this post was submitted on 07 Mar 2025
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I apologize if this is old news, but I just noticed it. It looks like Kagi has added Fediverse Forums as a default Web search option.

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[–] cyborganism@lemmy.ca 179 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

Cool. Wish more search engines would do that.

But, as far as Kagi goes, it's a paid service and it's an American company. So I won't be using them.

[–] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 55 points 2 weeks ago (17 children)

What non-american search engine do you use?

[–] lippiece@programming.dev 1 points 1 day ago

No one mentioned open source alternatives, so I'd add: https://docs.searxng.org/

[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml 245 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

I write questions on bathroom stalls and then check back in on them every few days.

[–] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 135 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Why are you using Grindr Classic for search?

[–] Mac@mander.xyz 21 points 2 weeks ago

For the personalized results, ofc

[–] dubyakay@lemmy.ca 15 points 2 weeks ago

And then you write your own (wrong) answers below it in a different hand writing and pen. And call it SEO.

[–] ZeroHora@lemmy.ml 11 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Not working, the only response I get is penis

[–] Klear@lemmy.world 12 points 2 weeks ago

That's internet for you.

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[–] clgoh@lemmy.ca 27 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)
[–] MrMakabar@slrpnk.net 14 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

It uses Bing in the backend though.

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[–] webghost0101@sopuli.xyz 16 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Search engine? I started rawdoging urls a while ago.

The internet is increasingly more useless, the sites i really need are bookmarked anyway.

[–] NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 28 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

And I like swiss cheese on my ham sandwiches. Oh, sorry, I thought we were just saying non sequitors.

In all seriousness, that is not an answer to the question. Yes, some (often older) people will always use a search engine to find the same website they browse all the time. But search engines are also incredibly valuable for finding new things or verifying claims. I have a bookmark for the Warframe wiki but that doesn't help me when I want to research different monitor energy efficiencies or find a repair guide for my toaster oven.

And while people CAN collect a set of (searchable) websites for different topics they are interested in... that is how we got into (one of) our current mess(es). How many people just use reddit for everything and thus make themselves vulnerable to corporate shittery and misinformation campaigns.

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[–] Wolfram@lemmy.world 46 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

Not using Kagi because its an American company is valid. But people are too used to products that are free because they make the person using them the product. There is still a transaction with a free product.

Kagi is not free because they respect your privacy and don't sell your data.

[–] x00z@lemmy.world 25 points 2 weeks ago

I have donated €1500 to opensource software projects and paid a whopping €7 for software. These (privacy respecting) projects got my money because they weren't transaction based. Capitalism is not the only way.

[–] cyborganism@lemmy.ca 17 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I don't use them or never read their privacy policy so i don't know. But it's not because it's a paid service that company won't use your data to sell it for more profit. That's EXTRA profit for them, so why the hell not. And them being based in the US means I already can't trust them with their poor privacy laws.

[–] sudneo@lemm.ee 12 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Sure, but they don't (their privacy policy is exemplary). They have a whole shpiel about their business model. Just few weeks back they released a feature that makes it technically impossible for them to see who did searches, so no trust is needed anymore. They implemented a very novel protocol, quite cool.

I have doubts considering they are an american company, but I want to see them succeed. Plus, they are remote, so at least a good chunk of the income taxes from salaries are going outside the US.

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[–] MisterFrog@lemmy.world 12 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)

I'd happily pay for search, but Kagi is way too expensive.

10 searches a day, for $5/month? (US)

Like, that is way too much.

I can receive thousands and send thousands of emails per day for that price. Is search really that much more expensive?

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[–] Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de 25 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Writing them off as an American company is totally valid, but I'm happy to pay for a quality service because it keeps ads out and lets me vote with my money. It's really not much to cling to psychologically, but it helps. When I and others completely degoogle our lives it moves no needles at GoogHQ, but paying subscriber metrics are a KPI discussed in every board room in the world.

[–] clove@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 2 weeks ago

Lile they say, perfection is the enemy of privacy! Kagi has been the best as an engine out of all I've tried. If a better competitors comes up, I'll give em my money.

[–] ericjmorey@discuss.online 16 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

I'm not a fan of Kagi's founder, so I generally don't use it.

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[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 91 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

heres to the painfully slow and gradual rebirth of the internet.

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[–] noxypaws@pawb.social 59 points 2 weeks ago

It's had it for at least months but even if its years old it's still a cool feature and deserves attention

[–] kibiz0r@midwest.social 54 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (7 children)

I’ve been using Kagi for about a month now, and I think I’m gonna stick with it. Paying with dollars instead of data/attention feels more healthy for everyone involved.

(Fully realizing, of course, that there’s nothing stopping them from doing both, and that’s why we need better laws. Voting with your wallet will never be a complete solution… but it is something I can do right now.)

[–] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 16 points 2 weeks ago

I have been on it for about a year and I have no complaints.

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[–] Glitchvid@lemmy.world 46 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)

I've been using Kagi for the last year+.

Personally, I wish they'd tone down the AI stuff that ruined Google, but at least you can turn most of it off.

