Kagi, the company behind a paid, private search engine1 of the same name, has announced it's bringing its Webkit-based Orion web browser to Linux. In a
An article about Kagi’s leadership, uncontroversially titled “Why I lost faith in Kagi.” If anyone has updates to add here, good or bad, I’d appreciate it.
Between the absolute blase attitude towards privacy, the 100% dedication to AI being the future of search, and the completely misguided use of the company’s limited funds, I honestly can’t see Kagi as something I could ever recommend to people.
…and I’m surprised this quote doesn’t mention the CEO, considering what the blog post has to say about him.
Ouf, you got me down a rabbit hole. I’ll start at the end, where I clicked on a comment of yours laying out why Andreas Kling and Brendan Eich are assholes. This FOSS tendency to support 100% meritocracy becomes a bullshit lie the moment some lead devs use their position to spread vile views, deny harmless PRs to improve phrasing etc.
I have yet to meet a single self-proclaimed “centrist” who isn’t just a racist/misogynyst/homophobe in sheep’s clothing.
Meritocracy enables sociopaths.
Well really it should be “Pure unadultarated meritocracy in FOSS development enables latent sociopathic behavior to come out unchecked in nerdy devs” or some such, but that’s not much of a slogan.
Anyhow, about Kagi & Vlad & the writer of this blog post (I really read it all) - I am always so skeptical about FLOSS trying to go financially sustainable. Usually people applaud it because they think it’s a solution to “slow development and clunky UIs”, and usually people like Vlad like to support that feeling without really committing to anything.
Also always interesting the lack of commitment when you press them about data collection. You can’t run a web app like this without data collection, and the distiction between personally identifyable, private, anonymised or anonymous is - facile because as legal terms they were coined by people who have no clue about fingerprinting and such.
All in all I’m glad with the road I have chosen in device & software usage and just like the Brave hype did not get me, neither will the Kagi hype or the next one.
Come on… this comes up every time Kagi gets mentioned anywhere. Someone is personally hurt by the CEO and is now in a crusade to spread bad karma about them.
As a product I really enjoyed Kagi for years and would still be my preferred search engine if I wasn’t switching away from US products and services. I am now using Qwant but honestly imo Kagi is pretty good and worth the money
I don’t see how your comment responds in any way to the criticism presented.
this comes up every time Kagi gets mentioned anywhere.
Because it’s relevant. Should I never share it because you’ve already seen it? What about those who haven’t? I haven’t seen Kagi properly address these issues. So I asked about newer developments I might’ve missed. No one volunteered any yet.
Someone is personally hurt by the CEO and is now in a crusade to spread bad karma about them.
The author clearly explains how they arrived at their stance, and it wasn’t just “hurt feelings.” I’m not claiming this was what you intended, but it feels like you’re trying to dramatize the criticism and downplay the issues rather than address them.
I also don’t see the crusade thing. They wrote down their thoughts, then others found and shared them. They’re not the ones posting in ycombinator, or here. It’s people like me, unaffiliated with them. We just think more people should know.
You finished saying you liked Kagi and think it’s good. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I don’t see how it helps here, either. I used Kagi for a short while and liked having more control over results, but… the issues remain. It’s beside the point.
The long and short of it is, Vlad wanted to get me on a call to discuss what he felt were “misunderstandings” in my post. I declined. He pressed a bit with more argument, I explicitly spelled out that I did not want to hear from him again. His response to “stop emailing me” was to write me a big essay arguing with my post (kind of, I’ll discuss this more). I sent one more reply reiterating for him to stop emailing me, and that was it.
This to me more sounds like I have made up my mind to not like this guy or his product and nothing will change this. This is personal and even most of the issues being discussed are nit pickings at details and fights on being right or wrong on things that really don’t matter
This to me more sounds like I have made up my mind to not like this guy or his product and nothing will change this.
