Yup, Google is actively hostile to small businesses, and every “update” to their search over the past decade has been a massive regression for product and info discovery for real-life users. I...
Yup, Google is actively hostile to small businesses, and every “update” to their search over the past decade has been a massive regression for product and info discovery for real-life users.
I highly recommend this Freakonomics interview with Google’s VP of Search from a year and a half ago: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/is-google-getting-worse/. They’ve got weak, inept leadership that’s completely detached from end-users - and the “our search us is fine; spammers have just gotten better!” cope vomited by Liz Reid Mayer is so transparently false when you look at cases like this article, where degradation is in search results is directly tied to a “core search update”.
Fortunately, I think Kagi is the redeemer that’s been needed, and even if they don’t succeed themselves, they’re living proof that a team of 3 engineers is more capable of delivering practical value than the entire search team of Google, despite all its resources and payroll.
To each their own, but I’m with Vlad on this one: they’re a team of three people and there are only so many indexing sources on the market. In fact, I think in utilitarian terms of net harm,...
I understand that this has affected many of you in a negative way, creating a sense of betrayal that's against the very ethos of Kagi. I want to address this and be crystal-clear: any semblance of support for discrimination is completely against our principles. The rationale behind our choice was purely based on technological merits and business strategy, including the quality and cost-effectiveness of the service, as well as a critical need for redundancy and diversification in our data sources. The decision was treated the same as getting results from Google or Yandex (to which different groups of users in our userbase object to for various different reasons).
To each their own, but I’m with Vlad on this one: they’re a team of three people and there are only so many indexing sources on the market.
In fact, I think in utilitarian terms of net harm, giving revenue to Google is the less-moral option. Brendan Eich is a twat, but Kagi money in particular isn’t going to make or break him.
The only honest conclusion for someone who wants to play the "morally right" card in the context of not paying immoral supplier of services is not to use any of the APIs. Anything else is finding excuses or looking at this once again from the US-centric individualistic perspective where gay marriage is a more important issue compared to the systemic damages of those companies (or funding the Russian military, or cooperating with the DoD).
The problem is, this brings us to only one possible conclusion: Kagi should use only its own scraper or a bunch of minor scrapers, destroying the quality and with it, the chance of ever succeeding. Strategically, it means allowing Google to keep dominating the market, which is also a reactionary position which will keep the status quo.
I'll still be giving them my money to make incremental shifts in the market.
I can understand your feelings here, but personally speaking as a queer person I would do everything in my power to not contribute financially to people who would take away my human rights.
I can understand your feelings here, but personally speaking as a queer person I would do everything in my power to not contribute financially to people who would take away my human rights.
Also totally understandable and justified feelings, but just to balance out the "as a queer person" energy in the universe: As a queer person I recognize that pretty much any purchase made under...
Also totally understandable and justified feelings, but just to balance out the "as a queer person" energy in the universe:
As a queer person I recognize that pretty much any purchase made under capitalism will eventually indirectly land some amount of money in the hands of someone who wants to take away my rights or who otherwise possesses moral failings that would make me not want to "fund" them in any way.
This is an unavoidable part of living in our modern society. Kagi is doing it for pragmatic reasons in order to remain competitive in a space that desperately needs competitors.
I won't sabotage good and necessary companies and force them to operate at a disadvantage by playing "six degrees of separation from bigotry" while at the same time not thinking twice about the waiter I tipped extra to that probably donated that tip to Trump's reelection campaign. Or any single public company I've ever done business with that's funneling magnitudes more directly to conservative campaigns as opposed to a single person with bad opinions.
The existence of evil forces you cannot measure does not mean that the evil forces you can measure are not worth fighting. Society only allows people like Eich to be entrenched because we allow...
The existence of evil forces you cannot measure does not mean that the evil forces you can measure are not worth fighting. Society only allows people like Eich to be entrenched because we allow them to be. You have to be the change you want to see in the world. By my measure my existence is more important than the existence of a slightly better search engine.
And I think the harm someone like Eich is capable of causing is incredibly less than the consequences of an entire culture relying on and using daily a singular search engine run by a measurably...
And I think the harm someone like Eich is capable of causing is incredibly less than the consequences of an entire culture relying on and using daily a singular search engine run by a measurably evil company like Google.
Brendan Eich is an immensely tiny fish in the world of conservative activists. As a privacy and consumer rights activist, Google is my mortal enemy and is causing more utilitarian harm on an unimaginable scale. Not to mention the societal gains of growing a tool and supporting a business model that helps people actually search the internet better when that is our primary way of gaining information about the world these days.
