Dark_Arc , 11 months ago (edited 11 months ago)

Prices seem high

They talk about their prices better here: blog.kagi.com/update-kagi-search-pricing. Including:

Q. What is your cost per search? A. Currently it is 1.25 cents per search. But search indexes are about to become several times more expensive and we now have the AI integration cost. We will try to keep the cost at 1.5 cents per search or below by rethinking our partnering strategy and investing more into our infrastructure.

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“Boosting” and blocking domains: basically permanent filters.

I mean, yes and no; it’s not quite a filter as it can tweak the ranking not just outright put something at the top or remove it.

“Lenses” - Similar to SearXNG’s different tabs, but more like a profile style system.

These are actually super cool because they put things like the old “site:reddit.com” trick on steroids and help.kagi.com/kagi/features/code.html is like site:stackoverflow.com on steroids.

Bangs are the same as in SearXNG, and I think you can do the same, or similar, thing in Firefox.

You definitely can do this in plenty of things; I don’t think it’s all that compelling really, but it’s a nice feature none the less, and it’s arguably easier to sync “bangs” than it is to sync these shortcuts between browsers and different software; but yeah, not a big motivator for me.

Custom CSS is cool and all but you can get that with a browser add-on (like Stylus).

Similar comment about the syncing of this; but yeah, this also wasn’t a big motivator for me.

Their “Comprehensive result filtering” seems that same as every other browser

True, but I think it’s there 1 for completeness, and 2 because the count of ads and trackers as a criteria is pretty unique to them. It’s also quite a bit more user facing, and easier to work with than say, getting the same options from Google search.

“Widgets” - Seems like Google’s quick answers, user created ones are cool I guess.

Not sure what you mean by custom ones, haven’t seen anything about that; but it’s definitely in the feature parity category.

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Don’t forget things like redirects (change your lemmy UI?) and their own index, which includes things like wayback machine results – particularly relevant with CNET deleting old content to boost their Google ranking.

Their generated summaries are also pretty cool, e.g. from the CNET article:

• CNET has been deleting thousands of old articles from its site in recent weeks in an effort to improve its search engine rankings on Google.
• CNET confirmed it removes old content to appear more “fresh, relevant and worthy of being placed higher than our competitors” according to an internal memo.
• However, experts say Google does not encourage deleting old content simply because of its age and that older content can still provide value to users.
• The perception that “the Internet is forever” and content placed online will always remain accessible has proven untrue over time.
• Link rot threatens old web content as links go dead and content disappears from original locations.
• Copyright trolls have pressured sites to remove old images rather than risk expensive lawsuits over fair use.
• Large portions of the historical web record are missing or inaccessible now due to link rot and deliberate content removal.
• Archives like the Wayback Machine help preserve some content but can’t capture everything.
• Sites focused on SEO are driven to extremes like mass content deletion to rise above noisy search results.
• Archivists play an important role in preserving digital history by making copies of content before it disappears.

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Additionally, it seems that they don’t have seem to have any external audits … (correct me if I’m wrong).

They don’t, but they do have a clearly worded privacy policy kagi.com/privacy.

or releasing of code (correct me if I’m wrong).

The search engine itself, no; but their browser extensions are open source: github.com/kagisearch/browser_extensions

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This actually looks very cool, so many new backup solutions to try after this thread. 🥲

I’ve tried a lot of different backup solutions… I’d be curious where you’re leaning, but I’d say this one is likely going to be your winner for ease of use, privacy, and cross-platform functionality.