That’s a really unfair reading of the situation. People aren’t obligated to listen to us and change their minds. As long as they’re willing, sure, do your best, but no means no. Vlad seemingly doesn’t understand no. That’s not good, and added to their previous insights, I can understand why the author wouldn’t want to enter a call with a such a person.
most of the issues being discussed are nit pickings at details and fights on being right or wrong on things that really don’t matter
It might help if you elaborate, but right now I can’t agree. For example, Vlad’s views on privacy and biases are kind of wild (no suicide hotlines numbers because they’re biased but also put LLMs everywhere) and that matters if you’re going to use his product to search information online (and possibly his e-mail service as well).
An article about Kagi’s leadership, uncontroversially titled “Why I lost faith in Kagi.” If anyone has updates to add here, good or bad, I’d appreciate it.
…and I’m surprised this quote doesn’t mention the CEO, considering what the blog post has to say about him.
Ouf, you got me down a rabbit hole. I’ll start at the end, where I clicked on a comment of yours laying out why Andreas Kling and Brendan Eich are assholes. This FOSS tendency to support 100% meritocracy becomes a bullshit lie the moment some lead devs use their position to spread vile views, deny harmless PRs to improve phrasing etc.
I have yet to meet a single self-proclaimed “centrist” who isn’t just a racist/misogynyst/homophobe in sheep’s clothing.
Meritocracy enables sociopaths.
Well really it should be “Pure unadultarated meritocracy in FOSS development enables latent sociopathic behavior to come out unchecked in nerdy devs” or some such, but that’s not much of a slogan.
Anyhow, about Kagi & Vlad & the writer of this blog post (I really read it all) - I am always so skeptical about FLOSS trying to go financially sustainable. Usually people applaud it because they think it’s a solution to “slow development and clunky UIs”, and usually people like Vlad like to support that feeling without really committing to anything.
Also always interesting the lack of commitment when you press them about data collection. You can’t run a web app like this without data collection, and the distiction between personally identifyable, private, anonymised or anonymous is - facile because as legal terms they were coined by people who have no clue about fingerprinting and such.
All in all I’m glad with the road I have chosen in device & software usage and just like the Brave hype did not get me, neither will the Kagi hype or the next one.
Come on… this comes up every time Kagi gets mentioned anywhere. Someone is personally hurt by the CEO and is now in a crusade to spread bad karma about them.
As a product I really enjoyed Kagi for years and would still be my preferred search engine if I wasn’t switching away from US products and services. I am now using Qwant but honestly imo Kagi is pretty good and worth the money
I don’t see how your comment responds in any way to the criticism presented.
Because it’s relevant. Should I never share it because you’ve already seen it? What about those who haven’t? I haven’t seen Kagi properly address these issues. So I asked about newer developments I might’ve missed. No one volunteered any yet.
The author clearly explains how they arrived at their stance, and it wasn’t just “hurt feelings.” I’m not claiming this was what you intended, but it feels like you’re trying to dramatize the criticism and downplay the issues rather than address them.
I also don’t see the crusade thing. They wrote down their thoughts, then others found and shared them. They’re not the ones posting in ycombinator, or here. It’s people like me, unaffiliated with them. We just think more people should know.
You finished saying you liked Kagi and think it’s good. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I don’t see how it helps here, either. I used Kagi for a short while and liked having more control over results, but… the issues remain. It’s beside the point.
This to me more sounds like I have made up my mind to not like this guy or his product and nothing will change this. This is personal and even most of the issues being discussed are nit pickings at details and fights on being right or wrong on things that really don’t matter
That’s a really unfair reading of the situation. People aren’t obligated to listen to us and change their minds. As long as they’re willing, sure, do your best, but no means no. Vlad seemingly doesn’t understand no. That’s not good, and added to their previous insights, I can understand why the author wouldn’t want to enter a call with a such a person.
It might help if you elaborate, but right now I can’t agree. For example, Vlad’s views on privacy and biases are kind of wild (no suicide hotlines numbers because they’re biased but also put LLMs everywhere) and that matters if you’re going to use his product to search information online (and possibly his e-mail service as well).