I really liked the AI search, but it burns through credits too quickly. I have since switched to using Hermes, it's not quite as good yet, but it's a fraction of the cost.
I liked the idea of ad free, slop free search. There were some problems with that though, which were hard to push past. I really like being able to search for stores and local restaurants. Maps integrations were hit or miss, mostly miss. It was also weirdly slow for me, even to load the search page without a query.
Final point was their published and then unpublished support of Yandex. The CEO tried to argue some "search without borders" BS, but really they are taking your money that and sending some of it to a Russian company which is either directly or indirectly funding a pointless war. I took issue with that and remembered it every single time I opened the page. In particular it really didn't sit well with me that the response was flippant and then they took down their list of sources.
I've switched to DDG and have been happier, YMMV.
[–] gxs 2 days ago
The ai credit thing is real too and I’ve written to them about it several time. My solution was just to sign up for the entire year in one go
You have to keep in mind it’s only like $25 of usage, though they could handle the experience better. In the past in the assistant it would even delete your prompt when you ran out and it was super annoying
As a product though I think it’s great - more than good enough to get off of google, I like the privacy aspect, and it’s ai features slot in nicely between search and my Claude subscription
If you follow the money, somewhere you’ll find something unsavory. This is me mostly coping, admittedly, but Kagi is good enough that a) I want to cope and b) hope continues to thrive as a full featured search engine that is a legitimate alternative to Google
DDG is good too, not quite on par with Kagi though. Kagi is super configurable and customizable- e.g. lenses, down ranking websites (e.g. for me Pinterest appears way low in search results) ai slop detection, etc
It’s also cool to be a paying customer - you email them, they respond, and sometimes even fix a bug right away for you
Happy overall with the service even though I agree it’s not perfect
[–] mrmenace 2 days ago
[–] ActionHank 2 days ago
If you're looking for something more typical of search + AI, DDG is probably the next best. If you're looking for a search assistant that will find you a direct link to the leaked gta 6 footage that people are talking about or to summarise a comparison of 2 oss libs, Hermes is probably the one you're after.
[–] krupan 2 days ago
[–] ActionHank 2 days ago
Afaik DDG sources from bing and their own indexing.
[–] pprotas 2 days ago
Remember their “early adopter” drama? Wasn’t their only drama.
[–] jm4 2 days ago
[–] RussianCow 2 days ago
[–] AndroidKitKat 2 days ago
[–] throwaway27448 2 days ago
How is funding america any better?
[–] cosmicgadget 2 days ago
[–] throwaway27448 2 days ago
[–] cosmicgadget 2 days ago
The Biden administration and western leaders chose monetary and logistical assistance with which Ukraine has fought Russia to a stalemate. That's not a terrible outcome if the alternative is Russia actually following through with their mad man nonsense.
Oh yeah, and winning isn't accomplished with overwhelming force. The West marching into Moscow was never a possibility, despite what Alex Dugin will have you believe. Winning is Putin backing down, being deposed, or doing the swan lake thing.
[–] throwaway27448 2 days ago
> Entering the war with troops would be escalatory, anyone who claims to know the result of that hypothetical escalation is a liar.
Anyone who claims there is an alternative path to victory is a liar.
I won't ever forgive the west for throwing ukraine under the bus to express their anxiety about russia, fully knowing that ukraine has no hope without full military commitment.
> Winning is Putin backing down, being deposed, or doing the swan lake thing.
Russia will just replace him with someone on the right wing of russian politics. That's actually a worse scenario in every way.
> That's not a terrible outcome if the alternative is Russia actually following through with their mad man nonsense.
They're following through regardless.
The only victory path is to collapse russia. We have no way to do that and there are no domestic pressures indicating this will happen any time soon. And in every way Russia is hurting, Ukraine is suffering harder.
[–] cosmicgadget 1 day ago
The liar is named Afghanistan.
> I won't ever forgive the west for throwing ukraine under the bus to express their anxiety about russia
What does this even mean?
> Russia will just replace him with someone on the right wing of russian politics. That's actually a worse scenario in every way.
Amazing. Russian voters will look at their economy, their dead, their global image, and choose someone even more inclined to continue the five+ year SMO.
I'm not so sure the succession will be smooth though. If anyone was equipped to seamlessly take the reins they'd be a threat to the current guy. Any internal struggle means less commitment to the war.
> The only victory path is to collapse russia. We have no way to do that and there are no domestic pressures indicating this will happen any time soon. And in every way Russia is hurting, Ukraine is suffering harder.
Don't need Russia to collapse, just need it to decide there are more important uses of their fighting-age men and money. Putin is committed, others need not be. Economically, things will continue to decline for Russians and while it's possible to fake it by printing money, reality eventually catches up.
[–] throwaway27448 1 day ago
> What does this even mean?
The morons running the west want to do something about russia, because they swallowed their own cold war bullshit for decades and never learned to play nice with others. Ukraine was just the nearest opportunity to do so, even if it meant fucking over 25 million people for no clear benefit.
Look I love for you that you have hope. If I could pay to get your hope, I would! It would be better sleep at night. However, I will be right in the end, and the history books will reflect that europe chose to watch ukraine die in front of their eyes, and in fact paid to prolong the pain and violence.
[–] wolvoleo 2 days ago
And besides the small win this week things are still looking really bleak internationally.
I still use US services too much tbh but slowly things are improving.
[–] cosmicgadget 2 days ago
I won't bore you with the details, but I fully believe he only ran for president in '24 because it was his only way to avoid prison. He was staring at two slam dunk convictions and his only outs were fleeing the country or taking over the department prosecuting him.
And even if he were to somehow circumvent the Constitution and fool the electorate that has, just this week, overwhelmingly told him he sucks, he's still not the dictator/mob boss that Putin has been for 30 years. He aspires to be that but Americans just aren't Russians.
> things are still looking really bleak internationally.
Yeah, it kind of sucks when the hegemon becomes this dumb hydra of isolationism, extortion, and military adventurism. Europe is doing a solid job of insulating itself from its mercurial western ally, I hope things will return to normal before too long.
[–] expedited123 2 days ago
There are options. Uruky is a great European search engine where you can use an European search index (EUSP) alongside other smaller ones. Their entire stack is USA free.
[–] severino 2 days ago
Wait til you realize the search engines you use now are funding directly AND indirectly even more pointless wars than that one...
[–] gamegod 2 days ago
[–] ActionHank 2 days ago