The Paid Search Engine Promising Privacy & Unbiased Results
Internet search engines only seemed to be what was best for you and me, and giving us what we are looking for. Now search engines do not want to guide you to information on the internet. Instead, they want to be the “source” of this information, and this is not an incentive to have a good experience.
All this is motivated by the hunger for income, but would you be ready to pay money to have a search engine that simply gives you what you ask, without the invasions of nonsense and intimacy? A service called Kagi promises exactly that, so I signed up for a free trial to see what it is.
Kagi is a search engine with subscription fees
Let us first do the biggest question – what will it cost us? There are three basic individual plans: the starter ($ 5 / month), the professional ($ 10 / month) and the ultimate ($ 25) per month.
All these options include the Kagi AI function, but only the ultimate includes “premium models”. The cheapest option limits you to 100 searches per month. It is certainly not enough for me, but according to Kagi, most people do an average of 100 research per month, and it should therefore be good for most people. There are also family plans and teams, and it seems that in any case, you can save a little money by paying an annual subscription instead of monthly – so far for the course.
If you pay, are you the product?
Now, just like you, I already pay far too many subscriptions, and it is particularly exasperating when you start to pay for a service that was both free and good. However, just like Youtube, only the free part is always true. This is why I started paying for YouTube Premium years ago and I didn’t look back. It is a precious service that I use every day for work and leisure. The suppression of the so-called “hindrance” of YouTube is worth it.
Now, I’m starting to feel the same thing about Google Search himself, so what does Kagi promise to do if I disembark more than $ 5 or more? Well, above all, you will not see any ad. Second, you get control over research results. So if you get a poor quality website, you can report it and you won’t get it anymore.
Kagi uses AI, but unlike Google, you can choose how and when to use it. If a search result seems promising, you can click on a button and the AI assistant from Kagi will summarize it and draw key facts. An “AI preview” is not pushed to your face without you asking.
According to Kagi’s documentation, the search engine uses independent “non -commercial” indexes and allows you to personalize your research without your data being sold to third parties. Of course, we can only speak of Kagi for any service provider, but that’s what you get for your money. This says it a step above confidentiality search engines like DuckduckGo, which depends on Bing for part of its search indexation.
I tried the trial and I liked
I signed up for the free trial, which gives you 100 research for free and, honestly, that is what I remember the Google search results that look like in the good old days.
No stuffed animals, and as far as I know, the results are quite decent and comparable to what I get in place in Google. It does not do so well when I try to look for something like restaurants near me, but factual research, it is an experience without friction. I have not yet used 100 research, but I can already be used Kagi for facts and use Google for more commercial purposes such as purchases.
Search should not be a free service
I think we must withdraw from the state of mind that certain Internet services should Be free. It may seem weird to pay for internet research, but the Internet is not what it was five years ago. Search for giants like Google, and maybe it is the only one that is Really A giant felt blood in the water, and they want all these sweet incomes to remain internally.
Using IA previews, the engine takes content created by people like me, and serves it to you, while depriving the creators of the income that would have been due to them if someone had visited the site. Meanwhile, you get a treated version of this content which could be completely false, even dangerously.
For me, it means that the value of the service has dropped so much that “free” is too high a price to pay.
Could it be the solution to the AI research apocalypse?
Services like Kagi and Perplexity are a good sign if you ask me, as it means that there is a gap on the market that has ridiculed infested advertising engines like Google. Ideally, the vast majority of people would opt for an agreement where they pay a small sum of money for internet research which tries to give them the best results without hurting them, whether through violations of confidentiality or disinformation.
Free search engines would then become the Internet equivalent of public toilets. You use them because you have to do it, not because it is your first choice. And it looks like an even more appropriate metaphor now, because the Google search results page reminds me more of the cliffing on a bathroom wall than the clean and useful public service it was.
