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Search engines alternatives now that Google isn't Google anymore

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Re: Search engines alternatives now that Google isn't Google anymore

#171

Post by [deleted] »

king_geedorah wrote: post #163
pgwhalen wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it helps, I could have written this comment just about word for word, and you can check my account and see that I’m clearly human. I would probably add that I’m nervous about AI search results and how it affects the future of the internet and content creation in general, but from the perspective of a user, I’m pleased with the direction.

I don’t doubt that people feel this way. I doubt that every new account inflating the apparent consensus is genuine.

[deleted]

Re: Search engines alternatives now that Google isn't Google anymore

#172

Post by john_strinlai »

king_geedorah wrote: post #168
john_strinlai wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they are 100% implying the poster is astroturfing, easier to accuse someone of astroturfing than accept that different people can have different opinions. especially an opinion as world-shaking as not minding ai overviews. this sort of accusation is becoming pretty common, and eventually going to ensure that the only new users actually are bots, because any potentially new humans that want to sign up are going to get…

What you infer from reading the text is your problem, not mine. My follow up comment articulates exactly my position.

"This opinion would hold much more weight if it weren’t coming from an account created literal days ago in an age where LLM-enabled astroturfing "

that is basically a direct accusation of astroturfing, man. no weaseling your way out of it. you're saying their opinion does not hold weight because it is likely to be llm-enabled astroturfing. there is no other interpretation.

if you're gonna break the rules and accuse someone of something, at least stand by it. wet-noodle accusations are even worse.

(p.s., sort of funny to see someone with a post-llm account accuse other post-llm accounts of being an llm!)

Re: Search engines alternatives now that Google isn't Google anymore

#173

Post by esperent »

nobodywasishere wrote: post #162
rpdillon wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I paid for Kagi for a bit, but got a weird vibe when I realized they were working pretty hard to paper over the fact that they pay a third party to scrape Google search results for them. The public-facing side of that coin is Kagi's position that Google should make their index available to competitors (see https://blog.kagi.com/waiting-dawn-search ). All that's to say: when I paid for Kagi, I thought I was investing…

> didn't realize Kagi had no aspirations to build their own general purpose index Kagi employee here. We're actively working on building our own indexes beyond the limited ones we have now, not just a general index but also purpose built indexes for things like programming, etc.

How broad will they be? Do you aim to ever have large scale indexing of the web?

Re: Search engines alternatives now that Google isn't Google anymore

#174

Post by piva00 »

cyanydeez wrote: post #40
vitally3643 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

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.

Re: Search engines alternatives now that Google isn't Google anymore

#175

Post by esskay »

nekzn wrote: post #18

I must be the only person in this website who is happy with the AI Overview feature. It messes up sometimes (very rarely) but so do websites. And between ads, cookie popups, newsletter popups, notification permission popups, websites with a high Time to First Byte, and all the useless filler around the content, websites are a nightmare to browse. I would say that for almost all of my searches the AI Overview feature…

> It messes up sometimes (very rarely)

Have you actually used it? Because sometimes is doing heavy lifting there and very rarely is flat out lying. It consistently messes up and hallucinates.

Re: Search engines alternatives now that Google isn't Google anymore

#176

Post by hamdingers »

Scene_Cast2 wrote: post #32

I'm surprised that Perplexity isn't mentioned in the article or on HN. It has replaced Google for all but the most trivial queries. It runs circles around Google for finding anything niche or underspecified. I use it through OpenRouter - I love how the pricing is per search and isn't a subscription.

I use Perplexity heavily as my general research clerk, and it's great at that, but I find trivial queries still make up a majority of my search activity. Waiting for an AI response to each of them would be an enormous time sink.

Re: Search engines alternatives now that Google isn't Google anymore

#178

Post by [deleted] »

iamalizard wrote: post #108
westurner wrote: post #98

They used to have: - Organize the world's information - Don't be evil Who was president at this time? Was this while they were denying students the option to code on the computers we bought for them because security ? From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_evil : > Between 21 April and 4 May 2018, Google removed the motto from the preface, leaving a mention in the final line: "And remember... don't be evil, an…

People think Google removing "Don't be evil" means Google somewhat implicitly told everyone they'll be evil from now on. That doesn't make much sense. It was likely a marketing decision since having "evil" in your motto is not good even if you explicitly state "DON'T BE" before it. Just like if I write in my profile text "I'm not a pedo", you'll think "this guy is likely a pedo"

[deleted]

Re: Search engines alternatives now that Google isn't Google anymore

#179

Post by piva00 »

vitaflo wrote: post #159
justinclift wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Kagi stats graphs (showing membership growth) since May 20th when Google announced their replacment of Google Search speaks for itself: https://kagi.com/stats Slow gradual growth before, large increase in the daily growth rate since. It'll be interesting keeping an eye on how that growth rate goes over time. :)

Gaining 700 users "speaks for itself"? All this stats page shows me is how few people actually use Kagi. You'd think it was millions of users based on the way people astroturf it here.

Astroturf? I believe most of the reports here to be genuine. I'm just a paying user and when web search is debated on HN I share Kagi as a very happy customer.

Astroturfing implies that Kagi is paying for people like me to praise them, it's just a good product (for my personal use at least), and I'm glad to recommend it while it stays good.

Re: Search engines alternatives now that Google isn't Google anymore

#180

Post by dmd »

feedyourhead wrote: post #127
dmd wrote: post #84

I really really really really want to love Kagi, but every time I try it (and I just spent a month trying it, ending a week or so ago), I end up back at Google, finding that my search results are better. I think the reason is my searches are almost entirely long-tail searches that Kagi's index just isn't good enough for. I am never searching for something like "best mattress" or anything else that is heavily SEO'd -…

> my searches are almost entirely long-tail searches any chance you have an example of such searches off the top of your head that you wouldn’t mind sharing?

Not the greatest example because they both do find me, but here's an example of where Kagi is supposed to be better at precisely this, but isn't. Search without quotes for daniel drucker mclean.

That's me, and Google correctly on the first page finds ONLY pages related to me.

Kagi pollutes the page with many results for my doppelgänger, the much more famous Daniel J Drucker of the University of Toronto, even though none of those results mention mclean.

That is literally the thing Kagi was supposed to be better at - actually respecting your search terms instead of thinking it knows better!

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