The amount of money I've put into vending machines in the last year alone has probably led to more money in the hands of republicans than a Kagi subscription ever will. The scale is too small and indirect for me to possibly get upset about in comparison to every other purchase in my life I haven't thought twice about, and I say that as a fairly conscious spender.
You act as if Google is the only option for search. It is not. And even if it were you have the option of blocking their ads to take away their source of income on that service. If you want to...
You act as if Google is the only option for search. It is not. And even if it were you have the option of blocking their ads to take away their source of income on that service. If you want to talk about inconsequential actions then your subscription to Kagi is also immeasurably small and indirect in relation to forming a threat to Google. You are fighting Goliath by blowing on dandelions.
Those exist, and there are less anglophone centric options like Yandex, Baidu, and Naver. And unfortunately we are getting to a point where the internet is so consolidated that we could avoid...
Those exist, and there are less anglophone centric options like Yandex, Baidu, and Naver. And unfortunately we are getting to a point where the internet is so consolidated that we could avoid general internet searches and use individual websites’ internal search engines instead.
If the goal is to minimize financial contributions to people who would take away your rights as a queer person, suggesting Yandex (Russian) and Baidu (Chinese) as alternatives is probably not...
If the goal is to minimize financial contributions to people who would take away your rights as a queer person, suggesting Yandex (Russian) and Baidu (Chinese) as alternatives is probably not ideal.
I completely understand your overall point though.
And the worst part is that Google is the only viable alternative to Apple in the mobile space. That's some 'rock and a hard place' decisionmaking to make there if you're concerned about...
And the worst part is that Google is the only viable alternative to Apple in the mobile space. That's some 'rock and a hard place' decisionmaking to make there if you're concerned about competition and freedom.
"Hmm I can choose the company that passively mines everything I do or the company that doesn't want me to have any control over my devices."
Which is why it is an absolute shame that less people supported Windows Phone back in the 2010's WP was way ahead of it's time. The UI, functionality, literally EVERYTHING was a superior...
Which is why it is an absolute shame that less people supported Windows Phone back in the 2010's
WP was way ahead of it's time. The UI, functionality, literally EVERYTHING was a superior experience to iOS and Android at the time IMO, with one significant limitation: App availability
In retrospect it's foolish, but as an example I remember the "shit" friends would give me for not having Snapchat, and the company did everything possible to keep itself from being on WP for reasons I'm not too sure about
It was a Microsoft product, and back in the 2010's that was a non-starter for many early-adopter folks like me. We saw (not incorrectly IMO) as Android being a path forward to weakening...
me. The UI, functionality, literally EVERYTHING was a superior experience to iOS and Android at the time IMO, with one significant limitation:
It was a Microsoft product, and back in the 2010's that was a non-starter for many early-adopter folks like me. We saw (not incorrectly IMO) as Android being a path forward to weakening Microsoft's dominance in the OS space. We had not yet become disillusioned with Google, and saw them as one of the few companies with the resources to push back. Especially since we were just now loosening the grip of IE's dominance.
Also its predecessor, Windows Mobile had numerous problems that also had failed to make waves in the featurephone space.
Also they were late to the game by a large enough margin to hurt...those numerous delays for launch were not winning any PR. Especially with HP backing out before the initial launch due to their acquisition of Palm. Nokia, Blackberry, and Palm were some of the biggest players in the mobile smart space...and they didn't want anything to do with it.
And the whole iPod/Zune thing was still fresh in people's minds....Apple had won the hearts, minds, and wallets of a generation, and lacking that integration with iTunes libraries was a non-starter for a lot of people. Remember, streaming music wasn't really a thing yet... Spotify didn't launch in the USA until 2011.
Microsoft would have had much better luck having tight integration in the enterprise space and pushing them as work phones...people hated carrying multiple devices.
The company behind it has made a multitude of questionable choices in the development of brave that go counter to their privacy and user-centric claims. Only to reverse course after significant...
The company behind it has made a multitude of questionable choices in the development of brave that go counter to their privacy and user-centric claims. Only to reverse course after significant negative press about these things.
Things like:
Adding referal codes to urls users typed.
A "donation" system where people could donate to creators. Except the creators themselves did not know they were involved and when they found out had no option to opt-out.
Implementing browser extension support from scratch and only support specific extensions. Which sounds fine in theory until you realize how they did so. Without involving the extension creator they would fork a version of the extension. Users would still go to the extension creator for support who couldn't fix a thing.
And a few more things. Every time the Brave team either is irked (but changes it anyway) or goes "oh, yeah we'll remove it in the future".