Their results are okay, a little better than Bing, but obviously they're limited by their existing index providers, I wish they'd run their own spiders and crawl for their own data, since I think Bing fails on a lot of coverage of obscure websites.

In general I find the weighting of modern indexes to be subpar, though the SEO industry has made it a hard problem to tackle, I wish more small websites and forums were higher ranked, and AI slop significantly de rated.

TW: Self harmAlso not a huge fan of the company and a lot of it's ardent customers, who heavily protested a suicide prevention popup if you used it to searched for how to kill yourself.

[–] targetx@programming.dev 12 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Have you tried the small web lens? They run their own index specifically to help surface the content you mention is hard to find by default.

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[–] KeefChief13@lemmy.world 42 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Been using this for a month or so its nice

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 16 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (5 children)

Does it work on lemmy content too?

Edit: thanks all!

[–] KeefChief13@lemmy.world 12 points 2 weeks ago

Yeah big time

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[–] MoonlightFox@lemmy.world 31 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (12 children)

Obligatory mention that Kagi also use the Russian search index Yandex. This aids the Russian economy and the Russian war effort.

Edit: I recommend reading my in depth explanation here https://lemmy.world/comment/15520236

[–] douglasg14b@lemmy.world 28 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (5 children)

Every single time with red comes up there's always this FUD. You, specifically, don't miss any opportunity to make mention of this. Across Lemmy, which is rather suspicious. Helping the Russian war effort? That's a pretty big leap here.

Why?

Imagine a search engine aggregator aggregating search engine results from multiple sources for aggregation. The more indexes they support the better the results are going to be for everyone, I don't see this as a problem for data aggregation.

Why should data aggregation give any sort of shits about geopolitics?

Regardless, the topic of this post, fediverse search, is part of their own search engine anyways afaik

[–] MoonlightFox@lemmy.world 21 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

I have been sick a lot lately, so have had a lot of time on my hands. I don't have a search for Kagi or something. I wanted to use Kagi though, so I was disappointed when I realized that they want to continue this practice.

What are you implying with it being suspicious? In what way?

If Kagi pays a Russian company for a service, that company pays taxes to the Russian government.

Russia spends 32% of its budget on the Russian military. So for every dollar they get in taxes, one third is spent on the Russian military.

With a corporate tax rate of 20% that means 6.4% of Yandex profits go to the military. Since Kagi is mainly a paid service, I don't want my money to go to the Russian military, and I guess a lot of other people don't want this either.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-hikes-national-defence-spending-by-23-2025-2024-09-30/

The Russian people are not to blame, and I am sure a lot of great people work at Yandex and at different companies in Russia. That said, Russia chose to attack a peaceful democratic country, they are currently sanctioned by a lot of western countries in hopes that it will pressure their economy enough to force them to stop the war.

There isn't much we can do to stop the conflict besides hurting them economically and supporting Ukraine. If we continue to use Russian products and services then that does not work. Unfortunately this affects everyone in Russia.

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[–] MoonlightFox@lemmy.world 26 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

Just came across https://d-shoot.net/kagi.html . Seems like there are more good reasons to avoid it besides it also using Yandex as an index.

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[–] wittycomputer@feddit.org 22 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

The mandatory signing in to perform any search is a deal breaker. Privacy first

[–] ehballah@lemmy.ca 23 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Feel like you’re jumping the gun a bit with this opinion. Kagi is one of the best options if you prioritize privacy. Have a closer look at their policies.

[–] LandedGentry@lemmy.zip 13 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (17 children)

Policies can change, they’re for profit, and I’ve heard leadership may be right wing/trumpy but I can’t find clear evidence of it so I want count that against them at this point.

Either way subscriptions are you giving away your identity essentially. They have you, your name, your credit card, your address, your associated searches, there is a lot to consider here more than just “look at what they say.” You are choosing to give them clear identification of you and your searches. That requires a lot of trust.

TL;DR: A lot of for profit companies say a lot of things. I am not anti-Kagi but you’re being very reductionist and ignoring valid concerns.

Edit: I am not against Kagi or spending money on quality services.

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[–] shortrounddev@lemmy.world 23 points 2 weeks ago

It's because you have to pay for the search engine. They dont serve ads

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[–] Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de 21 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

It's had that for a while now. It was the main reason I'd pipe up to recommend Kagi, but now there's also their search anonymizer and tor endpoint.

[–] aeharding@vger.social 13 points 2 weeks ago

I use the Kagi forum toggle so. much.

[–] phillycodehound@lemmy.world 13 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

Neat feature. Any word on if Kagi has ties to the Kremlin?

[–] refreeze@lemmy.world 26 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Its an American company so I suppose it is possible.

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[–] MoonlightFox@lemmy.world 11 points 2 weeks ago

I have no idea, but they amongst other indexes use the index from the Russian company Yandex

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[–] MITM0@lemmy.world 11 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Imagine if someone added that feature to SearX/SearXNG

[–] lippiece@programming.dev 2 points 1 day ago

There is one. Or maybe not just one.

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