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Comment by bjord | Hacker News Reader

I suspect that this will be an unpopular opinion on HN, but I think this raises a really good question. I am a ($10/month) paying user of Kagi and I constantly find myself using !g to search with Google. As far as actual search results, Kagi seems fine (as do DDG and others, honestly), but I think I've come to expect far more than search results when I type a query into my address bar. Kagi offers a lot of great options that I really appreciate (paying instead of selling my data, search rank tweaking, etc.), but I think I've become really dependent on Google's wide variety of different widgets and tools in what we tend to call "search results".

I hate the thought of having to go back to Google full time, but it's really looking that way. Has anyone else experienced something similar?

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What kind of widgets are you using so frequently? I'm another paying using of Kagi and I've found the result quality has more than justified the price beyond the added benefits of not having my results in the hands of advertisers and the like, so I'm curious to know what it is you're getting out of google search.

Only thing I've noticed lacking in Kagi is quick math and conversions (units, currencies, timezones).

Actually, searching with Kagi conversions like "4 inches to cm" brings up a box at the top of the search results with the conversion already done.

Huh... wonder if that's new or I was trying some more complex/weirder example... I don't think I've ever seen this box though! Thanks for pointing that out.

The thing I find lacking in Kagi -- and the only Google service I find myself unable to find my way towards not using in general -- is maps.

The funny thing about Google Maps is I actually hate their map (and their navigation), and vastly prefer using Apple Maps to actually look at a map or to get to a place, but Google Maps is so far and away better than any competitors in its value-add information about businesses.

The difference between looking for a restaurant on Google's or on Apple's maps products is pretty stark.

Me too. If it wasn’t for Maps and Google local I wouldn’t really need it any more Kagi is pretty much better for everything else.

Off the top of my head, detailed map results and conversions.

I know Kagi supposedly supports both(?) of these, but in my experience, I end up needing to re-search things with !g well over half the time.

To get even more specific to my use cases:

Recently, I've been on the move, so in order to work, I rely on cafes and libraries. Thus, the fewer steps I need to do to see opening hours for a given location, the better.

The most common conversion that I need is timezone, as I work with people in a huge number of different timezones. It's very useful for me to be able to type in something like "almaty time nyc 9pm" without screwing around on one of those time conversion sites.

That's how I felt with all other search engines I tried before Kagi. I found myself needing to check google anyway very often, so I'd end up switching back because in most searches I was really just wasting time using the alternate search engine.

Kagi has been the only engine where, since setting as default, the only times I've used google search has been on machines I don't control. I have found it to have most of the widgets I tend to like (unit conversions, calculators etc).

Yep. I "used" DDG for years before switching to Kagi. By "used" I mean I would habitually prefix all of my web searches with !g because I just came to expect that DDG's results would be bad. I was pretty much just using it as a bang-syntax engine.

Maybe I should've broken that habit to give DDG a fairer shake before switching away to Kagi, but when I switched, I added a custom search engine to my browser with the keyword "!g" that strips out the !g and searches on Kagi.

My experience is that it gives me the results I'm looking for 95% of the time, and for most of the 5% where I don't get good results, Google also fails to give me good results.

In the past year or so, there have been several times where one of my coworkers lamented how bad Google search was, and in almost every example, Kagi performed better.

I think I've been with Kagi for about 3 months and have used !g zero times. For me, Google was delivering results stuffed with SEO crap and one day it pushed me over the edge. I signed up for Kagi's $5 limited search. Then they offered unlimited for $10, so I got that. (I used the money I saved from canceling YT Premium. :) ) Never looked back.

But that's me. If it's not working for you, it's not working.

I used DDG for years and often reached for "!g", yet a year or so into using Kagi and I don't think I've ever needed to fall back to Google. Any particular patterns to the searches you prefer Google for?

Copying another one of my responses here:

Off the top of my head, detailed map results and conversions.

I know Kagi supposedly supports both(?) of these, but in my experience, I end up needing to re-search things with !g well over half the time.

To get even more specific to my use cases:

Recently, I've been on the move, so in order to work, I rely on cafes and libraries. Thus, the fewer steps I need to do to see opening hours for a given location, the better.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38270198

I stopped used Google search two years ago. I switched to DDG and I have never felt the need to switch back. I just want search, I don't need my search engine to anticipate me. I want to type in a query and get results, maybe modify my query and try again. I really feel that Google search has lost its way and it is sad to see, but I guess money talks and search doesn't make them money.

Yeah, some years ago I still needed to use Google quite often since DDG didn't provide a way to restrict search to specific times, but a few years ago they added that functionality...

Yeah I find myself using g! a fair bit on DDG, particularly for things I’m going to spend money on. I search Google maps all the time too. (Restaurants, personal services, tradespeople etc)

I just run searxng. There is no reason to waste time checking multiple places.

I did find I used Google's widgets a lot and it took some time to break the habit but for most flows I don't have a first step of opening a browser anymore so actually ended up faster.

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