Welcome to Kagi, the paid search engine full of surprises, which today opened an account in the Fediverse!

@fediverse

@kagihq is the very interesting project for a paid search engine, without tracers and with an accuracy in identifying results such as to exclude all Google spam.

Those who believe that #Kagi's costs are too high, should reflect on a small detail: if Google lets all those searches be done "for free", who pays those costs? The answer might seem simple: "advertisers".

Yet this would be an incomplete answer: like saying that rain is caused by clouds!

In reality, those costs are paid by users, by being milked and letting Google extract their "value", a bit like in the human farm in Matrix...

We first heard about Kagi on the @lealternative website (unfortunately, since then the prices have increased a lot, raising many doubts about the sustainability of the project) and recently Cory Doctorow also talked about it on @pluralistic

In any case, we are really happy that a service like Kagi's, effective and respectful of users' privacy, has landed here in the #Fediverse.

mastodon.social/@kagihq/113074…

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[-] viking@infosec.pub 110 points 1 week ago

I've tested kagi and agree that the search results are great. What I don't like is that it's making anonymous searching impossible, since I have to be logged in to use it (or use my unique token as part of the url for mobile searches).

Ultimately this means to me that in a private window mode (or even logged out with a fingerprinting resistant browser) I do not have the same degree of anonymity I enjoy even when using Google, let alone DDG or others.

I like the idea of not being dependent on google, but exposing my entire search history to one single entity is not my answer of choice.

[-] Lemmchen@feddit.org 18 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

If you think search engine giants like Google can't track you when you're not logged in, you think wrong.

[-] viking@infosec.pub 28 points 1 week ago

I'm using a browser setup hardened against fingerprinting, block all known trackers, and cookies are barred from cross-site activity.

Might not be impossible to track me regardless, but at least I'm not giving them everything with a chef's kiss on top.

[-] red@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 week ago

Afaik blocking trackers makes your browser stand out more. You can't avoid fingerprinting, so best bet is to hide in the masses - so as close to most common resolution and default settings etc.

[-] FeelzGoodMan420@eviltoast.org 2 points 1 week ago

Well you either hand them your data directly with no hassle on a silver platter, or you hope that your fingerprint doesn't stick out enough for them to be 100% certain. Pick your poison.