This consistent pattern over a period of several years has, to me anyway, shown that issues such as privacy are not a core part of their thinking but merely a marketing gimmick.
To be clear, from a technical point of view it is still a decent browser. If privacy isn't your main concern then you could still opt to use it, but given that privacy seems to be a concern for a lot of people using the browser....
I personally do use Vivaldi which was founded by one of the founders of the original Opera. https://vivaldi.com From wikipedia: As far as I am aware, it is one of the few Chromium-based browsers...
I personally do use Vivaldi which was founded by one of the founders of the original Opera.
Vivaldi began as a virtual community website that replaced My Opera, which was shut down by Opera Software in March 2014. Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner was angered by this decision because he believed that this community helped make the Opera web browser what it was. Tetzchner then launched the Vivaldi Community—a virtual community focused on providing registered users with a discussion forum, blogging service, and numerous other practical web services—to make up for My Opera's closure. Later, on January 27, 2015, Vivaldi Technologies launched the first technical preview of the Vivaldi web browser.
As far as I am aware, it is one of the few Chromium-based browsers where the company behind it actually puts the user first and does not use it as the product. For example, Vivaldi is pretty clear about their source of income: https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-business-model/
Vivaldi is great. Might still be the fastest Android browser out there, though others have caught up in the past year or two. It's a pity they don't support mobile extensions.
Vivaldi is great. Might still be the fastest Android browser out there, though others have caught up in the past year or two.
Thanks, that's very informative. I've been on Firefox for over a decade and have no intentions on switching, so I tend to ignore press from other browsers. I appreciate the explanation
Thanks, that's very informative. I've been on Firefox for over a decade and have no intentions on switching, so I tend to ignore press from other browsers. I appreciate the explanation
Here's the problem: Even if it starts like that, it'll eventually slide back to what we have now as pressure to become ever more profitable increases. Once they have sucked the advertising teat,...
Here's the problem: Even if it starts like that, it'll eventually slide back to what we have now as pressure to become ever more profitable increases.
Once they have sucked the advertising teat, they will never ween.
Nope, I'm with you or perhaps we're both cheapskates. I think search should be both free and high quality like the good old days. I understand there's a bit of sticking my head in the sand element...
Nope, I'm with you or perhaps we're both cheapskates. I think search should be both free and high quality like the good old days. I understand there's a bit of sticking my head in the sand element to that position, but it's just where im at right now
I think some one in the comments below had it right. Sure... it will start out that way. But with capitalism it will eventually slide to what google is now as the demands for making more and more...
I think some one in the comments below had it right. Sure... it will start out that way. But with capitalism it will eventually slide to what google is now as the demands for making more and more money and their dependence on ads to get money means they have to cave more and more to what advertisers want.
I think that I would pay money for search if it had elements of human curation. Say for instance, a company would pay money to people to investigate domains for the ads they serve or, how...
I think that I would pay money for search if it had elements of human curation.
Say for instance, a company would pay money to people to investigate domains for the ads they serve or, how clickbait their titles are, and how much SEO bullshit their pages contain, or if content is user-generated so that I can customize my search preferences based on those things. Sure, the small guys would be left out, but they arguably already are by the current web search environment.
I am really enjoying the curation tools Kagi gives me. Sure, like a decent adblocker, it takes time to develop and set up the lists and rankings, but then it really helps to weed out the clickbait...
I am really enjoying the curation tools Kagi gives me. Sure, like a decent adblocker, it takes time to develop and set up the lists and rankings, but then it really helps to weed out the clickbait and AI generated noise.
Not sure if I’d want someone else to do that for me, would just open up the whole pay for exposure dynamic again.
Can you elaborate on those curation tools? That's the sort of hook that might get me to switch, but they didn't seem highlighted on Kagi's site when I was looking into them a short time ago.
Can you elaborate on those curation tools? That's the sort of hook that might get me to switch, but they didn't seem highlighted on Kagi's site when I was looking into them a short time ago.
My understanding is you can select sites you want to see higher or lower in your results. For example, I want to see the fan run Yugipedia at the top of my search results instead of the Fandom...
My understanding is you can select sites you want to see higher or lower in your results. For example, I want to see the fan run Yugipedia at the top of my search results instead of the Fandom pages. It's also easy to block domains.
Sure. There is a little shield icon next to each result. Clicking on that opens up a dialog where you can rank the site the result is from, so that it gets weighted more heavily or blocked...
