Kagi. Never have I been so happy to send someone $10 every month. When you become the customer, not the product, it’s amazing what can happen.
I hope Kagi introduces an anonymous access feature. For instance, it could incorporate zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs). These are cryptographic techniques where one party (the prover) can confirm to another (the verifier) that a claim is accurate without disclosing any additional information. This is especially beneficial for authentication scenarios where it's essential to avoid sharing extra details.
To implement zero-knowledge authentication for quota API access:
1. Token Creation:
- Each month, users receive a token tied to their identity and quota.
- The token can be split for use on multiple devices using cryptographic methods.
2. API Access:
- Clients present a zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) to confirm they have a valid token and haven't used up their quota. The server verifies this without seeing the exact details.
3. Client Synchronization:
- Each client tracks its quota usage.
- Synchronization can be peer-to-peer or through a centralized, encrypted server to prevent double spending of the quota.
4. Quota Renewal:
- Monthly, old tokens expire, and new tokens are issued.
Challenges:
- ZKPs can be resource-intensive.
- Token security is crucial; there should be a way to handle lost or compromised tokens.
- The system should prevent quota "double-spending" across devices.
- If a centralized server is used for synchronization, it should operate with encrypted data.
This way Kagi would only know who their customers are but not what kind of searches they make.
There's only one solution, and that is that you need to put a bit of trust in Kagi. Compared to the major one, Google, you can chose between one that promises to not store data, and one that promises it does (and does a lot).
It's always a bit sad that here on HN, when companies try to do better than bigger players, there's always people who think it isn't enough. It has to be absolutely impossibly perfect.
You can use search engines like Google without being logged in. When combined with tools like uBlock Origin and Cookie AutoDelete, it becomes more challenging for them to build a singular profile about a user, especially one tied to payment methods such as credit cards.
I genuinely appreciate what Kagi is doing, and I'd absolutely be willing to pay for their service, because if you're not paying for a service, you're the product. I trust companies to uphold their privacy promises, but "Trust is good, but proof is better." ;)
Even once you do that, you have all the other tracking mechanisms that the server could use if it wanted to.
For what it's worth, you can buy a physical Mullvad gift card and use that to create a very anonymous account for VPN use.
Even if you buy your gift card from a major online retailer, it comes from a stack of gift cards, nothing tracks which one was sent to whom. You can also exchange gifts among friends.
I don't think it's true. I can immediately see at least two ways how it can be done without identifying the user.
1. Each user gets X tokens at the beginning of the month. When searching, user supplies a token, which is immediately burned. The token does not contain the user identity, just signature validating it's a valid token.
2. Variation of the above: each user gets a token good for X searches at the beginning of the month. When searching, the system will return a token good for N-1 search each time token good for N searches is presented. Again, no need to contain user identity anywhere in the system.
Of course, both solutions have their downsides (sync between multiple devices, stealing tokens, losing tokens, etc.) but it id definitely possible. And I am sure if somebody spent a little time thinking on it, these ideas can be seriously improved to eliminate the downsides without introducing the need to identify the user.
You have to understand that most of us aren't fighting some battle for "perfect privacy," I just want a search engine that works for me, rather than advertisers, at the level of the search results themselves.
But it's also about digital data autonomy. It's not just about avoiding surveillance over sensitive searches, but having control over our data's destiny. Even mundane data, in aggregate, can sometimes be used in ways we can't predict.
In this case though we've have on one hand a product that definitely does aggregate data about searches, and doesn't do what I need very well; and the other a product that could, but does not currently aggregate data, and does an excellent job serving my needs.
And importantly there is no option of a product, available now, that is verifiably prevented from aggregation. Even a VPN unless I disconnect and get a new random IP between every individual search does not provide that protection. (And then browser fingerprints even.)
So while I understand your overall concern, that ship has sailed for search engines and the internet. We're living in a world full of networked cameras that people voluntarily and happily install, of people broadcasting their lives 24/7. The idea of perfect privacy is getting downright mystical/religious.
In the end I think we have to accept in some way that everything we say, write and do is subject to surveillance, and that the government might want to kill you for any reason that you'd have no chance of preventing.
Since you are interested in cryptography, there is a discussion on Kagi feedback site along the same lines as your idea, about possible ways to achieve this without the need for cryptocurrency. [2]
[1] https://blog.kagi.com/accepting-paypal-bitcoin
[2] https://kagifeedback.org/d/653-completely-anonymous-searches...
Also, I found this link [1] in the thread you mentioned. They seem to have implemented something like that.
However there is no technical way of proving it. So cryptocurrency and cryptography are ways to achieve anonimity from a perspective of a user, regardless of what we are doing.
This reads and smells like ChatGPT / AI.
There are sooooo many other ways to fingerprint than an account.
Oh look, this MacBook with X by Y resolution from this IP address has had 100 searches for the past 2 hours. Oh no! He switched to incognito.
I think that matters very little. Kagi had excellent quality results for me from the start, in a huge variety of topics in several languages. Their user base is probably 90% American hacker, and I'm getting good results on queries they would never use.
The Google search algorithm from 5 years ago was amazing, why they decided to change it for the worse is something I will never understand! And no I do not blame SEO entirely since that existed 5 years ago, what I am often looking for but can no longer find is information that has nothing to do with any products. It's not ads that I need to page through, but unrelated and bad results that are limited. I do not want to see the same results from page 1 on page 3.
When you make your account, you're given the option to customize. When you do, you can pick things like color theme and how URLs are displayed. On the right hand side of the page there is a preview of what your Kagi searches will look like.
