This is why we need competition, and to stop the big guys from buying the small guys. This is trying to innovate for the customer, making search better for my areas of interest and desires. One of the few subscriptions that make me very happy.
Thank you Kagi folk that hang out here.
Kagi is becoming the new google. Same thing, offered in a new package. If there are 100 good results for a query, why always show the same results in the same order?
Because of their “we serve the results as is and you customize the results yourself” policy?
Kagi doesn’t have search history of any of their users, so they can randomize them at best, which makes no sense.
Another interesting thing to note in the recent release[0] is that they now have an Android app in the Play Store, and it will pave the way to include Kagi in the default search engine list for Android and Chrome.
> Additionally, a recent EU ruling presents a significant opportunity for Kagi. Google is now required to include any search engine that meets specific criteria, such as having an app with over 5,000 installs, in the default list for Android and Chrome.
Why would an app be a requirement for a search engine? To me it would make more sense to be aligned with how many users the search engine has. 5,000 unique per month, or whatever.
I have the Kagi app on my iPhone, but just so it can be an extension in Safari. In a perfect world, I would be able to go into the settings, add a custom search engine, and be done with it. No app or extension needed. Then when it hits a threshold it can be added as an easy option for people to pick from a list.
> Why would an app be a requirement for a search engine?
Because otherwise you can’t use it as a default search engine on the platform, because it doesn’t allow it. Same for iOS. They had to write an app to intercept search requests and redirect to Kagi.
They've seemed very focused on their AI assistant recently, so I'm happy to see a useful new search feature.
Happy to see that custom bangs work (eg a discourse forum I visit), but eventually I'd like to specify how far along the path to "snap".
I'd like my @javadoc to hit `site:docs.oracle.com/en/java/javase/23/docs/api/` instead of the current `site:docs.oracle.com`.
I would normally agree. But Kagi's AI thing doesn't annoy me in ways it does in other products. End a query in a "?" to get a quick summary with links to the sources. Normal search results below.
We do currently have a field to override the domain used for snaps (the `ad` field in the bangs repository[1]) which doesn't have much validation and is useful for situations like this. It's possible we'll expose this for custom bangs in the future, but for now I can add that as a bang to the main repository, as it seems like it would be generally useful.
[1]: https://github.com/kagisearch/bangs?tab=readme-ov-file#bang-...
Check the latest release notes for all search improvements that went out in this release:
I have stopped to pay Kagi because their obsession to employ AI everywhere.
They are much more level headed about it, and they openly say that “AI is a tool and addition to search. Kagi is fine without it”. For their rationale, see “LLM Features” page in their help, which is linked at the bottom of Kagi Snaps page.
I don’t use any LLM features of Kagi, and it’s not hindered in any way.
I am leaving Google because the AI crap.
Do snaps offer any advantages over site:whatever.com?
Marginally quicker to type:
@r vs site:reddit.com
After a few tries, I also find the first more intuitive.
Chrome has had a similar feature for many years. Arguably quicker because you can assign any key press(es) you like. For example I have mine setup such that typing ‘drive foo’ searches Google drive for the term foo. I had kagi as my default search engine but had Google easily available as a back up by typing ‘g <search term>’ in the address bar.
Unfortunately, having both search engines easily available led me to discover as much as I like Kagi I just use google more, despite its ads. Google is faster to get answers to simple questions (it usually answers them on the results page, without another click) and shows more results, although you need an extension for the latter.
More info on how to set up these shortcuts here: https://superuser.com/a/1806652
> Google is faster to get answers to simple questions (it usually answers them on the results page, without another click) and shows more results, although you need an extension for the latter.
Kagi has a quick answer feature: https://help.kagi.com/kagi/ai/quick-answer.html
If you add a question mark to the end of your query, it uses an LLM to generate an answer using the first few results (with citations to the sources).
It's nice too. I have several "Snaps" before snaps existed, i used `!red` for `site:reddit.com`/`!sub rust` for `site:reddit.com/r/rust` searches and whatnot. `@red` will be a lot easier!
It appears to be a UI thing, but it's an excellent UI thing: it reuses familiar bangs and has an autocomplete/discovery mode for new bang codes.
Less typing
This is nice.
I previously made a custom bang for reddit to do exactly this. I guess I can delete that now and do the same thing on every site without all the setup.
Kagi is so nice. They give me the power to do these things on my own, while adding it in natively so over time less and less setup is actually needed.
Kagi is one of the few subscription I don’t think about cancelling on a weekly basis.
Great feature! Kagi is awesome.
See also the settings for personalized results - block useless domains from even appearing.
https://help.kagi.com/kagi/settings/personalized-results.htm...
This looks cool but is too similar to "site: reddit.com" for me.
What would be super awesome, imo, would be if I could assign "some sites" as a short code, then snaps that.
So for instance, I might put html, phoenix, CSS, and tailwind spec/references all as one grouping, and then I can search "select drop-down @phoenix" - and search for that across all references (so I can see the html spec alongside the tailwind and phoenix docs)
You can create a custom lens that includes those sites and point a custom bang at it.
For example I have a custom QT lens that only includes results from [*.qt.io, *.stackoverflow.com, *.github.com...] and a !qt bang pointing to it at https://kagi.com/search?q=%s&l=8
(you'll have to change the l= id to point at your lens)
You can already do that with Kagi lenses (if I understand you correctly)
Bangs are nice on the browser but Alfred is faster and more intuitive. I’m combining them
I wish there were Alfred alternatives for other operating systems
Awwww, yeah. One of my favorite features just got a lot better in a way that seems totally obvious now that I’ve heard about it, but hadn’t even occurred to me until then. I’m a very happy user, coincidentally wearing the shirt they sent me.
I expect this in search engines. I have to test this for searching websites with difficult to use search like Reddit or the Nike website.
Bangs but better
See also: DuckDuckGo's Bangs - https://duckduckgo.com/bangs
Kagi has bangs. This is different. It's a shortcut for "site: somesite.com", while a bang just redirects to the somesite.com search results page.
Now add a snap for local search in my machine and it's all I have ever wanted :)
Sick idea. We’ll need an OpenSearch or equivalent cluster indexing your local fs right? Can we do this just in browser (and would we even want to)?