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Comment by justintoon | Hacker News Reader

I realize this is probably not the solution you want, but there is an official iOS Safari extension that will intercept all address bar searches and route them to Kagi. I don’t remember how much it costs, and it doesn’t seem to work super well with private browsing, but it’s better than nothing and works well for what it is. Ymmv

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/kagi-search-for-safari/id16077...

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It actually works very well with private browsing. You just need to have the extension enabled for private browsing (in iOS 17 that's a separate switch) and tap on "get your session link" once in the extension menu in Safari. That way it knows about your subscription, even in private tabs.

Yup, I just never took the time to set it up properly.

I should give it another try. I believe the last time I tried it, I was frustrated because of the private browsing login issue. Maybe one day (probably not) Apple will allow setting a simple URL for custom search engines.

Orion needs a lot of polish, but I am hopeful they will get there.

I took a closer look and the iOS extension supports entering a “session link” which allows the Kagi redirect to work in private windows. Entering it is a bit cumbersome—you have to first open a private window and then any random page so you can see the extension button in the address bar, at which point you can tap it and then the Kagi icon to get to the session link field—but it appears to stick after that and the redirect works as expected (although you do get a brief flash of Google or whatever — they suggest changing it to DDG which looks a bit smoother).

Agree that it feels hacky, but sometimes you just have to take what you can get.

You can generate a Kagi login link with a token and save that to your favourites. Then, click that link in the new private tab window before searching.

The Kagi Search app/extension linked above can persist your session link in its settings and thus works in private mode or after clearing all cookies.

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