In my example, the demo Kagi search is Magic The Gathering. I play a lot of Magic The Gathering. I spend most of my time online searching for things related to MtG or brewing decks, second only to things related to software development.
I imagine it's coincidence. MtG is a pretty nerdy hobby and Kagi seems like a pretty nerdy product. However, it made me uncomfortable enough to ask:
Is that what it shows for everyone? Or is there some tracking going on already that is being demoed? It's almost certainly the former given the positioning of Kagi in the search market, but I'd like to be sure.
Commander is a 4-player casual format that's has as much in common with more typical board games as it does with traditional MtG.
Arena is likely what you saw someone playing on their phone. Funnily enough, it doesn't support Commander!
I'd been on the fence but after reading through these threads and seeing a real reply from a founder (its been a while since I've seen an honest, non-PR Speak answer) I am excited to try y'all out.
This area was ripe for disruption with how terrible searches have become, especially on mobile. I'd be happy to see you eat G's lunch here.
Kagi is incredible and worth every penny simply for being able to remove the SEO scam and tire fire that is Pinterest from all image search results.
I usually only need to understand a concept, not understand if the personnel and company names it made up actually exist
everything else I use google for are just addresses
so I’m wondering if a paid search engine would shift my behavior back to search engines, or if that ship has just sailed
For example:
nyt crossword
cheap iem reddit
starbucks near me
M7FFALP
Likely, a good search product in the future will be a combnation of both.
> LLMs can not yet replace good web search ... think navigational queries, shopping /reviews, location aware
amusing.
You should know by now that LLMs will and do lie in subtle ways that are not apparent to non-experts. Using them to understand complicated concepts is a great way to "learn" incorrect information. To be fair, the same can be said for humans, but humans are worse at bullshitting.
I really just need to converse about a topic for more inquisitive-ness and to form structured thoughts
It will tell me if I’m conflating concepts, before bullshitting about the ways theyre different. Thats fine, my blind spot would have been that I was conflating a concept for the next decade.
In that regard its the same or better than a human
I don't need it to be the source of truth, I need it to be conversational. It can make urban legends just like a person does, I don’t care, just give me a way to talk about a concept and decide if I want to learn more and it does that extremely well
I use search a lot in my workflow and my usage is showing 2k/month. I expected it would have been 3-4k.
Signed up for Kagi today and have been looking for a permanent gmail solution.
Had this bundle been available today I'd have jumped on it.
For recipes and stuff it was fine.
But could you not just pay for a month and try it? I don’t think their plans bind you for a longer than a month.
Fuck google, I have work to do. Thanks for the tip! Nice realizing that they've basically been wasting my time for a while now and that there's a decent alternative available.
The ability to essentially "weight" particular domains (pin, block, or anywhere in between) has saved me so much time. There are certain searches I do (music-related in particular) where I always want particular sites (metal-archives, bandcamp, etc) to be the first results, and having that as an option is great. It means that searches that I perform often have a result within the first 1-5 results that is exactly what I want.
No ads, way less SEO spam, and the ability to completely remove domains from results if I think I need to tweak it further. For most of my searches I previously used Google for- Kagi makes Google's results look laughably bad.
I've also been using it at work for tech searches (linux, redhat, etc) and it has saved me time there too.
I use a "family" account- and have one work account and one home account that way I can have different settings for different environments (would be neat if this could be built into non-family accounts though... like "personas" or "profiles" or something...) because I'm overpaying a bit to have the two account setup and don't reach the search cap. I think I'm okay with that though, because having the cap so high means I've removed the "running out of searches" anxiety from my usage of the service.
Search engines should be able to support even those who are not SEO experts and not the first ones to arrive and sit on specific keywords. What I mean under that, if you have multiple good, exhaustive answers for a query, why not offer varying/random good results, so every link would have a chance? Let people break out of their bubbles.
Same power pyramid scheme. Yukk.
They try to highlight small, personal websites instead of the big mainstream sites.
(This was a HN submission 2 weeks ago)
Fingers crossed, but I have a good feeling about it. If it goes well the pricing seems fair.
I'm considering signing up; it would be one fewer service I'm relying on google for.
Kagi is also working on removing the 1000 limit on the 10$ subscription and offering unlimited searches.
Switching from the 5 $ plan to 10 $ was super smooth by the way, so if you want to try for less $, the 5 $ for a month is enough so you can get used to the product and know if you like it or not (and that's besides the 100 free you get while signing up for a trial).
I signed up for HN before it was popular to include middle initials or other fancier forms for the username, I'll update my profile though.
I challenge you to find a group of rich folks who will fund such a thing - and will not simply demand the same profits as current structures do.
I just tried this with ~30 wealthy individuals/family funds that I have great relationships with and literally everyone said some form of the following:
“I am not going to liquidate my current investments that are on IPO trajectory for something that by definition will not IPO, and my investments are to ensure my kids go to private school/colllege fund/etc…”
You need to convince people, who currently think that the goal of making/having money is to insulate them and their families from reality, to instead choose to make/have slightly less money so that somebody else can have an easier/better experience in a way that is still concomitant with commercial transactions.
Why not 'challenge' yourself if you've already done quite a bit of groundwork?
Or at least the comment suggests you've already put more thought into this than me.
I need 200k to actually start what I want and currently have 5k in my bank account and a lot of mandatory overhead (kids etc).
If you’re legit interested I’ll tell you all the details 1:1
Email me from the one in my profile