the need to trust DDG or Mojeek is removed if you use a VPN and private browser properly
This makes sense, as you have to trust Kagi no matter what, while with free search engines you can protect yourself with a private setup, requiring less trust.
I guess it really depends if you are having an activist in mind, who can’t afford any privacy lapses and has a complex threat model - then this makes sense.
But an average internet user that has an interest in privacy, probably won’t have a sophisticated tech setup and has to trust Brave etc. anyway. For that user, Kagi is a great option.
I don’t know, wanting to perform a search disconnected from your regular identity/profile every once in a while I feel like is a fairly common occurrence for a lot of people. Kagi lets you do a session link to get search working in incognito mode, but that links the incognito session to your main account, which defeats the purpose a bit.
Not sure what you mean, the trust required for a service provider is inherently different than trusting software you use.
That is true! But only relevant if you assume that Kagi links all searches to your account., which it claims it does not.
Exactly! If you have advanced IT knowledge, you can use privacy preserving software and verify the code. Digital privacy is very hard, and thus beginners must resort to trusting providers, as they can’t be expected to run a complex setup on their own. This group won’t use tor on a whoenix vm to access Brave search. They will just use their regular browser. Which then makes it trivial for Brave to track and tie together a user’s searches, even without account.
Off-topic: Kagi claims to have become profitable now, which is positive news if it’s true [1]. Their business model appears to be successful so far, unlike past paid search engines such as Neeva [2]. I’m unsure if the same can be said for Brave Search.
Additionally, I would like to reiterate that Kagi has shown little interest in integrating enhanced privacy-friendly features in the past. If they would offer anonymous registration and payment, they could easily address privacy concerns regarding their requirement for registration in comparison to alternatives such as Brave Search or Startpage. I see little reason why this could not work for their service.
Right now, it seems that their primary target audience is individuals seeking an ad-free search experience with extensive customization or access to a variety of LLMs, rather than privacy-focused users. While this is totally acceptable, it just doesn’t align with the type of service that should be recommended by Privacy Guides.
I got quite the opposite impression. Their privacy policy is highly unusual, in the sense that it actually is informative, reveals a lot about their infrastructure and thus can be verified. It is also one of the reason I use them: they take privacy serious and also offer private access to LLMs such as GPT4o & Claude 3.5. From their privacy policy:
Searches are anonymous and private to you. Kagi does not log and associate searches with an account.
We do not log or store your IP address. Your IP address is used only temporarily when enriching location/maps searches, and is not shared with any other party.
We only store cookies needed for site functionality.
We do not use any web browser analytics or other frontend telemetry.
We do not display any ads, or have any first-party or third-party tracking in service of ads.
We do not share customer data with third parties, except as needed to perform explicitly accessed services. In those cases, we will share the minimum amount of data needed to provide the service, and will do so in an anonymous way.
We collect only the data needed to provide and protect the service.
We proxy all images to prevent tracking from third parties.
We use HTTPS encryption everywhere. All passwords are hashed and salted.
The notion that Kagi caters primarily to users that don’t want ads is highly questionable. Kagi isn’t mainstream yet and its users tend to be more techsavy. They know how to use an adblocker, and same as with me, that is not the reason to choose Kagi. It is about search quality. Google Search is getting more enshittified by the day, and even if i block all ads, the results are still working against me and my interests. Kagi feels like the early, pre surveillance capitalism Google Search, which is magic!
It’s all about incentives, and Kagi’s are aligned with its users, while Google is aligned with its advertising customers.
Yeah similar to me. I do trust Kagi on the privacy side of thing, but one of the main reason I use it is that is provide a very good and solid search but without those promoted 3/4 link at the top that make me waste so much time when I search.
It is also much more consistent than DDG in the results.
Only thing I really miss is some card like in google when searching for event etc… but other than this is provide a very viable service that is a bit expensive indeed, but I feel like it’s pretty worth it if you want to avoid Google.
I recently asked Kagi for their response to a hypothetical situation: what would they do if they were served with a gag order requiring them to track a specific user’s activities, such as their IP addresses, going forward?
