The ability to block SEO garbage sites like GeeksForGeeks and not filling the first 3-5 results with ads is worth it alone. Not to mention the ability to boost certain sites results over others on a personalized level. Unfortunately for me, I end up regularly going over the "Pro" tier of searches a month (partially because I accidentally search all the time, but also I'm heavy search-engine user) is a bit of a letdown. At least they have an option to purchase additional searches instead of going up to the rather expensive unmetered tier.
> I end up regularly going over the "Pro" tier of searches a month (partially because I accidentally search all the time, but also I'm heavy search-engine user) is a bit of a letdown.
I hadn't considered this aspect of Kagi yet. I'm not a subscriber at this point, but I am strongly considering it. But I use search instead of typing domain names directly to avoid the typo phishing style attacks. I wonder how much "artificial" search that would generate based on my typical usage.
Bookmarks were my obvious answer as well, but bookmarks are annoying to me. I don't like managing them and I don't like having the bar visible and I don't like having to remember to use the bookmark for things that have a bookmark, and the addressbar for things that don't have a bookmark.
It's a work-around, not an actual resolution, unless you already happen to like using bookmarks.
This is my approach: address-bar autocomplete only uses bookmarks as suggestions (well, and open tabs). I almost never open my bookmarks, nor feel the need to organize them. I'm really pleased with the way Firefox has implemented that autocomplete: by default, Firefox autocompletes the domain names (with typeahead) while you're typing, while full bookmarked url's are just a down-arrow away, sorted by most recently used. It means I never have to bookmark bare domain names: as soon as I have a page bookmarked on a domain, Firefox will also allow me to quickly navigate to the bare domain site. And for individual pages, I can just type two or three letters (not necessarily the first few) to directly identify the page that I want to go to.
Obviously that means I'm using split url/search fields in the address bar, or that wouldn't work as easily. I also heavily use Firefox' keyword search to avoid doing a round-trip through a search engine if I already know which site I want to search; mostly using the same prefixes that DDG uses, so I don't need to adjust too much if I find myself using a different computer.
I have actually already split my address and search fields too, for a different reason. I got aggrevated with having the local machine names on my lan perform a public search, even though my local dns is configured to use only my opnsense router, which does resolve the local names correctly. Splitting off the search box makes the local names always do only what DNS says, and so I get my 3d printer instead of search results for it's name.
For that particular problem, going to "truenas" or "unifi" etc on my lan, the bookmarks are actually more convenient in nmost cases I have to admit! Especially with half of the services needing some special port number like unifi and jellyfin etc.
I use Kagi all the time for this kind of thing, and always wondered if it might be an issue. But in reality I don't actually end up using as many searches as I thought I would, like at most it's 30 a day (according to Kagi's stats), and even that only adds up to ~900 searches in a month. Always assumed it would be higher since I'm constantly searching stuff for my job, but I guess 30 is kind of a lot when you think about it.
So this may not be as big of an issue as you think. Should also keep in mind that higher search quality means you don't have to search as much in the first place, which leaves a larger buffer.
Alternatively you could just use "hashbangs" to search domains via google (!g), since I don't believe those cost you anything.
I haven't used bookmarks or even had the toolbar visible in 20 years, but only because of kagi I now had to add a bookmarks toolbar back, populate it, and consciously remember to use it for anything that it has, and only use the address bar for things it doesn't have.
This is not the worst thing in the world, but it is annoying to me and not a life upgrade.
Maybe the search results are better enough to make it worth it (on top of also paying money), or maybe not. I'm still determining that, but it's question and not a slam dunk.
I don't understand the pricing. (Well, I do understand, I understand that it's the same anti-consumer gimmick as gym memberships.)
On the $5 tier it's 1.7 cents per search for the first 300, then 1.5 cents after that. As expected I blew past the 300 before the month was out and am currently sitting at a total of almost $9 for this month and there are still 3 more days to go, and this includes being away for labor day weekend and only using my phone (without kagi) for a couple days, and this is after populating and using a bunch of bookmarks specifically to cater to the fact that I now pay for searches. And this is only my laptop. I have not used kagi on my phone or anything else yet.
I haven't used bookmarks in 20 years and don't particularly want to. I normally don't even have the toolbar visible but now I had to un-hide it and add that clutter back to my browser.
So I'm both paying money and contorting my usage pattern.
I guess now that the first month is about done, I can say it looks like I should go up to the $10 plan, where the searches are only 1 cent, but only for the first 1000, and only if I actually use all 1000! If I pay $10 and only do 250 searches that month, then they weren't 1 cent were they?
As much as I like it, I don't know if I'm going to keep it.
I will not pay $10 or $25 just to have it sitting there available "in case", and I apparently will at least some times (who knows how often? every month? 3 out of 12?) will blow past the $5 an end up paying $10 anyway.
If I complicate my usage to cater to kagi so that my default is ddg and just invoke kagi sometimes when I feel like it would help, then I'll probably forget it exists most of the time and do about 10 per month and pay 50 cents each. Probably only one or two months of that and I'll just decide it's not worth $5 for a handful of searches and just cancel it.
The only way it will be useful for me is if it can just be the default search that I don't have to worry about.
They should just figure out whatever the fair per search price is and bill that.
The stupid tiers are probably going to drive me off.
You shouldn't need to be counting them. It was a necesseity to make sure we stay in business. We figured out ways to reduce costs in the meantime and we will be going back to $10/mo for unmetered searches this month.
I appreciate that. As long as you're still hashing things out I'm willing to give it more time. I really like the small web concept. What I would like most is not even $10 unmetered, or even $2 unmetered, but simply $n per transaction, as long as you are obviously doing the work of counting them anyway.
$10 unmetered must always be a fallacy anyway. Surely I can't start up "bkwsearch" and sell searches for 3 cents each, and pay you only $10 for my million$ skin.
So I say don't even pretend.
Except really there probably needs to be both options, because some people value predictability more than any specific amount. So $10 or $20 or any number that never changes is better (for them) than paying only $2 on average but unpredictable each month.
I neither want to pay $10 for $2 worth of usage, nor soak you for $30 worth of usage while only paying $10. Even more than that I don't want to have to think about it to make sure if I choose the N tier that I'm making more or less full use of the N tier.
I appreciate that you took the time to read an individual users complaint, whatever you end up doing. Thanks.
> I end up regularly going over the "Pro" tier of searches a month
I'm now halfway through my billing period (22 aug - 21 sep) and I'm on 488 searches. Would be tight on the pro plan (1000 searches), but I'm still on the early adopter pro plan (1500 searches).
