113 pointsby aleksi6 hours ago17 comments
  • ldoughty5 hours ago
    This is why we need competition, and to stop the big guys from buying the small guys. This is trying to innovate for the customer, making search better for my areas of interest and desires. One of the few subscriptions that make me very happy.

    Thank you Kagi folk that hang out here.

    • lofaszvanitt4 hours ago
      Kagi is becoming the new google. Same thing, offered in a new package. If there are 100 good results for a query, why always show the same results in the same order?
      • bayindirh3 hours ago
        Because of their “we serve the results as is and you customize the results yourself” policy?

        Kagi doesn’t have search history of any of their users, so they can randomize them at best, which makes no sense.

      • NetOpWibby2 hours ago
        > Kagi is becoming the new google

        Kagi has exclusivity deals with trillion-dollar corporations and a monopoly on search?

        • nozzlegear2 hours ago
          That seems like a particularly bad faith interpretation of their assertion.
          • illiac78610 minutes ago
            I disagree. What makes Google Google nowadays is their size. For example, they are full of AI results because these sites optimise until they show up in Google results first pages. Why, because Google owns the largest share of the search market.

            Kagi has 30k subscribers, it is totally uninteresting to these AI results farms. This is just one example, but I hope you see my point. I cannot see Kagi beginning to compare to Google.

            I think what OP meant was that he dislikes kagi’s search algorithm on a specific ground that also happens to apply to Google. The way it’s phrased is pure trolling though, or clickbait if you prefer.

  • prophesi5 hours ago
    Another interesting thing to note in the recent release[0] is that they now have an Android app in the Play Store, and it will pave the way to include Kagi in the default search engine list for Android and Chrome.

    > Additionally, a recent EU ruling presents a significant opportunity for Kagi. Google is now required to include any search engine that meets specific criteria, such as having an app with over 5,000 installs, in the default list for Android and Chrome.

    [0] https://kagi.com/changelog#4813

    • al_borland4 hours ago
      Why would an app be a requirement for a search engine? To me it would make more sense to be aligned with how many users the search engine has. 5,000 unique per month, or whatever.

      I have the Kagi app on my iPhone, but just so it can be an extension in Safari. In a perfect world, I would be able to go into the settings, add a custom search engine, and be done with it. No app or extension needed. Then when it hits a threshold it can be added as an easy option for people to pick from a list.

      • bayindirh3 hours ago
        > Why would an app be a requirement for a search engine?

        Because otherwise you can’t use it as a default search engine on the platform, because it doesn’t allow it. Same for iOS. They had to write an app to intercept search requests and redirect to Kagi.

        • al_borland2 hours ago
          I suppose. Since there was a threshold to cross, I was assuming the search would need to get baked in as an option natively.

          I tend to like how Firefox does it, where any search the user goes to, there is an option to add it as a search option and set it as the default. This should be the standard all browsers use. Junking up a phone with apps just for what is ultimately a setting change isn’t ideal.

          The hacks Kagi has to do for Safari is annoying. They’ve gone so far as to make their own browser to make it better, though I’m sure that’s not their only reason. I’ve had some issues with the Safari extension over the years. I hope Apple changes their approach on this.

  • denismi5 hours ago
    They've seemed very focused on their AI assistant recently, so I'm happy to see a useful new search feature.

    Happy to see that custom bangs work (eg a discourse forum I visit), but eventually I'd like to specify how far along the path to "snap".

    I'd like my @javadoc to hit `site:docs.oracle.com/en/java/javase/23/docs/api/` instead of the current `site:docs.oracle.com`.

    • nobodywasishere4 hours ago
      We do currently have a field to override the domain used for snaps (the `ad` field in the bangs repository[1]) which doesn't have much validation and is useful for situations like this. It's possible we'll expose this for custom bangs in the future, but for now I can add that as a bang to the main repository, as it seems like it would be generally useful.

      [1]: https://github.com/kagisearch/bangs?tab=readme-ov-file#bang-...

    • freediver5 hours ago
      Check the latest release notes for all search improvements that went out in this release:

      https://kagi.com/changelog#4813

    • gherkinnn3 hours ago
      I would normally agree. But Kagi's AI thing doesn't annoy me in ways it does in other products. End a query in a "?" to get a quick summary with links to the sources. Normal search results below.
    • delduca4 hours ago
      I have stopped to pay Kagi because their obsession to employ AI everywhere.
      • bayindirh3 hours ago
        They are much more level headed about it, and they openly say that “AI is a tool and addition to search. Kagi is fine without it”. For their rationale, see “LLM Features” page in their help, which is linked at the bottom of Kagi Snaps page.

        I don’t use any LLM features of Kagi, and it’s not hindered in any way.

      • delduca4 hours ago
        I am leaving Google because the AI crap.
  • create-username5 hours ago
    Bangs are nice on the browser but Alfred is faster and more intuitive. I’m combining them

    I wish there were Alfred alternatives for other operating systems

  • chrisweekly5 hours ago
    Great feature! Kagi is awesome.

    See also the settings for personalized results - block useless domains from even appearing.

    https://help.kagi.com/kagi/settings/personalized-results.htm...

  • noident6 hours ago
    Do snaps offer any advantages over site:whatever.com?
    • frereubu5 hours ago
      Marginally quicker to type:

      @r vs site:reddit.com

      After a few tries, I also find the first more intuitive.

