That's not what Kagi does. Nor does its "Small Web" search mode, as it only searches blogs that have been manually added to a specific GitHub repo (so for most part is a collection of US tech blogs - not very diverse at all)

No VC-backed or commercial search engine would do what OP is talking about. But I can see a use for a niche search engine that ranks websites inversely proportional to the number of trackers and ad networks they depend on. Heck, I would pay for that, but I'm a nerd.

Maybe marginalia.nu would like this idea.

What’s the reason that search engine would ask for a login? (Like Kagi does)

bitcoin is traceable. not a false equivalence at all. Search history is kept tied to a profile/semaphore/data lake and then also tied financially to the way you pay, as well as the devices you use.

When data is collected, it will be trolled through for anything and everything. Absence of data is just as unique. The only way is to blend into the masses generically.

Free engines have a very hard time differentiating me from the mass of other web traffic.

I compile my own browser to make it that way though, even my phone doesn't register an overnight location, and runs GrapheneOS.

Importantly this should be a fundamental right of every person not just those that have the money and expertise to enforce it. The data collection shouldn't be allowed, its the equivalent of quartering a digital soldier in every home (something forbidden by the constitution).

Any business funded and dependent on arbitrary preferential loans (from the printer, regardless of how indirect) is state-run and nationalized industry, and should be bound by the same constitutional requirements of government.

I take my privacy seriously because of my job, and the indisputable fact that sensitive roles get targeted.

The part where you might be wrong is the part where Reddit does it. IIRC they have been “working really hard on a better search” for Reddit for…15 years? Every couple years spez will pop up and claim they almost have it!

I wouldn’t hold my breath.

No doubt. Search still struggles to measure intent from the content creator PoV.

In China, there's WeChat, which is basically the everything app, from chat, to food delivery, to ecommerce, payment, and even navigation. Normally, that would violate App Store guidelines, but they are dominant enough in the Chinese market that Apple caved in and granted them special permissions.

Don't forget indoctrination and demoralization for thought reform as well. Beams marxist reeducation right into every teen's life in subtle ways.

There's good reason its being considered a national security threat when all user data is being shipped through China, and their businesses are a government partnership.

Political Warfare and Subversion are real and difficult issues to deal with given our 'open' society.

> When was the last time you saw someone actually using the address bar in a web browser instead of Googling?

I used to laugh when people Googled a websites name instead of entering it manually. But these days, I find myself often either Googling (or DuckDuckGoing usually, but as a verb that just doesn't have the same ring to it)for the name, or relying on autocomplete from my bookmarks or history.

I feel website names have become less predictable mainly because of the explosion of possible top level domains: even if I know the exact name of a website, I can't reliably remember which TLD to use. Plus I'm more and more worried of accidentally using the wrong URL (through a misspelling or a wrong TLD or whatever) for fear of ending up on some scam site instead of the real thing.

> everything about what makes a computer tick has been abstracted away

It’s always been abstractions. Even when we didn’t know it. (We mastered the technological use of transistors before we understood why they work.)

> people today just don't care.

When did people 'care'? Complex technologies have always been pushed on people. Regulation, consumer protection etc. is supposed to be the informed, delegated 'caring' filter.

The interesting long-term dynamic is that the problem is self-correcting. If you use amazing technologies to breed masses of addicted, exploited idiots instead of informed empowered citizens, eventually your walled garden will collapse onto itself.

> When was the last time you saw someone actually using the address bar in a web browser instead of Googling?

I see the guy in the mirror every once in a while, why?

I think its a fair point to say that most of humanity will probably be dead within 20-30 years. You have far more destructive people in positions that only make survival less likely, compared to the intelligent ones.

The people who made things work will die of old age or withdraw their support (on strike), LLM's will prevent new workers from developing the same expertise (since entry level positions will be removed).

Systems that have stood strong as oaks for centuries will suddenly fail, and with that collapse so too goes the food production.

Non-market socialist systems don't work, but you get those same systems during currency collapse (where ponzi outflows exceed inflows, or debt growth exceeds gdp).

No one knows a thing because socialism has done its dirty work, having captured academia over the past 50+ years, and indoctrinated the masses.

The benefits were front-loaded (as all ponzi's are), and it happened slow enough that no one noticed over multiple generations, and the generation that got the most benefit won't cede political power (they took power in the 1990s, and remain the majority today). They'll give it up only once its pried from the dead hands, which will come from natural aging.

Menticide from the Totalitarian state has a deleterious effect, making it harder for people to see the problems to take any action. Joost wrote extensively about this with regards to the Nazi's and Mao.

What we are seeing today is hubris and a natural consequence of ignoring lesson's learned.

The majority of people never did personal computing. Remember the Eternal September where internet users were saddened by hordes of normies messing up the net? I feel like there was probably a spike around the early 2000s in number of people doing personal computing. Since then it's gone back to normal. Most people aren't interested and have no need for it. Tiktok etc is just the new TV: something to mindlessly rot away in front of. We also need to remember that even those people who did use computers never used them how we use them. They used Windows and Microsoft stuff. Hardly in control of their own computing. Part of me is saddened by it, but then I wonder if that isn't the case for everything: cyclists are sad about all the cars, cooks are sad about all the ready meals etc.

Just try it, I guess. I was also sceptical and ran my own search engine and at one time I was even pitching people a paid indexing service that would allow people to self-host their search engine and by pooling money they gain world-class crawling.

But in the end, I noticed that for me, improving search results is mostly about suppressing garbage. Kagi lets me filter out Pinterest and some of the worst SEO spam farms. And with them gone, the results already feel much better.

I'd guess Kagi is popular here because they sell what people crave.

It really reminds me of Roam Research, which was also an overpriced, niche product that was unavoidable for quite some time in these circles. Now if you google it (or kagi it?) you just see a bunch of reddit posts asking if Roam is dead.

You'd think Kagi has millions of paying users, and not ~33k, seemingly half of which are on HN.

Hopefully this time around they don't actually start referring to their community as a cult like Roam did.

Didn't even know they were a ycombinator company and now that I do I like them a lot less.

I am not a sycophant. Just a happy customer. And happy to have the chance to be a customer, not just a data point. I love kagi trying to serve me, with actual usefulness, instead of serving some dark marketplace of advertisers that have no interest in my wellbeing.

Kagi is not a yc company. They're privately funded and their last round was for less than a million dollars and was from private investors

Maybe it's a good product or maybe they paid dang off. Two possibilities. Which one is more likely?