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Re:Tell HN: DuckDuckGo Search Results have jumped the shark by s_dev on Sunday October 22, 2023 @11:06AM (#37975983)
I use DDG but actively of thinking switching to Kagi: https://kagi.com/ -- it's a paid service but I can justify it based on the amount of search queries I run everyday. Has anyone switched and not looked back?
Re:Tell HN: DuckDuckGo Search Results have jumped the shark by lolinder on Sunday October 22, 2023 @11:35AM (#37976268)
I've been using it exclusively since beta and am completely satisfied! The key improvement for me over other services is the ability to boost and block domains—it comes with a decent set of filters for the worst offenders (I've never seen a GitHub issues or StackOverflow mirror), but it's two clicks to block a domain that I personally don't like seeing. Pinterest, geeksforgeeks, and a bunch of other low-quality high-SEO sites all get permanently blocked for me, which is a huge quality of life improvement.
Re:Tell HN: DuckDuckGo Search Results have jumped the shark by Xiol32 on Sunday October 22, 2023 @11:59AM (#37976498)
Blocking Quora alone makes it worth the price of entry.
Re:Tell HN: DuckDuckGo Search Results have jumped the shark by lolinder on Sunday October 22, 2023 @12:02PM (#37976539)
Oh, totally. It's a sign of just how much better my search life has been that I'd completely forgotten about Quora when I was trying to remember what I'd blocked.
Re:Tell HN: DuckDuckGo Search Results have jumped the shark by behnamoh on Sunday October 22, 2023 @01:02PM (#37977070)
And blocking any Medium website.
Re:Tell HN: DuckDuckGo Search Results have jumped the shark by behnamoh on Sunday October 22, 2023 @01:04PM (#37977084)
I’ve been paying for kagi as well and am really satisfied with the results. One improvement tho: the image search is not there yet. I often have to use Google (or better: Yandex) for that.
Re:Tell HN: DuckDuckGo Search Results have jumped the shark by falsenapkin on Sunday October 22, 2023 @11:36AM (#37976277)
Like siblings, I switched and never looked back. I used !g with DDG often, more as the years went on tbh, but with Kagi the only time I use !g is when the search results end in one page, which is rare and almost always the Google results are noisy trash. Maybe 5% of searches I check Google and 10% of those actually return something useful that Kagi didn't. On balance with how much better the other 95% of queries are, first time I'm excited to search for things.

My biggest complaint with Kagi is sometimes when I search for something the top result is a pinned domain that maybe hit the right keywords but mentally to me it was unrelated to the search I was performing. That's a pretty good problem to have at the end of the day.

Re:Tell HN: DuckDuckGo Search Results have jumped the shark by JohnFen on Sunday October 22, 2023 @12:05PM (#37976574)
> with Kagi the only time I use !g is when the search results end in one page, which is rare and almost always the Google results are noisy trash

That might be because Google won't admit when it doesn't have results responsive to your query. It will just fill the results page with nonsense instead of saying "I couldn't find any results".

Re:Tell HN: DuckDuckGo Search Results have jumped the shark by falsenapkin on Sunday October 22, 2023 @12:17PM (#37976680)
Definitely, and I'm ok with not getting results, Kagi is doing the right thing.
Re:Tell HN: DuckDuckGo Search Results have jumped the shark by JohnFen on Sunday October 22, 2023 @11:33AM (#37976247)
I switched from DDG to Kagi about a month ago, and I've been very, very happy with the switch. I should have done it sooner.
Re:Tell HN: DuckDuckGo Search Results have jumped the shark by ethanbond on Sunday October 22, 2023 @11:30AM (#37976216)
Kagi is awesome. Started paying for it before my trial even expired and there’s zero chance I’m going back to Google or DDG.
Re:Tell HN: DuckDuckGo Search Results have jumped the shark by bobbylarrybobby on Sunday October 22, 2023 @11:26AM (#37976192)
Kagi user. I think it's pretty dang good. After comparing its results to google for the first few days, Kagi really does appear to be as good by default, and you can make it better by up/downranking various domains. Its quick answer feature is also fantastic (if perhaps not as quick as its name would suggest).
Re:Tell HN: DuckDuckGo Search Results have jumped the shark by mhsdef on Sunday October 22, 2023 @11:08AM (#37976013)
Yes. It's the first time I've successfully replaced Google search.

Previously, I used DDG but pretty much reflexively g!'d every query.

Re:Tell HN: DuckDuckGo Search Results have jumped the shark by ipaddr on Sunday October 22, 2023 @11:39AM (#37976308)
I use a number of different search engines for different purposes. Yandex offers sites duckduckgo doesn't. Duckduckgo offers sites Google doesn't Google is good overall and at image searching.

