls from microsoft docs

Yeah, you can set up an allowlist of domains in the lens configuration. I have a "Reddit" lens that essentially just adds "site:reddit.com" to the searches

Re: Kagi Assistant

#172

I don't know how to make this more meaningful than just an anecdote, but I love the idea of Kagi but just cancelled my subscription. All the issues about google search becoming more and more useless are absolutely true, but I still continue to get much better results for most topics with Google than Kagi. Same for Kagi's LLM products compared to directly using Claude or others.

I agree, but they aren't _that_ much better and I'd rather do a little more digging than support Google. I still find what I need and make good money. I can also rationalize it that I'm not always just taking the first result and actually reading multiple solutions to my problem but yanno, YMMV there.

My rule of thumb that I’ve found is that for the most part Kagi is on par with Google for anything non location-aware. Oftentimes it’s noticeably better actually since there’s less pumping of useless results to the top. For anything location-aware, however, it ranges from significantly worse to steaming hot pile of garbage depending on the search.

That’s what eventually made me cancel. Loved it for what it does give but found myself rather annoyed about having to switch to Google to get actual usable results on the significant amount of location based queries. Never got into the habit of using bangs unfortunately.

FWIW DDG is flawed in nearly the exact same way.

Re: Kagi Assistant

#173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really wanted to like Kagi, I'm onboard with paying for search, but I've had had a big issue with its speed when doing the trial to be honest, am I the only one bothered by this? Perhaps this is because I'm in Europe and it's faster in the US? A search request to Kagi seems to take around two seconds for me (shows as ~1s in the Kagi UI), it just feels really unpleasant compared to Google, I'm used to firing of a co…

Kagi should be around 800ms mean. Faster if you are closer to our DC. Something is wrong, somewhere.

Very slow for me too, East Coast USA

Re: Kagi Assistant

#174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like search is probably one of the most common things I do with a computer, I would say I often search many times per minute if I’m actively looking into some topic or issue. Because it’s such a common action for me, it feels like such a strong regression to go 2/3 times slower than before.

But do you seriously think you should get serious results in one second? I would understand the complaints about slowness if searches were taking like ten seconds, but a few seconds, I really must be getting old. I still remember when google was giving relevant results in page 2. Now it's pretty much useless for me, and the fast search makes me think they are throwing away tons of potentially good stuff just to make…

Kagi is pretty much useless past the first 3 results.

Re: Kagi Assistant

#175
post #168

I have been using Kagi for a while now. Something I have noticed recently is that it ignores a lot more of the words in my search queries, I felt the same thing with google over time, it shows results it thinks I want not the things I want.

Yep, either it's gotten worse or they lied about not tracking your history, as it has gotten worse over time and I have found myself adding !g much more lately.

Re: Kagi Assistant

#176
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try this: https://kagi.com/search?q=remarkable+pro+site%3Areddit.com It includes Reddit results from less than 24 hours ago.

Ah hmm. Maybe they are doing something special with "site:reddit.com" queries. If I search for that exact Reddit post using the lens it isn't there. https://kagi.com/search?q=ReMarkable+Paper+Pro+hands-on+revi...

For me it doesn’t show up in your link with the full article title but with this one it’s the 3rd result or so: https://kagi.com/search?q=remarkable+pro+hands+on+review

Re: Kagi Assistant

#177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love being able to uprank, downrank, pin or blacklist specific domains/sites for my personal results. That alone makes it worth it. I also find the search results to be as good or better than Google. Once my personal ranking kicks in it's not even close.

The "forum" lens is worth it just for the cost of admission alone. Cuts through all the AI generated SEO garbage in an incredible effective way.

And then gives you the astroturfed forum responses from “digital marketers” present in just-big-enough-to-matter communities. The rot is inescapable, just a different flavour.

Re: Kagi Assistant

#178

What’s the incentive for websites to let Kagi and others indexing content if llms in search show relevant informations right away? Wouldn’t something like perplexity ai making more sense then? Or perhaps better application of llms to search

If you are selling something on your website, you are just as happy for people to find your information if it is through an LLM or a search engine.

If you are publishing information for free, you don't care how people access it.

If you are publishing just information without selling anything and want to make a living on it, you should paywall it or get with a publisher.

Re: Kagi Assistant

#179
After being a user for a long while, my enthusiasm for Kagi has decreased. Their UI is lovely, but I feel in the end they are just repackaging other indexers. I’ve started using Google + Ublacklist and for me it works the same. I also don’t like how much they have focused on AI, given even their Quick Answer, when it’s wrong, it does so with such confidence it makes the tool quite untrustworthy.

Re: Kagi Assistant

#180
post #168

I have been using Kagi for a while now. Something I have noticed recently is that it ignores a lot more of the words in my search queries, I felt the same thing with google over time, it shows results it thinks I want not the things I want.

+"Searching" +"Like" +"This" works for me.

Whenever I try this with Google, I can't seem to get it to work though. According to [0], it is not an official search operator anymore.

0 - https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2466433?hl=en

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