Comment by freediver

Comment by freediver 6 days ago

15 replies

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We are focusing most our resources on search (which I hope you can agree, we are doing a pretty good job at). And it turns out search is not enough and you need other things - like maps (or a browser, because some browsers will not let you change search engine and our paid users can not use the service). Both are also incredibly hard to do right. If it appears quarter-baked (and I am first to say that we can and will definetely keep imporivng improving with our products), it is not for the lack of trying or ambition but the lack of resources. Kagi is 100% user-funded. So we need users, and we sometimes work on tools that do not bring us money directly, but bring us users (like Small Web, Universal Summarizer or Translate). It is all part of the plan. And it is a decade-long plan.

erinnh 6 days ago

I absolutely did not mean to imply that you did not want to improve the products.

I did assume that you are missing the resources for the many products you develop.

Its just very sad to show/recommend Kagi to people and then have them(or me) run into so many bugs, and sometimes product-breaking bugs. (such as Maps that I mentioned. because I would love to use Kagi maps, but its so broken that I just cant)

Would love to travel 10 years into the future of Kagi's roadmap.

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ryanisnan 6 days ago

You do not need your own browser. Keep Firefox alive.

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  • haarolean 6 days ago

    Mozilla is digging a grave for Firefox with its own hands, we need something else non-chromium, which Orion serves fine. I just wish they'd focus on fewer things as has already been mentioned, rather than producing many half-baked things.

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    • N-Krause 6 days ago

      I have high hopes for ladybird being our savior in this regard.

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  • freediver 6 days ago

    I beg to differ. The web does not need more ad-supported browsers. Orion is built for the users and paid for by the users.

    It stands against all that is wrong with the web today - advertisers and third parties tracking at every step - perhaps like Firefox used to do 15-20 years ago.

    We need more of Orion today, and more than ever.

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    • hedora 6 days ago

      Thank you for making Firefox plugins available for iOS.

      I pay for search, but not Orion. I assume you see that much of my paid Kagi search traffic comes from Orion, and put money into appropriate buckets.

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    • ryanisnan 5 days ago

      I think the community needs more browser options, sure, but I don't understand why Kagi needs Orion. It seems like a distraction to your core competencies. I'm curious if the writing is on the wall for search alone?

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lurking_swe 6 days ago

love the plan, but i’d suggest being more up front with users on how “finished” a product is.

With the maps example, you run into problems because of expectations. If you slap a BETA or ALPHA logo on the maps product, expectations will be lower, and people are more forgiving of issues while you continue improving the product. Or if it’s only good in the US (just an example), make it clear somehow when searching for addresses outside the US.

Just my 2 cents as a paying Kagi customer.

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  • freediver 6 days ago

    Interestingly we do not get a lot of bug reports for Maps on our feedback forum. And this is where we tend to go to look for problems to fix.

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    • esperent 6 days ago

      As a paid kagi user, that might be because I tried kagi maps once, went "yep that's crap" and from then on went to Google for any maps related search.

      However, I neither expect nor need kagi to have a perfect replacement for every single google product. I'd rather it focus on creating better versions of the things that google is bad at (especially basic search) rather than trying to provide bad versions of the things Google is good at (maps, translate).

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    • laserbeam 6 days ago

      As a kagi early adopter… why would I bug report on a feature I actively avoid using?

      I can totally recommend search to anyone, but I agree with others in this chat that most toys feel beta. I’m glad to have them but can’t recommend them.

      For maps, your goals of being ad free go against what I need from maps search. 90% of the time I search for restaurants, museums, businesses, opening hours, phone numbers of various local shops. People add that data to google, and not that many other maps services :(. That is where they advertise how to be contacted. Addresses and directions are really secondary to a maps search.

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    • carlosjobim 6 days ago

      Like others here are saying, Kagi maps is so far behind that I wouldn't bother with any bug reports or feedback. I tried it just now, was panning around in a region in Europe, clicked the "Hotels" button to see what it would present and get sent to a town called Hotels in Palestina with a Wikipedia description of what a hotel is...

      So the suggestion to slap a beta sticker over maps is a good one. Nokia, Microsoft and Apple have all tried to compete with Google Maps without succeeding. Do yourself a favour and start using the Google Maps API for Kagi Maps, that's probably the only way you can get all the important data. If the API is expensive, then charge more for maps. Kagi customers want the best product, and are willing to pay for it.

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    • Martinussen 6 days ago

      As an anecdatapoint, I have replaced the button with a redirect to Google maps. It's not worth trying to extract value from the Kagi one, I probably gave it a chance ~20 times and I don't think it did what I needed a single one. (In Scandinavia)

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    • dgacmu 6 days ago

      As a paying Kagi user, in my case, that's because I !g any query that I expect to give local results for, and I often go directly to maps.google.com for map results. The general search results are awesome, particularly in my tech bubble, since I don't have to see w3schools garbage and the like. Localized stuff, not so great, and maps I prefer to avoid.

      (Edited to add: Though perhaps I should give maps a try again. They seem to have gotten better since I formed my muscle memory.)

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