• illusory@lemm.ee
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    2 hours ago

    Using Kagi genuinely makes me happier, if only because I don’t have to look at a ton of garbage before I find what I need. It’s pleasant to use.

  • tenchiken@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 days ago

    I’ve used them about a year and glad to see this kind of improvement. They are not perfect but still much better than the free options so far.

    Only concern I’ve had has been around the AI stuff they are providing… So far it’s optional and a separate piece from the normal search. Time will tell there I suppose.

  • ikidd@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Does anyone still think their data isn’t being sold even if they pay for a service? Plus now it’s associated to your payment information. These are the same guys that spent all their runway funding on Tshirts, I don’t think they’re the sharpest knives in the drawer.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      22 hours ago

      Does anyone still think their data isn’t being sold even if they pay for a service?

      Very possible they’re too small to have a meaningful contingent of buyers. But I wouldn’t bank on it.

      • ikidd@lemmy.world
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        21 hours ago

        Apparently we’re in the minority. Everyone here is sure it’s all aboveboard and shipshape.

      • ikidd@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        I’m not fathoming what Privacy Pass gains you, it’s tokens generated from your account, the chain of possession is obvious throughout. The tokens get used up and removed from your account and the logged-in browser extension generates more, but there’s no “privacy” involved there.

        Fair enough on the crypto.

        • theblips@lemm.ee
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          1 day ago

          The tokens can’t be traced to the account and are batch generated so you can’t be deanonymized by correlation. They aren’t stored in the account, but locally, in fact Kagi can (and they say they will) just sell the tokens directly, as they aren’t linked at all to an account

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      19 hours ago

      It is funny to see people relentlessness stanning a paid service that’s built on a notoriously fraud prone crypto stack, then getting paranoid about something about as sophisticated as Lexus Nexus because it’s hosted out of Evil Country.

      I hope nobody here bothers to interogate where their torrents are being hosted from too closely.

    • MadBigote@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      I’m not a spy or part of the government, but Yandex is Russian… I tried them like 10 years ago, but I wouldn’t take my chances with them.

      • toastmeister@lemmy.ca
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        23 hours ago

        Its a search engine, what are they going to do, give some guys search history to Putin?

        I generally use it for finding streaming sites.

        • MadBigote@lemmy.world
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          22 hours ago

          Yandex has plenty of services just like Google. They have an email service, cloud storage, etc.

    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      22 hours ago

      I’ll only switch to yandex if it’s obvious that Google (via startpage) is censoring my results. Or if I’m looking for a torrent or something.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      20 hours ago

      I love to mock people who use the library by shouting “If you’re not the payer then you’re the product!”

      Westerners are so baby-brained on this shit. Kagi can take your money and still spy on you. Yandex can not take your money and still not bother caching your search history, because there’s no good way for them to monetize it. Nevermind GitHub or Wikipedia or literally any other public good being hosted on any website anywhere.

      The delusion that you’re safe using a free service is matched only by the delusion that you’re protected because you paid someone money.

    • douglasg14b@lemmy.world
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      23 hours ago

      More like yes please, I get better results and better customization, and no ads or paid results.

      It makes my life easier and speeds my workflows up. And unlike free alternatives I almost never find myself reverting to Google.

      • knexcar@lemmy.world
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        22 hours ago

        If free alternatives make you Fever to Google, why not just use Google? It’s always free

    • RandomVideos@programming.dev
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      1 day ago

      There is a free trial and there was 1 month for free 2 months ago. You can try it and see if you think its worth the price

      I tried it and i personally believe its not worth the price, but testing it is better than just refusing the concept from the start

      • arakhis_@feddit.org
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        2 days ago

        freemium pls :cry:

        although good freemium examples like proton mail for example seem too good to be true with free vpn and all the jazz. always such a shady feeling when using such services

        • Da Bald Eagul@feddit.nl
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          1 day ago

          They have a trial for 100 searches iirc. And they also occasionally share referral links to subscribers that are 3 month premium subs to share with friends so they can try

      • Jrockwar@feddit.uk
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        2 days ago

        That’s only when doing business with corporations, but there’s also the option of open source (e.g. SearxNG).

        Or do you consider yourself the product when using Lemmy?

            • dgdft@lemmy.world
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              22 hours ago

              If you’d like to give away any free toasters with hackable embedded microcontrollers to prove your point here, I’m a willing recipient and will attempt setup of a searx instance.

    • kibiz0r@midwest.social
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      2 days ago

      Fine for you. I’m just glad there’s an option besides “sell your soul” and “invest hundreds of hours and dollars into self-hosting”.

    • MoonlightFox@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Upvoted.

      I have a counterpoint to those claiming that paid are better. By using a privacy oriented search engine, then they don’t know exactly who you are. In theory just your IP. Maybe fingerprinting.

      When paying they know exactly who you are. You have to trust them.

      So in one case you can protect yourself, in the other you have to trust them.

      Also, Kagi also uses the Russian index Yandex 😑

        • ikidd@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago
          1. Log into browser extension with kagi account

          2. generate tokens

          3. use said tokens

          How does this ensure privacy? The tokens are associated to your account from the start.

          • kibiz0r@midwest.social
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            19 hours ago

            There’s a link in the second paragraph to the technical details, including source code for the implementation and documentation for the required infrastructure.

            But the tl;dr is that the tokens aren’t associated to your account. Unless you were able to snoop on the original request that generated the tokens (in which case, you’ve got bigger issues!), there’s no way to prove that a token is related to a specific account. A token only proves that an authorization server once granted access to some account.

            Edit: Wikipedia has a good intro:

            Non-interactive zero-knowledge proofs are cryptographic primitives, where information between a prover and a verifier can be authenticated by the prover, without revealing any of the specific information beyond the validity of the statement itself.

            Edit 2: You should not be catching downvotes. You had a reasonable question.

            • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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              18 hours ago

              There’s a link in the second paragraph to the technical details

              I’m reminded of this mindset from the crypto scam surge.

              Points at technical documents

              “Well, it says it’s secure so quit arguing that it’s not secure”

              Typically followed by

              “If someone traced you/robbed you, then you were just doing it wrong”

              Like, we’ve got high level white house officials feeding national security secrets to the Israelis because they just blindly implemented a “secure” Signal extension. So I guess I shouldn’t be surprised people don’t look past the cover.

              But come on. “You can just buy some tokens and then you’re secure” is painfully naive.

              • kibiz0r@midwest.social
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                17 hours ago

                I’m out here trying to answer reasonable questions techie folks might have about the most promising possibility I’ve seen so far for getting our normie families off of Google.

                What are you here for? Calling people naive pseudo-scammers? Get out of here.