this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2024
67 points (67.4% liked)

Fediverse

28688 readers
675 users here now

A community to talk about the Fediverse and all it's related services using ActivityPub (Mastodon, Lemmy, KBin, etc).

If you wanted to get help with moderating your own community then head over to !moderators@lemmy.world!

Rules

Learn more at these websites: Join The Fediverse Wiki, Fediverse.info, Wikipedia Page, The Federation Info (Stats), FediDB (Stats), Sub Rehab (Reddit Migration), Search Lemmy

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Welcome to Kagi, the paid search engine full of surprises, which today opened an account in the Fediverse!

@fediverse

@kagihq is the very interesting project for a paid search engine, without tracers and with an accuracy in identifying results such as to exclude all Google spam.

Those who believe that #Kagi's costs are too high, should reflect on a small detail: if Google lets all those searches be done "for free", who pays those costs? The answer might seem simple: "advertisers".

Yet this would be an incomplete answer: like saying that rain is caused by clouds!

In reality, those costs are paid by users, by being milked and letting Google extract their "value", a bit like in the human farm in Matrix...

We first heard about Kagi on the @lealternative website (unfortunately, since then the prices have increased a lot, raising many doubts about the sustainability of the project) and recently Cory Doctorow also talked about it on @pluralistic

In any case, we are really happy that a service like Kagi's, effective and respectful of users' privacy, has landed here in the #Fediverse.

mastodon.social/@kagihq/113074…

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] viking@infosec.pub 110 points 3 months ago (14 children)

I've tested kagi and agree that the search results are great. What I don't like is that it's making anonymous searching impossible, since I have to be logged in to use it (or use my unique token as part of the url for mobile searches).

Ultimately this means to me that in a private window mode (or even logged out with a fingerprinting resistant browser) I do not have the same degree of anonymity I enjoy even when using Google, let alone DDG or others.

I like the idea of not being dependent on google, but exposing my entire search history to one single entity is not my answer of choice.

[–] Lemmchen@feddit.org 18 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (3 children)

If you think search engine giants like Google can't track you when you're not logged in, you think wrong.

[–] viking@infosec.pub 28 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I'm using a browser setup hardened against fingerprinting, block all known trackers, and cookies are barred from cross-site activity.

Might not be impossible to track me regardless, but at least I'm not giving them everything with a chef's kiss on top.

[–] red@sopuli.xyz 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Afaik blocking trackers makes your browser stand out more. You can't avoid fingerprinting, so best bet is to hide in the masses - so as close to most common resolution and default settings etc.

[–] FeelzGoodMan420@eviltoast.org 2 points 3 months ago

Well you either hand them your data directly with no hassle on a silver platter, or you hope that your fingerprint doesn't stick out enough for them to be 100% certain. Pick your poison.

load more comments (10 replies)