This year has been extraordinary for Kagi ( https://kagi.com ).
Kagi is a paid alternative to ad-supported search engines like Google and DuckDuckGo. It has recently revised its pricing model, reducing the cost for a plan with unmetered searches from $25 per month to $10.
Kagi boasts the following (and more) features:
Blocking or boosting specific domains in your search results
“Lenses”, which are individual setting profiles (e.g. region locks, domain whitelists) that can be applied to search queries
All of the Bangs that DuckDuckGo has (e.g. type “!yt” in front of your query to immediately search on youtube.com)
Universal Summarizer, which works with any website, PDF document, YouTube video and more
This blog post goes into full details about Kagi’s capabilities.
DDG is just a wrapper around Bing and substantially worse than Google, smaller index and less up to date. Not needing a login doesn’t really guarantee you anything either, as they still can identify you by IP or device finger print if they want to. You basically have to trust their marketing that they don’t do that.
What makes Kagi interesting is that it’s actually right up there with Google in terms of results, while surpassing it in terms of features. Would I pay $10/month for Kagi? Nope. It’s good, but not magic. It’s still just regular Internet search and you’ll find most of what it finds with other search engines as well, especially when you hop between multiple. But if you want a better search engine and have the money, Kagi does feel like an upgrade, which the other alternatives just don’t.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: !technology@beehaw.org
A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.
Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.
DDG proves literally all of that false. Also just use AdBlock with it. Elaborate on it working in private browsing without needing to login.
DDG has ads in the search result. Laginis honestly a great service. You can easily filter results and it removes BS SEO spam…
DDG is just a wrapper around Bing and substantially worse than Google, smaller index and less up to date. Not needing a login doesn’t really guarantee you anything either, as they still can identify you by IP or device finger print if they want to. You basically have to trust their marketing that they don’t do that.
What makes Kagi interesting is that it’s actually right up there with Google in terms of results, while surpassing it in terms of features. Would I pay $10/month for Kagi? Nope. It’s good, but not magic. It’s still just regular Internet search and you’ll find most of what it finds with other search engines as well, especially when you hop between multiple. But if you want a better search engine and have the money, Kagi does feel like an upgrade, which the other alternatives just don’t.