Kagi has an option to search the Fediverse. This makes it a lot easier than specifying a site in the search query, which would also limit the results to a specific instance.
Why YSK: This lets you easily replace searches like “some topic reddit” with Lemmy!
Cool! I’ve been looking at kagi for a long while but hadn’t bit the bullet due to the cost. They did a month free trial thing recently and I’ve been using it since and it’s been really nice. Think I’ll stick with it.
I really like the ability to make custom lenses (like predefined groups of sites to search) and a built in way to block sites or change their priority in listings. Can do that to Google with extensions like ublacklist, but this way I don’t need to export my settings to other devices.
Glad you like it!
I’m in the same boat. Paying for search put me off at first, in big part due to having to login to use it. But now that I’ve tried, it’s a lot easier to use than expected. For example, you can get a session link to use for incognito searches, or an even more private option with anonymous tokens that let you use it without the searches being linked to your account at all.
The more I think about it, the more sense it makes. If a search engine is free, its goals won’t be aligned with my interests as a user and we get stuff like sponsored search results.
I also like that they let me turn off the AI results and I never have to see them again on any of my devices.
Can you talk more about this extra private option with anonymous tokens? I haven’t seen this yet.
Sure! It’s what they call Privacy Pass. It’s implemented using an extension that’s available on most browsers (including Tor). The extension uses a session to generate tokens This step is linked to the account. The tokens themselves are not linked to an account, but are used to access Kagi itself afterwards. When you search using Privacy Pass, the extension offers those tokens instead of a cookie, so you lose any user preferences you’ve previously set up. Those searches are not linked to an account.
More info: https://help.kagi.com/kagi/privacy/privacy-pass.html
You can also create an account with a throwaway email and pay with bitcoin, so at that point I think it’s pretty good for anonymity
This is awesome, thanks.
However I would argue that bitcoin is not anonymous, maybe monero but you have to also anonymize the on ramp. Mullvad will let you mail in cash, which I’d say is pretty anonymous.
:P
I want to like Kagi but their partnerships with Brave and Yandex turned me away
From what I saw in the discussions regarding this topic, it seems they’re using various third party indexes alongside their own, similar to how Qwant does it with Bing. It’s unfortunate, but realistically other than building a full index like the one Google has, I don’t see many other options. Google and Bing are plenty evil as well, not just Brave and Yandex. Maybe if the Qwant + Ecosia index works out, then we won’t have to rely on companies like that. For now their position doesn’t seem unreasonable to me: https://kagifeedback.org/d/2808-reconsider-your-partnership-with-brave
Thanks for sharing uBlacklist