      • nomilk3 hours ago
        Chrome has had a similar feature for many years. Arguably quicker because you can assign any key press(es) you like. For example I have mine setup such that typing ‘drive foo’ searches Google drive for the term foo. I had kagi as my default search engine but had Google easily available as a back up by typing ‘g <search term>’ in the address bar.

        Unfortunately, having both search engines easily available led me to discover as much as I like Kagi I just use google more, despite its ads. Google is faster to get answers to simple questions (it usually answers them on the results page, without another click) and shows more results, although you need an extension for the latter.

        More info on how to set up these shortcuts here: https://superuser.com/a/1806652

        • throwup2383 hours ago
          > Google is faster to get answers to simple questions (it usually answers them on the results page, without another click) and shows more results, although you need an extension for the latter.

          Kagi has a quick answer feature: https://help.kagi.com/kagi/ai/quick-answer.html

          If you add a question mark to the end of your query, it uses an LLM to generate an answer using the first few results (with citations to the sources).

      • unshavedyak4 hours ago
        It's nice too. I have several "Snaps" before snaps existed, i used `!red` for `site:reddit.com`/`!sub rust` for `site:reddit.com/r/rust` searches and whatnot. `@red` will be a lot easier!
    • zorked5 hours ago
      It appears to be a UI thing, but it's an excellent UI thing: it reuses familiar bangs and has an autocomplete/discovery mode for new bang codes.
    • louthy5 hours ago
      Less typing
  • drekipus5 hours ago
    This looks cool but is too similar to "site: reddit.com" for me.

    What would be super awesome, imo, would be if I could assign "some sites" as a short code, then snaps that.

    So for instance, I might put html, phoenix, CSS, and tailwind spec/references all as one grouping, and then I can search "select drop-down @phoenix" - and search for that across all references (so I can see the html spec alongside the tailwind and phoenix docs)

    • throwup2385 hours ago
      You can create a custom lens that includes those sites and point a custom bang at it.

      For example I have a custom QT lens that only includes results from [*.qt.io, *.stackoverflow.com, *.github.com...] and a !qt bang pointing to it at https://kagi.com/search?q=%s&l=8

      (you'll have to change the l= id to point at your lens)

    • freediver5 hours ago
      You can already do that with Kagi lenses (if I understand you correctly)
  • al_borland4 hours ago
    This is nice.

    I previously made a custom bang for reddit to do exactly this. I guess I can delete that now and do the same thing on every site without all the setup.

    Kagi is so nice. They give me the power to do these things on my own, while adding it in natively so over time less and less setup is actually needed.

    Kagi is one of the few subscription I don’t think about cancelling on a weekly basis.

  • ubutler3 hours ago
    I had already started using Kagi to create bangs that run searches like “site:reddit.com %s” but glad to see this made even easier!
  • oatsandsugar6 hours ago
    I expect this in search engines. I have to test this for searching websites with difficult to use search like Reddit or the Nike website.
  • Melatonic2 hours ago
    Love Kagi - so worth it
  • ur-whalean hour ago
    Doesn't Google already do that with the site:blah.com keyword ?
  • apearson6 hours ago
    Bangs but better
  • kstrauser3 hours ago
    Awwww, yeah. One of my favorite features just got a lot better in a way that seems totally obvious now that I’ve heard about it, but hadn’t even occurred to me until then. I’m a very happy user, coincidentally wearing the shirt they sent me.
  • JacobHenner5 hours ago
    See also: DuckDuckGo's Bangs - https://duckduckgo.com/bangs
    • changing19995 hours ago
      Kagi has bangs. This is different. It's a shortcut for "site: somesite.com", while a bang just redirects to the somesite.com search results page.
    • 5 hours ago
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  • juujian6 hours ago
    Now add a snap for local search in my machine and it's all I have ever wanted :)
    • rank05 hours ago
      Sick idea. We’ll need an OpenSearch or equivalent cluster indexing your local fs right? Can we do this just in browser (and would we even want to)?
  • calmbonsai2 hours ago
    "Snaps is an exclusive Kagi Search feature that allows you to easily limit search results to a specific website..."

    WTF is this marketing bullshit?! Default Google Search is useless now and I'm rooting for Kagi, but this "exclusive" untruth is decidedly NOT the way to "win".

    Google's "site:<domain>" search has been around for years: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/monitor-debug/sear...

    Not related, DuckDuckGo's "bangs" https://duckduckgo.com/bangs which has, likewise, been around for years.

    *sigh*

    • ajdudean hour ago
      It clearly shows in the example that @r translated to "site:www.reddit.com" in their resulting search- I did not read "supporting domain search in general" as being Kagi specific.

      The Kagi specific part is /easily/ searching a site in Kagi.

      The whole point here is that they are extending the already supported bangs[1] to search the domain with "@", thus if "!r" exists to redirect to Reddit's search, you can use @r to search Reddit within Kagi.

      Of course I could type "site:Reddit.com" that's what I've been doing for years, including on Kagi, but easily doing that with @<bang> seems exclusive to Kagi.

      [1] Kagi maintains an open source list of supported bangs here, you can even do a PR to add even more: https://github.com/kagisearch/bangs

    • 2 hours ago
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