Search Engine Alternative
I’ve been using DuckDuck Go since leaving Google Search, but that seems to be the first step away. I’m not keen on their AI assist. I tried Start Page, but the first four results were ads. I don’t mind paying a small fee for good search. So Brave Search or Kagi?
I also use Kagi. Just start with the trial, upgrade to the $5 starter tier when you run out, then upgrade to the pro $10 tier if you hit the limit. It appropriately apportions things if you’ve only used half your month.
I’m on the $10 pro tier as I use over the 300 searches a month in the $5 starter tier ($10 is unlimited).
Kagi has AI on request. If you put a question mark on the end of your search query, you get an AI response. No question mark, no AI.
I think Kagi is worth trying for other reasons, but probably only for people who $10 a month is not a significant cost. It’s not better than food, but it does let me block all Pinterest results so I never see them.
Maybe dumb question but I assume we would be giving up info if we use the question mark, correct?
Also, is there anything bad about them, like affiliated with Google, satan, Facebook, or some other undesirable entities.
Yeah so they proxy the requests so the AI companies can’t tell what you in particular searched for because the requests are mixed with other users, but ultimately there will be an AI company in the mix somewhere and the search query needs to be sent to them to work. The search results themselves are also used as the contents of those is what the AI is summarising.
I know we are talking about using AI, but Kagi also lets you turn this off if you don’t want to use it (by default it only shows if you use a question mark, but you can also turn this off so it doesn’t show even with a question mark).
pahulf
Rando
Dave