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Comment by stavros | Hacker News Reader

I feel like I'm the only person who doesn't really see the appeal. I have subscribed multiple times in the past, including a free trial for three months that recently ended. It wasn't bad, but when the trial ended I just switched back to DDG and kind of... didn't think about it again?

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For me part of it is supporting a project that is worth getting behind. I like that someone goes against the big ad-supported players in a field where it would seem impossible.

Features like boosting the niche forums I browse for search results is just a bonus on top.

I agree that I could go back to DDG and not feel like I am missing too much, but that doesn't bother me.

One of my issues is that I just don't want to have to log into search. I use a bunch of different devices each day, some of which I control and some of which I don't, throughout the course of my work day. I don't want to have to log into Kagi on each one. It's much easier to just use a search that doesn't require a login.

Plus, it seems like having to login is inevitably makes it easier for them to associate activity with a specific real-like person. It's probably easier for them to associate my activity with me when I log in than it is for DDG or Google to track my activity when I'm not logged in and can't be easily distinguished from the dozen other people that used that computer that day.

> I don't want to have to log into Kagi on each one.

Yes, this is annoying. They make it as easy as they can (QR code login, session links) but it's still a speedbump.

> having to login is inevitably makes it easier for them to associate activity with a specific real-like person.

That's a legitimate concern. Kagi added Privacy Pass support to mitigate it

https://blog.kagi.com/kagi-privacy-pass

Kagi privacy pass does not support disabling safe search, and is subsequently completely useless for a good chunk of the queries people don't want associated with their name and address.

I have DDG as the default search in Safari (because Kagi is not an option, maybe it requires profit sharing with Apple?) and I often end up using DDG out of convenience while being a Kagi subscriber.

I agree there is not a lot of differentiation between stock Kagi search and DDG. DDG still has a few ads but it's not that annoying, perfectly usable.

Kagi's assistants are pretty interesting though. Recently I asked it to find back a post that I vaguely remembered. It managed to generate a bunch of Kagi searches with different keywords and narrow it down to an old tweet.

> maybe it requires profit sharing with Apple?

It does indeed, as was revealed during the Google Search antitrust case in the DDG testimony.

can't you use their extension in safari to set kagi as the default search engine?

My experience of the extension was bad.

The extension is a hack that allows them to redirect the searches from one of the available search engines to Kagi. So first you search, then e.g. the DDG page loads halfway, then the page flashes, you get redirected to Kagi. If you are lucky, you are signed in, and you wait for the Kagi results. If not, you sign in and type your search again.

On iOS, I made a shortcut that pops up a native text prompt for your search, then opens kagi using your session token. I recommend this over the extension.

On desktop Safari, you can additionally make Kagi your home page. Not as convenient as searching directly from the top bar but not bad either.

My experience of the extension was bad.

On iOS, I made a shortcut that pops up a native text prompt for your search, then opens Kagi using your session token. I recommend this over the extension, it is fast snd reliable.

For Safari you just install their extension and it redirects your default search engine to Kagi. Works fine for me on iOS and macOS. But yeah it’s super frustrating that Apple doesn’t let you set any arbitrary search engine.

I had the extension for a while and it didn't work reliably for me.

I replaced it with a "let's fetch" shortcut.

Then maybe it is just not for you, completely fine :). I used DDG in the past, but didn't see a big improvement (it is better than Google though). Kagi really changed it for me and so I'm a paying user since a year or so.

I have similar experience. Tried Kagi two times, didn't see better results than Google once - the results are always bad in both search engines.

Did you try the personalised results?

Wikipedia first. No Pinterest, no W3Schools, no Fox etc etc.

They have a nice list for suggestions.

Being able to block sites completely and uprank others I find valuable is the entire reason I pay for Kagi.

The results aren't necessarily better than other search engines in general but the personalization is so incredibly valuable.

Oh and having it auto rewrite Reddit results to Old Reddit helps a lot too.

I really like kagi's regex redirects on search results; keeps old.reddit.com working on my iPhone. I also take advantage of their search filters and delisting bad urls that I don't like in search results.

I stopped using duckduckgo after they censored tankman: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27394925

DDG is mostly rebranded Bing. The problem is the quality of search results isn't very good compared to Google / Kagi. But it could depend on what you use it for.

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