Doubting Your Favorite Web Search Engine
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from noodlejetski@piefed.social to technology@lemmy.world on 29 Aug 16:12
https://piefed.social/post/1204472
from noodlejetski@piefed.social to technology@lemmy.world on 29 Aug 16:12
https://piefed.social/post/1204472
Kagi has quickly grown into something of a household name within tech circles. From Hacker News and Lobsters to Reddit, the search provider seems to attract near-universal praise. Whenever the topic of search engines comes up, there’s an almost ritual rush to be the first to recommend Kagi, often followed by a chorus of replies echoing the endorsement.
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I used Kagi for a year then switched back to DDG after I had concerns with privacy. Where you can ensure DDG isn’t getting your data by using a trusted VPN and a fingerprint-resistant browser, you are forced into a “trust me bro” situation with Kagi due to the need to verify your account subscription. Kagi’s proposed solution for this is privacy pass, but this article calls that into question as well. Privacy pass must also prevent you from using the customization in Kagi due to the supposed privacy benefits, which takes more away from the reason you would use Kagi in the first place. I do find it odd how a proprietary paid search engine seems to get such a large amount of praise within privacy communities when there are fundamental challenges in making a paid search engine actually private.
I have been using duckduckgo too. I currently use Ecosia because while not private, you gain seeds (points) every day by using the search engine and then plant trees and fight against climate change.
I still use duckduckgo when searching anything private.
I’m currently using Ecosia as well, because they are working together with Qwant on a European search index. I want to support that.
Yeah, I don’t think it’s nearly as popular as this blog post makes it out to be. I kind of doubt it or any paid search engine will ever get widespread adoption.
I think it’s because of the incentives of a paid search engine. I don’t pay for kagi myself, but I think the idea is that if you’re paying for the product, they don’t have much of an incentive to monetise your data, only to use it for legitimate uses.
Whether or not that is true is the question, though.
Tech people have zero idea what privacy is or should be, and desperately look for anything to make then feel elites. Paying for Kagi is a flex.
Kagi is fine, but it certainly not magic.
Qwant, Startpage, and SearXNG work well.
Ecosia is DDG (which is Bing results) as a non-profit.
Mojeek…ugh, you stupid but nice guy. You’ll get there one day.
Ecosia and Qwant I read are partnering to make a discrete search index.
Although I don’t know the current status of the effort, it may not be Bing for much longer.
they've already launched it, and it turned out to be an AI-first index :/ https://staan.ai/
What you’re describing are ‘idiots’ and they’re in the tech field as well as saturating every other aspect of life.
Those with privacy systems truly worth flexing, won’t. So that excludes me as I don’t have any darknet only, privacy focused, self-hosted, deep encrypted systems at all.
Sure, but tech bros manage to balance being idiots and influence pretty well. And for the most part, tech people prefer things that are both a money flex and perceived easing friction. Even even they don’t.
Reading HN is a constant surprise at how willingly tech people willingly don’t hold back anything. It’s nuts.
Hmm, I’m not sure I consider tech bros, vibe coders and GUI dependents as tech people. The type of tech people I’m thinking of don’t seek to ease friction, they want to create a frictionless system.
Because that’s what the average tech idiot need - To be able to show off to the average idiot.
If idiots want to follow idiots, that’s a different issue.
I currently use mullvad leta, which uses either the google or brave index. It was only for their VPN users before, but they opened it up to everyone. It’s a nice, simple interface - a “no bullshit”-experience.
How do you like it? Just curious.
I like it a lot, because it’s clean and lets me switch between the two indexes with one click, and it’s pretty fast and responsive. It’s been my main search while i was a mullvad client, and i dearly missed it after switching my VPN provider. I’m happy they decided to open it up for the public.
I’ve been trying it out, and it’s solid. Startpage seems to get me where I need to go a bit quicker, but this is still a good backup and I’m thrilled to have another frontend for Brave search.
d-shoot.net/kagi.html
This link details a saga where a lone blogger discussed their concerns and issues with Kagi only for the post to blow up and ends with Kagi’s CEO harassing the blogger like a fucking “debate me” chud.
Read the whole thing, read the email thread between lori and Vlad and come to your own conclusions. But just to me Vlad comes off as abrasive, harassive and wanting to shove his opinions down other people’s throats as if they were gospel.