I recently (as in just now) bought a month of the Kagi Search engine to give it a whirl. THEN I heard they use Yandex which is Russian and well… Russia and Ukraine. Any truth to this?
Yes they use Yandex along with the others.
Personally I don’t use them.
They also pay Brave for their results
Lmao these losers are paying for brave search results? Just go to search.brave.com its free hahahaha
/j
Unfortunately, someone has to pay… eventually…
a paid search engine is good thing, a paid anything is a good thing I would say, it means the people behind it is less likely to enshitify the service and more likely to stand up for their principles at courts
I criticized Kagi down below, ( yes I’m being downvoted ), I know it’s good service based on what people are saying… and between Google Vs Kagi, it’s Kagi everytime
They pull from several other search indexes, and they have awesome features. Infinitely more valuable than an overpriced coffee for $5/month.
I love the quick summarizer.
I only use Kagi when I can’t find something on other search engines. It often delivers where others can’t. But so far the free 100 searches have lasted me 3 months and I think will likely last me years at the rate I’m using them.
yandex is about 2% of our total cost, to put things into perspective
I encourage subscribers to check out this thread and weigh in.
The problem is not really the indexer, the problem is that they rely on Google servers for their Infrastructure
I will edit this comment ( to add citation ), give me some time
Like ~95% of the rest of the internet that uses cloud infrastructure.
Google, AWS, or Azure
What is your point?
it’s not like they are the only providers. There’s plenty of other choice
Like ~95% of the rest of the internet that uses cloud infrastructure
Citation needed for research purposes.
What is your point?
My point is that they claim they are private, yet they rely on Google, if you use Google anything ( AdSense, Analytics, Fonts… Etc ), you become Google
Same thing with relying on Gmail or Outlook, or some kind of proprietary Ticketing system… Spoiler alert many of these so called privacy companies make those mistakes, including the mistake of being proprietary themselves
Thnx
Microsoft, Google and Amazon wouldn’t have cloud infrastructure businesses if they were snooping on clients.
Educate yourself even a little bit before taking a stance like this.
Educate yourself even a little bit
Yes, it’s very clear you’ve made it this far in life completely avoiding any criticism.
I’m someone who builds cloud infrastructure for a living. I only touch AWS (Amazon), but the same applies to Azure (Microsoft) and GCP (Google).
Kagi is private. Saying that they “rely” on Google because they use GCP is akin to saying that the US Army relies on General Motors because they use Hummers. It’s just a provider. They’re renting virtual machines, compute power, storage, and network bandwidth nothing more. You can use GCP/Azure/AWS without your data ever being visible by GCP/Azure/AWS. It’s not because you use GCP that you have to use AdSense/Analytics/Fonts, etc. They are completely separate.
Politicians would have a field day with all the cloud providers if using one thing forced you to use everything.
So you’re saying it’s ok to trust those cloud providers, who also happen to build surveillance technology for governments, by a company that presents itself as the private / anti big tech / anti enshitification search engine.
the worst part is that Big tech is getting paid as well.
Kagi is private
maybe, it depends on who you’re talking to, they say it’s because it’s a paid service, that you need an Account, but remember the moment you sign up and give any piece of info, you’re linked… I don’t want my search queries linked EVER, so privacy is not enough
Now they did try to remedy these flaws by allowing Virtual “Anonymous” Credit cards, but this service is only available in the US, so whatever…
So we’re left with the only option that could work, Cryptocurrency… And after an extensive research they settled for the least ( if at all ) anonymous coin, Bitcoin… well it can be anonymous but try to do that and you’ll be charged with money laundering or Tax evasion ( in the US ) so you’re linked one way or the other ( especially if you live in the US )
It’s not because you use GCP that you have to use AdSense/Analytics/Fonts, etc. They are completely separate
I know, it’s just an example
So you’re saying it’s ok to trust those cloud providers
What kind of trust are you referring to? I trust that they take great pains to protect their cloud customer’s data. CGP is not Google Search is not Google advertising.
Do I trust them to do the right thing environmentally? No. Geopolitically? No. But let’s not get these all confused. They do support surveillance tech but surreptitiously mining their cloud customer’s data has the potential to sink their entire business overnight.
Tbh, if violating the 4th amendment didn’t sink them, which is what Snowden was counting on, nothing will
Yandex is actually a better search engine than google (& all this BS about Russian bias is lies) Use it & judge it yourselves, don’t take my word for it (not that my word has any value😅)
They use a lot of sources to get the best results: their index, and then others. I doubt much goes to Yandex but they don’t specify.
Even if there was any truth to this, a good search engine remains unimpressed by world politics.
