Comment on The silent force behind online echo chambers? Your Google search
cecilkorik@lemmy.ca 10 months ago
I believe it, but I’m still debating whether something like Kagi is worth paying for. On principle, I strongly feel like it is, but in practice I’m still evaluating. So far, I’ve played with it a few times and I haven’t observed any notable improvements, but I’m trying to keep an open mind. First impression is that it’s definitely a little quicker and cleaner to get at the information I’m looking for. And taking a step back, I have to say it’s impressive that they can replicate a behemoth like Google’s accuracy already. On the other hand, I’ve felt like Google has gotten so crappy at search recently that maybe I’m simply not going to be satisfied with anyone simply “meeting” them and maybe what I want simply isn’t possible, in which case I’m just paying for disappointment.
i have been using kagi for 3 years now and as a developer i use search a lot. for me difference is so significant that i can’t use google anymore. google results are mostly filled with clickbait articles or straight up llm generated trash.
apart from relevance kagi index also seems good it prioritising good blogs and forum posts.
then the bigger problem is ads, even if i search in private mode, i will be getting ad and spam mails about that topic for weeks.
I made the switch to Kagi January last year.
I know it’s all just personal experience and everyone can have their own needs, but I was skeptical at first as well.
Almost a year and a half later I’ve got no complaints.
My searches feel like how Google felt years ago: mainly I never think about it. I search, find what I want and I’m off. It just works as I’d expect without the nonsense ads and AI Google has now.
Worth a free trial. See how it works for you.
I switched 3 months ago and have the same experience as you. Got on the $25 tier that has access to all AI assistants/GPT models as well through their “Kagi Assistant”. So I basically swapped my ChatGPT subscription for the Kagi one which also has the search.
Would recommend.
How would kagi help in the bias described in the article? If a person makes a biased search, any search engine will behave the same. The text mentions that even unbiased search engines are susceptible to this.
I’m a fan of FOSS like everyone else on Lemmy, but I don’t think it’s a universal solution for everything. Some things are worth paying for and I value an efficient search experience and privacy (Kagi has no personal info on me. I pay with a crypto wallet through a third party) so Kagi is a worthwhile service for me.
I agree with you though, any good search should be good enough to dig up the opinions and bias that is out there somewhere that agrees with your own biases.
Here’s hope to ladybird, it seems like a recipe for good things but its still like a year out if I recall for a beta release or something
Same here. Been looking at options like Kagi.
I decided years ago that since everyone wanted my info, I might as well just pick one instead of spreading it around everywhere. So I’m heavily invested in the Google ecosystem across the board.
baduhai@sopuli.xyz 10 months ago
I was in the same boat as you, except that I came to the conclusion it was worth paying for. Then perplexity came out, and that decision was a little harder to justify, but I stuck with kagi.
Then my ISP gave me a year of perplexity pro along with my internet speed upgrade. As much as I hate AI tools being everywhere, some of them are good, and Perplexity pro is one of them. Now that I’ve tried it, I think it’s worth it to the point that I’d pay for it even if my ISP didn’t give me the subscription.