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Comment by rafram | Hacker News Reader

On a search for "avi to mp4":

- Google shows CloudConvert, then some helpful Reddit threads, then Ask Ubuntu, then some spammy SEO-optimized converter websites.

- Kagi shows CloudConvert, then pages and pages of spammy SEO-optimized converter websites.

Google clearly wins there.

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Happy paying customer of Kagi here. because to me intention counts.

Kagi has the explicit intention to serve me their best results.

Google has the explicit intention to get me to click on their customers results.

Happy to pay kagi.

Use an ad blocker.

Now Google has no intention to serve you

I've never had any issue using any Google service with an ad blocker. They make plenty off of me via YouTube Premium and Google Flights commissions - both services that I think are valuable, and one that I actually gladly pay for.

You do you. I do me.

I think Google has the intention to get you to click on their ads. Which they can achieve by providing ok search results.

Opposite here, but I also don't have a personalized Google search experience, and an exhaustive list of sites in Kagi that I raise/lower/block from the results.

Avi to mp4 is best done with an ffmpeg command written by an llm. But OK, I get that that was not the point.

If you already have ffmpeg, you shouldn't need an LLM to write `ffmpeg -i video.avi video.mp4`.

The llm will tell you there are lots of interesting options.

As will the manual of ffmpeg itself, for what it's worth.

Yes, but a llm (or good old stackoverflow) are faster for most people.

There's pretty much nothing you can't do with ffmpeg https://youtu.be/9kaIXkImCAM?si=KJJOhnoa-2bFLkt5

If there is perhaps just _one_ thing that we can all admit that LLM's are good at, it should be bash one-liners for common tasks.

Which is to say, I highly recommend using an LLM for exploring commands to run in a terminal. Once past the learning curve, it is a good way to avoid dozens to hundreds of cryptic short-options (just ask for only long options).

> If there is perhaps just _one_ thing that we can all admit that LLM's are good at, it should be bash one-liners for common tasks.

Sorry to disappoint, but no can do on that agreement. The web is full of bad advice for shell scripting one liners, because too many people fumble their way to a semi-workable inefficient solution for their specific problem, then instead of attempting to refine it and make it better by removing extraneous options they publish it as is to a blog post or gist. The result is that LLMs ingest a lot of subpar commands.

I’ve tested this many times. It is rare that an LLM returns me a one-liner that I can’t immediately see how to improve.

The interesting thing is that there are objective measurements about code (like unnecessary commands in answers, or code which flat out never worked), in which generally people are not great. The amount of bad answers on Stackoverflow and on most of the blogspam is staggering. Even reference documentations are bad or wrong many times. LLMs work with that. They won’t be better than that.

Did the same here on my Android phone.

Google:First result, occupying half my screen, was a sponsored Google Play junk app, then CloudConvert, FreeConvert, Convertio, Adobe Express, Restream (this one seems like garbage), then a second Play widget and then SEO slop.

Kagi: FreeConvert, CloudConvert, a youtube tutorial, a Quick Peek widget with unhelpful topics, Restream, Adobe Express, SEO slop at the end.

Not that much better by Kagi, but it's pretty good not having any ads. I'm curious why you'd think leading you to Reddit when you searched for a converter is a desirable result, though, and I think you got that because you search for "[term] reddit" so much it defaulted to it via algorithm

It's not just me getting Reddit discussion results - Google has an exclusive deal with Reddit to list it in search results [1], and it tends to be ranked highly now for more subjective/recommendation-based queries. (And I did this test after clicking the "Try without personalization" link in the Google footer.)

I didn't list the ads in the Google results because I didn't see them. There's no reason not to be using an ad blocker, and unlike Kagi, it's free.

[1]: https://www.404media.co/google-is-the-only-search-engine-tha...

So you're saying it's good to have your results influenced by megacorporation exclusivity deals? I didn't use an adblocker because I was using the app, and having to rely on adblockers is cheating for Google, the services should be judged as is. Google isn't above blocking you from their services for using adblockers, too, as we can see from Youtube

Did I say that?

I hadn't heard of that deal. How is that not blatantly anti-competitive?

The best part about Kagi is that if the default results don't seem helpful, one click restricts results to only discussions and forums, which is usually exactly what I want to do next.

Google supports that too. After searching, click “Forums” in the top bar.

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