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Comment by wand3r | Hacker News Reader

I just got into the beta for https://kagi.com/ which at this time seems at least as good if not better than DDG

I've been using it for a few months now and I like it.

However, I don't want to pay more than $100/year for a Google/Bing frontend. Startpage works quite well for that. If they made their own indexer I would go all-in, and that would justify such a high price-tag.

They also make a (as they claim) zero telemetry browser called Orion (https://browser.kagi.com). It is super fast, but there's not enough trust built there yet for me to use it as my main browser. I just use it as a dedicated HN browser for now. It has sidebar tabs built in which is _the_ killer feature for me. I think Edge did this best, but I refuse to use a MS browser.

I've been using Kagi full time for a few weeks now and it has been a very pleasant experience. Search results seem consistently better than DDG and my !g use is significantly down. And it is really really fast. YMMV.

I'm curious if this company will survive long term. I fully plan to pay a subscription once they introduce that, but the way they describe it in their FAQ makes it sound way too niche for my taste.

They should make one unified (low) price for Kagi with no search caps. And then offer a "Premium" plan with some extra features (NOT the number of searches done). Segregating into entry level and "unlimited" (horrible name btw) plans sounds like a recipe for disaster considering all other search engines are unlimited by default AND free by default.

Maybe techy people will value things like no telemetry and no ads but I question if there's enough of us that value these things AND are willing to pay for this AND choose to become their customer. Good luck to them. :)

> They also make a (as they claim) zero telemetry browser called Orion

Would be easier to trust them if they didn't want an email ID to download their browser. Seeing that they also want to create a search engine, I suspect that your search and browsing history could be linked to it to profile you.

That might be because both the browser and search are in beta. Though, since search will be a paid service they will necessarily need to have some info on the user.

Then zero telemetry offers no privacy advantage when they are collecting and collating even more personal data of the user!

> I think Edge did this best, but I refuse to use a MS browser.

Edge is a good browser, but an absolute privacy disaster. Hardware based session IDs, chatty start pages that push you to Bing, the typical search suggestions on by default. Microsoft runs their own sync backend but does not allow for end to end encrypting all data types. Among the ones not e2ee'd? Browsing history.

I have also used kagi for a few weeks. The results are much much better than Google.

And I am using it constantly.

Maybe it is because of the beta, but I don't like to create an account to use search.

It will be a paid service after it exits beta. I guess accounts will still be required.

Interesting - thank you for the recommendation, just signed up as well. Found it a little cute they seem to be intentionally(?) riffing off of dogpile's old branding.

Kagi +1

I love blocking domains without uBlacklist.

Blocking domains for search results?

I understand why I need a sign up to use Search, so they at least can have a subscription model - but that seems like a barrier for entry and also the necessity to instill a lot of faith into a product that hasn't garnered trust (yet, rightfully so)

I often wanted to ban pinterest since I cannot view the source without account anyway. So there would be sensible applications.

+1 on Kagi for the nice UX.

Also, shameless plug: you can also remove whole domains from search results with uBlockOrigin and https://letsblock.it/filters/search-results

Our template currently supports Bing, DuckDuckGo, Google, Kagi, Searx and Startpage. It also includes github/stackverflow presets taken from the uBlock-Origin-dev-filter project.

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