(https://lemm.ee/u/LWD) presents information relating to accusations of source obfuscation around rising search engine Kagi

Frustratingly, doing a search on that Changelog page for sources is mostly full of stuff not relevant to my search.

I did find a different post on Lemmy that talks about it, though. This post is incredibly thorough, and does an excellent job of undoing Kagi's attempt to memory-hole the information about which sources they use.

This makes it all the more frustrating that Vlad refuses to re-add them, instead asking to know why we would care. Here's a link to that conversation, which is on a platform controlled by Vlad, which appears to be resistant to archiving services that attempt to fetch those particular comments. Also for posterity:

slamor
Oct 27, 2024
https://help.kagi.com/kagi/search-details/search-sources.html
There is really no proper information about search sources. We need to know what resources are used and at what rate.
Please make a more detailed and clear edit.
Vlad
Oct 29, 2024
[@]slamor Is there any particular reason you are asking for this? More context will help us better understand the need.
slamor
Nov 2, 2024
[@]Vlad why not?

Searching through kagi.com for "Yandex" yields a lot of dead links. The one living link is the Changelog, which says they added Yandex to their image search, back in December 2024... But that's hardly a revelation. The changelog doesn't go back very far either, AFAIK

As for the other links: Google says these links used to contain it the word, but I don't know why. Maybe this one was for raised sites, maybe it was for lowered sites, which would at least give a little insight into whether users loved or hated the domain...

url: https://europe-west2.kagi.com/stats?sd=asc&st=percentage
text: yandex.com. zlibrary.to. androidcentral.com. answer-all.com. baijiahao.baidu.com. cbc.ca. developer.apple.com. eightify.app. github.getafreenode.com. gitmemory ...

Another result seems to suggest Yandex Images served up a photo of Steve Jobs in a demo search, but that is no longer the case. Maybe it's just a coincidence.

url: https://kagi.com/images?q=steve+jobs
text: 564 x 318 yandex.ru. 20 Steve Jobs Quotes: Wisdom from the Apple Co-Founder 20 Steve Jobs Quotes: Wisdom from the Apple Co-Founder. 696 x 418 cioviews.com. 75 ...

SOURCE

16 comments

What's the issue with this? API calls to other search engines are anonymised, and naturally I want Kagi to search as many sources as possible.
So what's the issue?
You don't need Wayback machine to find their old page, it's all open on Github: https://github.com/kagisearch/kagi-docs/commit/6baff1c066db9b3d804653ea19bc9d1c076a710b
I don't see any "conspiracy" removing an itemised list - it's just something which is a pain to keep up-to-date over time. Better to say "all major search engines worldwide", which is what they're now saying.
Again, I don't really see any issue here...
- So what's the issue? You don't need Wayback machine to find their old page...
  The issue is that the page is old and hidden! Normal people don't hunt through repositories, let alone archives. It is extremely unreasonable to assume someone should do this.
  Kagi Corp should provide this information transparently, not respond with mild hostility when that information is politely requested. In addition, they should keep it up to date! Acting cagey with users and hiding data isn't how an honest corporation should behave!
  
  The topic is "using Yandex". What's the issue with that? I wasn't asking what is the issue with changing the wording on some random page 🤦

I truly don't understand the hype around Kagi. Maybe I'm just too wrapped-up in my own little FOSS and privacy world, but paying for a closed-source solution that ties you into an account just doesn't make sense to me.
For basically as much money as an unlimited Kagi plan, you can rent a small VPS to host Searxng and a VPN service to run it behind and you'd have a much more privacy-respecting search solution, plus a VPS to play with. Kagi just seems like such poor value for your money. Granted, I've never used it, but I can't imagine its results could realistically be good enough to justify paying 10$/month.
- I think I do. Kagi generates hype by being a paid service.
  Typically, people don't think about their search engine. They have it set up and they just use it. Kagi requires conscious thought and conscious payment.
  Because they have already "bought in" to Kagi, their users will then consciously consider using anything else - after all, they don't want to abandon a service they paid for!
  This kind of mentality is similar to how many paid services, like Amazon Prime, capture customers. Once you have bought into the monthly subscription, it becomes a mental default. Why shop around when you've already sunk some money into Prime?
- Granted, I've never used it
  This is probably the reason you don't get the value.
  I do rent multiple VPS's and I have run Searxng, and for me Kagi is worth paying for. It's certainly not worth it for everybody though.
  Regarding the account, I used an anonymous email and paid with an anonymous method. Perhaps they could assemble my identity based on my searches, but considering the new support for Privacy Pass it appears they are walking their talk.
  
  Care to share what makes it worth it for you? I'm honestly curious.

I thought this was a good presentation of concerns surrounding Kagi, a search engine I've heard championed as a great Google replacement, one that I'm definitely interested in using. But I've also seen many that critize it for a number of reasons. So I wanted to see if others wanted to share their perspective. Thanks to LWD for laying out what he did.

16 comments