A couple of years ago, around 2019, I wanted to download Audacity, a free audio editor, for a school project. I used Google to search for it and clicked on the first link that Google showed. It wasn’t sponsored, it looked like the real deal. But when I downloaded it, something weird struck me: The installer had an option to add a toolbar. I mean, 2019 is a couple of years back now already, before the pandemic and all. I’d argue that probably most people at that point in time did not install custom toolbars for their browser anymore. That’s when I realized that the download probably wasn’t official.

Ever since that day, I have made it a habit to not download apps through Google search. I used to go to the Wikipedia page for a relevant application and then download it from the link there. Later, I switched to mainly only using WinGet to install applications and started using an ad blocker (specifically, AdGuard), so that Google’s sponsored links wouldn’t come to hurt me at night. Later on, SEO became an issue, but that’s what we have the mandatory “reddit” parameter to be appended to every Google search for, right?

Well, that worked for around, let’s say, four years. Then, we started having different issues:

The advent of GeNeRaTiVe AI, and Google’s enshittification:#

So… We all decided to re-define the term AI and make it mean something completely different than what it used to stand for. Yippie. Translating webpages is very cool! You know what’s not cool? Making me suffer through AI-translated Reddit posts that forcibly translate posts into German because of my IP address, not taking into account that I am well capable of understanding the English language. This may be an amazing tool for someone that doesn’t speak the language, sure. After all, I used to use auto-translated subtitles on YouTube when they first arrived in the mid-2010s. But now, this often works as a foil to me, making me understand less than what I would’ve if I had just read the post myself because of losses in translation.

I am not the only person complaining about this in Germany, by the way: YouTube has enforced an automatic synchronization policy, where instead of asking a user to opt into auto-synchronization, YouTube will always auto-dub videos into another language if you’re viewing from an IP address that isn’t based in an English-speaking nation.

The advantages of Kagi, to me:#

I’ll steal the bullet points from their marketing, but I’ve added a small sentence to each point on how this affects me.

  • No ads whatsoever - Kagi is completely ad-free, which means no sponsored results trying to trick me into downloading malware disguised as legitimate software
  • Privacy by design - Unlike Google, Kagi has to sell me their engine: It’s a subsciption, that I can opt-out of at any time. If I dislike how I have to use their service, that just means that I will stop paying Kagi. Selling a product, not my data, further helped by:
  • Customizable search results - I can actually block or boost specific domains, to get rid of Ad-Infested sites (if you live in Germany, you’ve surely had one of those banners before that make you choose between receiving either all trackers or to pay for a subscription, that by the way still doesn’t remove the trackers)
  • No forced AI translations - AI translations are availiable, but Kagi doesn’t pretend that a Website is in another page than it actually is

After 30 days I’ll be posting here about my experience! ’til November!

Also…

…they have a cute dog mascot, his name is “Doggo” apparently. He’s in the post banner!

This is a personal experience report with no commercial partnership with Kagi.
All information is provided without warranty.
No liability is assumed for linked external content.

Image Credit: Kagi’s Official Press Kit