@kagihq is the very interesting project for a paid search engine, without tracers and with an accuracy in identifying results such as to exclude all Google spam.

Those who believe that #Kagi's costs are too high, should reflect on a small detail: if Google lets all those searches be done "for free", who pays those costs? The answer might seem simple: "advertisers".

Yet this would be an incomplete answer: like saying that rain is caused by clouds!

In reality, those costs are paid by users, by being milked and letting Google extract their "value", a bit like in the human farm in Matrix...

We first heard about Kagi on the @lealternative website (unfortunately, since then the prices have increased a lot, raising many doubts about the sustainability of the project) and recently Cory Doctorow also talked about it on @pluralistic

In any case, we are really happy that a service like Kagi's, effective and respectful of users' privacy, has landed here in the #Fediverse.

mastodon.social/@kagihq/113074…

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[–] viking@infosec.pub 110 points 2 months ago (5 children)

I've tested kagi and agree that the search results are great. What I don't like is that it's making anonymous searching impossible, since I have to be logged in to use it (or use my unique token as part of the url for mobile searches).

Ultimately this means to me that in a private window mode (or even logged out with a fingerprinting resistant browser) I do not have the same degree of anonymity I enjoy even when using Google, let alone DDG or others.

I like the idea of not being dependent on google, but exposing my entire search history to one single entity is not my answer of choice.

[–] sanpo@sopuli.xyz 133 points 2 months ago (4 children)

Also, fun fact: Kagi owner believes only criminals want privacy and GDPR doesn't apply to them, because they said so!

https://d-shoot.net/kagi.html

[–] whyNotSquirrel@sh.itjust.works 45 points 2 months ago

thanks, it's clearly a red flag , you saved me some time: one less tool to chec k on later!

[–] InEnduringGrowStrong@sh.itjust.works 34 points 2 months ago

Thanks, that's an interesting read.
I know that's one person's opinion and not a thorough research, but that's still plenty of red flags.

I've used the 100 searches in the free trial, thought the search was fine, better than Google's these days. The subscription is a bit steep so I held off, kinda glad I did after digging more into this.

Having what little employees they have also make a mac-only browser, AI stuff and email that their user base doesn't seem to want is all a bit weird.
Buying a t-shirt factory (wtf) with the money they could have used to potentially lower the subscription, but decided to burn through it to give out free t-shirts. That just screams narcissism-driven to me.

Their vague statements on privacy isn't convincing at all.
Some variation of "we don't care about your data" isn't in any way compelling evidence that you care about protecting the privacy of said collected data.

In my opinion they lack focus, commitment and conviction into what I thought was their primary mission at first glance: being a privacy-focused no nonsense search engine.
Although that's probably on me for reading what I wanted to see between the lines and that never was their stated mission, which would explain a lot.

[–] joonazan@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

it is better than the competition but it will never be like Google before 2019 because they'll never build their own index.

[–] alexisonzen@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 months ago

people who really need anonymity are very rare. probably less than 100 in the entire world. definitely not typical Kagi users

unless they are criminals, in which case we don't care that they don't have full anonymity (nor we want them as customers)

If this is where you're drawing the "believes only criminals want privacy" argument from, that's not exactly what the quote says. The wording sucks, but it's saying:

Very few people need anonymity.
Anonymity seekers aren't our target market.
The criminal subset of anonymity seekers are even more "not our target market".

(This bit about criminals is completely unnecessary, though, and its inclusion makes me inclined to believe that Vlad looks down on people who want anonymity. I'm definitely not a fan of this guy.)

[–] Lemmchen 18 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

If you think search engine giants like Google can't track you when you're not logged in, you think wrong.

[–] viking@infosec.pub 28 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I'm using a browser setup hardened against fingerprinting, block all known trackers, and cookies are barred from cross-site activity.

Might not be impossible to track me regardless, but at least I'm not giving them everything with a chef's kiss on top.

[–] red@sopuli.xyz 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Afaik blocking trackers makes your browser stand out more. You can't avoid fingerprinting, so best bet is to hide in the masses - so as close to most common resolution and default settings etc.

[–] FeelzGoodMan420@eviltoast.org 2 points 2 months ago

Well you either hand them your data directly with no hassle on a silver platter, or you hope that your fingerprint doesn't stick out enough for them to be 100% certain. Pick your poison.

[–] kudos@lemmy.ml 14 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It's worth remembering that you don't have to do all your searching on one platform. I certainly don't.

[–] 1984@lemmy.today 10 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

First thing in their privacy statement:

Searches are anonymous and private to you. Kagi does not log and associate searches with an account.

You can claim that they are lying but I personally do not think they do.

https://kagi.com/privacy

Google is not private and they track you on every web page, building up a profile of your searches, weather you are logged in or not.

[–] cybersecurity@poliverso.org -3 points 2 months ago

@viking you are right: this is a serious criticality. However, Kagi aims to provide an optimal search service, but it is not focused on anonymity.

From that point of view, Brave's search engine is much better, which has improved a lot