Here is their response:
It is hard to answer a hypothetical scenario, that would depend on the details of the event and applicable laws.
We are committed to maintaining transparency with our users which includes updating our warrant canary to reflect any changes in our ability to report such requests.
It is important to clarify that I am not well-versed in Kagi’s specific legal jurisdiction or the laws that apply to them. I am unsure whether a service like Kagi could legally be compelled to monitor a user’s activities or IP addresses.
In my view, this response feels candid and vague, but aligns with my expectations. I genuinely believe that Kagi operates with a default policy of not keeping logs, but there remains an inherent risk to some individuals that they might be obligated to do so, much like Proton Mails recent situations (yes, this is a different scenario). This raises a noteworthy concern regarding the drawbacks of utilizing a service that requires user registration in contrast to those that can function without. An account could theoretically be linked to particular actions, whereas this likelihood diminishes significantly when using a service that doesn’t mandate any form of registration.
While I really like Kagi, I still argue that it does not necessarily excel in terms of user privacy when compared to alternatives like Startpage, DuckDuckGo, or Brave Search. Additionally, it’s important to remember that search quality is a subjective matter that may influence choices, but it should not overshadow the privacy considerations when making recommendations on Privacy Guides.
It’s a US based company, so they could be compelled of course. That’s also why they have a warrent canary i guess.
While it says privacy guides, most seem to confuse this with anonymity. For my threatmodel, privacy is enough. That’s why I use Proton services, as they provide privacy (not anonymity). Same applies to Kagi.
That’s true, but applies to every service that uses an account. Again, this really depends on the individual threatmodel. For mine, it ain’t an issue, i’m not trying to protect against foreign spy agencies. Also, there is no direct tie to my Kagi account (unique email alias, paid via XMR → BTC). While of course not bulletproof or anonymous, that protection is good enough for my threatmodel.
For those with extreme threatmodels (seeking anonymity), sticking with free search engines accessed via TOR is the way to go.
But for more regular users, Kagi offers a great service with an aligned business model and privacy.
Preference for a certain search engine is of course subjective, but for search quality there are objectively worse options. When a service is sufficiently enshittified, you see less and less results you actually searched for, and more and more results based on what the advertisers want you to see. Thus, not delivering on its main purpose - search - the engine is objectively worse.
This is not so much about anonymity versus privacy. It is just that privacy guide has a general philosophy that it is preferable, that you’re private with technical means (1) rather than a privacy policy, which we have no way of verifying its true.(2)
(1) : No account, and IP linkability broken by VPN or Tor
(2) Kagi did pass a security audit, but it didn’t concern the “no-logs” policy.
I haven’t had any issues using Brave Search without Google. I’ve found it to be better than DDG and Startpage which I used extensively for a year or two in DDG’s case and a few months for Startpage before switching to Brave. Now i use Brave Search almost exclusively and consistently get what I’m looking for without hassle. I see no reason to pay for Kagi when Brave is working so well for me.
I think the only part that is subjective about search quality is whether or not it immediately shows information you want to know.
The quality of a service is often perceived as higher by users when its performance aligns closely with their expectations. However, individual preferences differ quite a bit. Search quality can also vary depending on your geographic location. If we look at the last five responses in this discussion, it’s clear that many forum members have diverse opinions on which search engine they prefer. For this specific reason, it would be more beneficial to focus on the privacy aspects of search engines for our purposes rather than their search quality.
Privacy Guides currently recommends three different services (four if you include SearXNG). I believe it’s quite likely that at least one of these services will meet the expectations of the majority of users.
Always? Google doesn’t require an account but I would hardly say it’s more privacy respecting than Kagi.
Anyhow, the solution here would be for Kagi to have an independent audit to verify if they do store user data or not, but going by their privacy policy is good enough.
I would in fact take google over kagi. Eith the right measures to orevent fingerprinting etc it would be more private. It depends on your goal. Also we have other ecommendations and thats more what my reaction was targeted towards.
Brave Search has a subscription model too, DuckDuckGo results have got bad and if you search for articles/news most of the time you are redirected to msn, StartPage got bought by an ad company.
What search engine would you suggest to use that is still good?