Comment by shevy-java

I directly use Yandex sometimes, because there are huge blind spots for all the US-based engines I'm aware of, and it fills some of them in.

If someone can point me to a better index for that purpose, I'd love to avoid Yandex. Please inform me.

There are few other powerful countries, with countless Web services, who freely wages war(s) on other countries and support wars in many different ways. Is there a way to avoid their products?

I find this amusing, because it seems like Kagi's target audience dislikes this (politically polarized), and I as someone who is not Kagi's target audience likes this (politically neutral).

I don't like defending Russia which is a horrible country, but I find it hypocritical to only talk about their imperialism and pretend not to see that the most imperialist country in the world, the one that has started, financed, and participated in the most wars, is the United States, and yet the question of boycotting American companies is never brought up. Google has been intentionally sabotaged in terms of image search and reverse image search; Yandex is literally the best on the market, but Kagi should boycott them because their headquarters are in the wrong country?

Yandex has the best image search, and others are years behind it. Further more Nebius has sold all group’s businesses in Russia and certain international market. They are completely divested from Russia for a 1.5 years already: https://nebius.com/newsroom/ynv-announces-successful-complet...

The post you linked was posted when the divestment was already going underway, so it is at least dishonest if not malicious.

Yeah I kept thinking "man I should try kagi" and then that :(

Damn. I didn't know that.

Now we need a 2nd Kagi, so we can switch to that one instead. :(

I don't agree with this logic. It implies that people who use Google, Bing and a million other products made by US-based companies are supportive of the huge amount of attrocities commited or aided by the United States. Or other countries. It feels very odd to single out Russia's invasion of Ukraine but to minimize the Israeli genocide of palestinians in Gaza, the multiple unjust wars waged by the United States all over the world etc.

Imo, Kagi is still the better option, because it isn't supporting the global surveillance mechanism we call advertising. All these people, missing the forest for the single yandex tree.

So if America invades Venezuela should we all stop using google? Should we have stopped using google when the U.S. invaded Iraq and killed 150,000 people[1]?

Should we stop using products imported from China for the cultural genocide they've perpetrated against the Uyghurs?[2]

Is Yandex Russia?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Uyghurs_in_Chin...

> "We do not discriminate based on current geopolitical issues."

That's one way of phrasing it.

Thank you. Didn't know that and was, until now, considering paying for a Kagi subscription.

I'm surprised this is possible given the sanctions on Russia.

Why's that something to be aware of? Yandex is actually a good search engine, so I'm told, as long as you don't search for things related to Russian politics. Kagi presumably knows this and won't use their results related to Russian politics.

Feels more like a scare campaign to me - someone doesn't want you to use Kagi, and points to Yandex as a reason for that.

Kagi is based in the United States, as is YC.

If you are concerned about heinous war crimes and the slaughter of civilians to the point that you don't want to use private services from countries that conduct such acts, you should avoid both already.

Meh. Most people, including myself, couldn't care less, and Yandex image search is very capable.

I remain amazed by the lack of attention given to this.

Regardless of one's position on the 'everything online is Russian propaganda, Russian bots or misinformation - invest in sickles and hammers, comrade / wtf just use basic common sense and the internet is as safe as it ever was' continuum, such universal enthusiasm for a Russian-owned, Russian-controlled search engine should generate a little more counter-argument, at the very least.

Absolutely no mention of Google, Bing, Startpage, DDG, or even Mojeek search engines usually pass online without somebody detailing the problems, flaws, or why they're not as good as the alternatives. Usually, at least 20% of the comments will be overtly critical, with at least 1 person passionately arguing that this search engine is going to destroy life as we know it / funds genocide / is an abomination unto God.

On open forums and spaces where a variety of users and tastes are represented, that minimum level of criticism usually applies to absolutely everything from movies to toothbrushing techniques to kids' TV to low-carb breakfasts. If more than 3 people care enough about something to discuss it, at least 1 of those people will hate it and feel the need to enunciate why.

Except Kagi. Kagi must enjoy the highest praise-criticism ratio of anything I've ever seen on the web, including concepts like sunshine and heaven and the eradication of polio.

Seriously. The only 'real' criticism I ever see of Kagi is like 'I personally don't like it because I don't think a search engine is worth more than $19.99' or 'unfortunately I need x feature', and it's always followed by a reply saying 'Ah, well Kagi is now available for $19.50' or 'you'll be thrilled to know that x feature can be enabled in Kagi by following these steps'.

And the occasional 'I don't use it because it seemed a bit wierd and wasn't worth it' comment languishing on the outskirts of the discussion.

So yeah. I do not expect this comment to stir much discussion, mainly because it's like 24 hours after the main debate and is on a pretty low-impact thread on hacker news from an uninspiring new ish account. But also because Kagi critical comments are written in sand, whatever the discussion or authority or audience.

That should make people more suspicious.

based Vlad tbh

What is UDM? Presumably the U is Urchin but what’s the rest?

By "turn it off" I mostly mean that Kagi have their own AI driven tools available, but a toggle in your user settings disables it completely.

ie it's not forced down your throat, nor mysteriously/accidentally/etc turned back on occasionally

It's driven by community ratings.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45919067

Also the full release of GPT-2 in late 2019. While GPT-2 wasn't really "good" at writing, it was more than good enough to make SEO spam

I didn't remember that, but it would explain the spam exponential grow back then.

Tbh, this sounds like a Google Easter egg.

Sure, but I think that the underlying assumption is that, after the public release of ChatGPT, the amount of autogenerated content on the web became significantly bigger. Plus, the auto-generated content was easier to spot before.

Certainly seems that way if you observed the waves of usability Google search underwent in the first 15 years. There was several distinct cycles where the results were great, then garbage, then great again. They would be flooded with SEO spam, then they would tweak and penalize the SEO spam heavily, then SEO would catch up.

The funny thing is that it seems like when they gave up it wasn't because some new advancement in the arms race. It was well before LLMs hit the scene. The SEO spam was still incredibly obvious to a human reader. Really seems like some data-driven approach demonstrated that surrendering on this front led to increased ad revenue.

I agree with your point, but you picked a poor example. Have you met any credit reward min-maxers?

Sites like Credit Karma / NerdWallet exist. While I think they are rife with affiliate link nonsense and paid promotion masquerading as advice, I'm also pretty sure they have paid researchers and writers generating genuine content. Not sure that quite falls into the bucket of SEO blogspam.

I had a coworker who kept up a blog about random purchases she’d made, where she would earn some money via affiliate links. I thought it was horrendously boring and weird, and the money made was basically pocket change, but she seemed to enjoy it. You might be surprised, people write about all sorts of things.

Yes, this is true. It was revealed in Google emails released during antitrust hearings. Google absolutely made a deliberate decision to enshittify their search results for short term gains.

Though maybe it's a long term gain. I know many normal (i.e. non-IT) people who've noticed the poor search results, yet they continue to use Google search.