You seem like someone who has used a number of search engines. How does it treat sites Google blacklists like nsfw sites or porn sites or torrent sites? Does typing in movie/book/game torrent bring up listings the way Google previously did? How does it treat older non-mobile friendly sites? Is the image search comparable to Google?

Re:Tell HN: DuckDuckGo Search Results have jumped the shark by j05h on Sunday October 22, 2023 @11:13AM (#37976058)
Kagi is fantastic. I rarely use anything else now. Mostly if I’m on a browser I have yet to configure.

I’m surprised I normally stay within the $5 plans limits, but when I’m regularly above I’ll gladly bump to the next tier.

Re:Tell HN: DuckDuckGo Search Results have jumped the shark by ozyschmozy on Sunday October 22, 2023 @11:17AM (#37976100)
I'm on the same boat. Used to g! most of my queries with ddg. Since switching to kagi, I've fallen back to Google for only a few queries, and I think only one or two had better results
Re:Tell HN: DuckDuckGo Search Results have jumped the shark by Kuinox on Sunday October 22, 2023 @11:21AM (#37976143)
The first days, I compared to google the results. But since I customised the result to boost/lower site I want, I never looked back.
Re:Tell HN: DuckDuckGo Search Results have jumped the shark by setheron on Sunday October 22, 2023 @11:24AM (#37976179)
Kagi uses CrystalLang. Wow. Didn't know it was used anywhere in production
Re:Tell HN: DuckDuckGo Search Results have jumped the shark by makeworld on Sunday October 22, 2023 @11:25AM (#37976186)
Where'd you see that?
Re:Tell HN: DuckDuckGo Search Results have jumped the shark by Nextgrid on Sunday October 22, 2023 @01:15PM (#37977182)
Re:Tell HN: DuckDuckGo Search Results have jumped the shark by lukas099 on Sunday October 22, 2023 @11:27AM (#37976199)
I do not regret switching to Kagi.
Re:Tell HN: DuckDuckGo Search Results have jumped the shark by rolisz on Sunday October 22, 2023 @11:43AM (#37976346)
Yes. Started using Kagi while they were in beta. When they launched the paid service I gave them my money right away. 10/10 strong recommend.
Re:Tell HN: DuckDuckGo Search Results have jumped the shark by rapind on Sunday October 22, 2023 @11:44AM (#37976356)
I’ve been thinking of switching to Kagi too so this is good to hear. My biggest concern is that they’ll eventually sell out and flip on their current privacy policy as we’ve so many other tech businesses do.
Re:Tell HN: DuckDuckGo Search Results have jumped the shark by rolisz on Sunday October 22, 2023 @12:32PM (#37976821)
They will lose pretty much all their current users when that happens.
Re:Tell HN: DuckDuckGo Search Results have jumped the shark by JohnFen on Sunday October 22, 2023 @12:07PM (#37976597)
Anything's possible, but they're good right now. If they stop being good in the future, then it's not hard to bail and switch to something better.
Re:Tell HN: DuckDuckGo Search Results have jumped the shark by ajdude on Sunday October 22, 2023 @11:50AM (#37976409)
Once they brought back the unlimited searching, I jumped on board and couldn't be happier. I only had to use "!g" to get live baseball scores. The quality is fantastic and I cannot recommend them enough
Re:Tell HN: DuckDuckGo Search Results have jumped the shark by karaterobot on Sunday October 22, 2023 @11:53AM (#37976438)
I've been using Kagi since the beta, and used DDG for years before that. I would not switch to Kagi for search result quality. It is fine, but has never blown me away. I would switch to it for privacy, for not being the product, and for certain UX features they support but Google never would (like being able to map reddit.com -> old.reddit.com, or being able to block or downrank content from search spam sites like Pinterest)
Re:Tell HN: DuckDuckGo Search Results have jumped the shark by TradingPlaces on Sunday October 22, 2023 @12:37PM (#37976856)
Me. The best $10 I spend every month. Amazing what happens when you are the customer, not the product.
Re:Tell HN: DuckDuckGo Search Results have jumped the shark by potatoman22 on Sunday October 22, 2023 @12:45PM (#37976934)
I switched to Kagi a month ago, and it's fine but the experience of using it doesn't live up to the hype IMO. You don't really "feel" the privacy benefit, so it's just a paid search engine that mostly lines up with Google's quality.
Re:Tell HN: DuckDuckGo Search Results have jumped the shark by nunez on Sunday October 22, 2023 @01:46PM (#37977481)
kagi is amazing for non-technical searches. i'm going to go back to it once they figure out location-aware searches and improve results for non-technical searches.