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Comment by apples_oranges | Hacker News Reader

I find it difficult to trust these (recurring) Kagi is so much better comments. Because a) no one I personally know ever mentions it and b) everyone seems satisfied with Google.

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That might be because Kagi currently has "only" 43,508 members, according to their live stats. That number might be too low for you to be able to expect someone in your personal circle to already be using and talking about it. The number being this low isn't a bad thing, though. Kagi is already profitable and the number is growing, that's all that matters for now. There's a free tier that gets you 100 free searches (I'm testing it myself right now, haven't used it enough to really have an opinion on it yet).

Regarding your point b: Heavily disagree. Even ignoring HN's seeming love for Kagi, surely you must have noticed the narrative about how AI is fixing search? People asking ChatGPT or Bing instead of googling things? Why would they do that if they were satisfied with Google? Also, Google search quality worsening has been a common news headline for years now.

They recently gave out some 3-month free trial vouchers for users to give to friends. I have a spare one that I’d be happy to share with you if you’d like. Though I don’t know the best way to get it to you since I don’t think HN has DM functionality. Username is dperrin.01 on Signal if you’d like it.

I also believe I have one or two trial vouchers left. Happy to spare them to someone (my email is in my bio).

EDIT: Two people have emailed me, so if you are reading this you are too late.

And yeah, to the GP: Understand that fans of paid services like Fastmail and Kagi aren't shills... we're just... enthusiastic about stuff that's just... so much better. And yeah, there's probably some sense that for paid services to take hold for things like this, more people coming to it is a good thing.

Good is completely good enough, in the same way that broadcast TV networks are good enough you don’t have to pay for premium content.

It only falls down if you care about taste and quality.

I feel bad mentioning Kagi so much. But it’s a better product and I also want other people to use it so that it sticks around.

Honestly it was odd to read an article about leaving Google search as if it was a momentous thing. $10/month or whatever is pretty minor in the grand scheme of things.

I’ve introduced it to a small number of friends who do more research-oriented search (programming, law, building code, etc.) and the response has been positive. Paying for search is a difficult hurdle even for me as Google is just so deeply ingrained. Those who reached a tipping point with Google recently, thanks in large part to the terrible AI answers, are the ones who’ve stuck it out with Kagi. If you’re going to try it I recommend sticking with it for a week or so before fussing with any settings.

Are you implying people are shilling for it? You can look at my account here to check I've been around for more than a decade and I'm one of those praising Kagi whenever I can because it's a much, much improved experience than I was having with Google until I switched.

It's been over 18 months I'm a paying customer and have absolutely no regrets, I cannot stand Google search anymore after being used to Kagi's results and tools.

I find it difficult to grasp than someone on HN would take anyone’s word for it instead of trying it out themselves…

I have had people in my network mention it directly as worthwhile.

Anecdata, and I have yet to switch myself, but Google has gotten noticeably worse over the past few years and I’ve been considering it.

https://www.google.com/search?q=google+search+quality+reddit (the irony is not lost on me, still better than reddit search)

https://gizmodo.com/google-search-results-are-getting-worse-...

I felt the same way. Tried it for a week or so and decided to buy. That was over a year ago.

"mentions" and "seems satisfied" may not be sufficient sources of data, as (a) is easy to believe, (b) is much, much harder to believe.

Because you think the Kagi boosters are shills?

As far as I understand Kagi displays results based on calls to Google and/or Bing. How can it be better than those then?

As said in another comment, first there are particular filters builtin or that you can setup. To the point that you can even customize with css the way that results are displayed.

Not having half page of the results with ads is also great.

And in addition, results are not only from Google/Bing and other sources but they also use their own index.

It just filters out crap.

And lets you determine what counts as "crap", by telling Kagi which sites you prefer and don't prefer to get results from.

I have exactly the same a) and b) experience and thats ok with me sitting here wearing my free Kagi t-shirt.

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