Kagi – Sourcing from Brave Search, improved image search, and new Safari ext
Paid search engine Kagi is drawing interest from users frustrated with Google’s ads, SEO spam, and declining result quality, with many praising Kagi’s speed, cleaner interface, and ability to customize rankings or block entire domains. Others remain unconvinced that its roughly $10/month price is justified when ad-blocked Google or alternatives like DuckDuckGo and Brave Search are free, and some are uneasy about Kagi’s account requirement and lack of Mullvad-style anonymous billing. The exchange highlights a broader tension between ad-funded and subscriber-funded search models, especially around privacy, incentives, and how much users are willing to pay for better perceived relevance.
Perceived Value and Pricing
- Many commenters pay for Kagi and feel it’s worth $10/month because search is a core work tool; they compare it to paying for good hardware or email hosting.
- Others see it as a “luxury” on top of a free alternative that “still works,” especially since $10/month recurring feels different from a one‑off $10 upgrade.
- Some would pay at a much lower rate (e.g., $5–10/year) but not current prices, and worry about future price hikes.
- Psychological aspects are discussed: people feel compelled to justify paying when a free option exists, and some comments are perceived as almost “markety” or like astroturfing, though others argue they’re simply genuine enthusiasm.
Search Quality vs Google and Others
- Fans say Kagi is faster, less cluttered, and often surfaces better or rarer results than Google, especially when combined with features to pin, boost, downrank, or block domains (e.g., SEO spam, Pinterest clones, low‑quality documentation sites).
- Several note they rarely “fall back” to Google anymore, unlike with DuckDuckGo. Some describe visceral dislike when accidentally using Google again (ads, “trash” results).
- Others report Kagi is only comparable to Google, not clearly better, and that with proper Google usage (advanced operators, site: scopes, programmable search engines, ad blockers) the marginal gain doesn’t justify the cost.
- A few users still sometimes pivot to Google when Kagi yields “no good matches” instead of weakly related results.
Ads, Business Models, and Privacy
- Strong support for ad‑free, user‑funded models; some explicitly “vote with their wallet” against ad‑driven ecosystems and tracking.
- Others are comfortable with Google/Microsoft tracking and value ads as product discovery tools; they prefer saving the money and using blockers.
- Some privacy‑focused users dislike that Kagi requires an account even for the free tier and wish for a Mullvad‑style anonymous token system; others point out Kagi doesn’t truly need a real email and offers crypto payments, but skepticism remains.
Customization and Features
- Key praised features: personalized rankings, site pinning/blacklisting, working exclusion operators, custom “bangs,” and improving image search.
- Crowdsourced stats show heavy community downranking/blacklisting of sites like Pinterest, Quora, major social networks.
Mobile and Integration Issues
- iOS/Safari: Previous Kagi extension versions behaved oddly (inconsistent redirection, hardcoded provider logic); a newer 2.0 extension is reported as improved but setup is confusing.
- iOS’s inability to set arbitrary default search engines and Android’s native Google search widget are pain points; workarounds include browser widgets (e.g., Firefox) pointing to Kagi.