Sure. There is a little shield icon next to each result. Clicking on that opens up a dialog where you can rank the site the result is from, so that it gets weighted more heavily or blocked essentially. It’s on a scale so you have some granular point system.
Example use case: Looking up recipes or reviews. All those spammy sites just generating or scraping content get weeded out by a personal block list.
Another feature is lists that allow you to collect pages for certain topics. So you can focus on certain areas when looking for things that might return different results depending on context, eg compressors for audio context or for machines. To be honest, I hadn’t taken the time to fully dive into this feature since the results I am getting are generally good enough as they are in my general list.
Not sure how this compares to the competition, but I find Kagi’s time filter very good. Looking for recent news? Just show me results from the last 24 hours. Reviews for for some gadget? Only the last 6 months please. Works like a charm.
Ever since discovering them around 6 month ago, I made the jump and hadn’t looked back. It’s really well integrated with my browser on desktop as well as mobile and would be definitely in my top five utility subscriptions.
It really does seem like the sort of thing I'm going to end up using sooner or later. I wonder why they don't push that angle more, that's the sort of customization that would really help sell the...
It really does seem like the sort of thing I'm going to end up using sooner or later. I wonder why they don't push that angle more, that's the sort of customization that would really help sell the value imho
The HouseFresh website may be better than the others that they're criticizing, but it isn't obvious to me that they're better than Wirecutter. Here is their article about air quality monitors. The...
The HouseFresh website may be better than the others that they're criticizing, but it isn't obvious to me that they're better than Wirecutter.
Here is their article about air quality monitors. The reasons you should trust them are kind of weak: "I bought each of the devices on this list to test them in my home." This is a little suspicious: did they buy any more than the six devices they recommend? And it doesn't seem like they did much to test the accuracy or reliability of these sensors.
Compare with Wirecutter's article, which explains more about what you're getting, and their first choice is a free app.
They also explain that the products you can buy aren't very good; it seems they've mostly given up on them:
A lot of the air quality monitors we’ve considered over more than two years of research for this guide have too many credible reports of faulty sensors and connectivity problems for us to strongly recommend them. The M10 is distinguished by its simplicity, though, with a bright display showing particulate measurements (that we confirmed to be accurate), a tiny size, and a lack of Wi-Fi connectivity (a good thing in this case). It’s also affordable enough for you to keep your expectations relatively low—and there’s good reason for you to approach it that way. As with other inexpensive air quality monitors, its VOC measurement is dubious, and some buyers have reported that their M10 arrived damaged or failed within a few weeks.
I can confirm that. I bought the M10 (on Wirecutter's recommendation) and occasionally it just goes crazy. Fortunately rebooting seems to fix it.
(And while I'm on the subject, neither of these websites reviews AirGradient which is an open source, open hardware version that you can build from a kit or have them assemble for you. It would be interesting to know how well that one holds up. Maybe I'll buy it someday.)
I saw in some formerly reputable tech magazine review of like the 'top 5 air purifiers' rank a Dyson at the top because it looked pretty in their living room. Consumer Reports has a very detailed...
I saw in some formerly reputable tech magazine review of like the 'top 5 air purifiers' rank a Dyson at the top because it looked pretty in their living room.
Consumer Reports has a very detailed breakdown of air purifiers with test descriptions and the Dyson was dead last in all but like 3 categories. In particular, it was garbage at actually purifying air.
Bad reviews will always be bad reviews, but having AI-generated SEO garbage is just making that haystack larger.
PS, thanks for AirGradient. Also, for the USA people here's NOAA's air quality page and AirNow.gov. I believe there's a Home Assistant integration as well.
I was meant to post this article earlier today, so I've already written a summary. I don't want it to go to waste, so I'll post it here. However, I highly recommend reading the article,...
I was meant to post this article earlier today, so I've already written a summary. I don't want it to go to waste, so I'll post it here. However, I highly recommend reading the article, particularly for the images.
Summary
BuzzFeed, Rolling Stone, Forbes, Popular Science... what have they all got in common?
They all know the best air purifiers for pet hair and the best cooling sheets for hot sleepers; the best home saunas, best beard products, best gifts for teens, best cocktail kits. best. best. best.
But do they really know what's 'best'?
Search Engine Ranking
Sixteen or so 'Digital Goliaths' dominate the Google Search results. No matter what you google, the same publishers keep showing up at the top of the results page.
These big media publishers and their dubious 'best of’ product recommendation lists are ranked above independent sites that actually test the products they review. They recommend products without any firsthand testing, data, or evidence; often paraphrase Amazon listings; and sometimes even promote products from bankrupt or fraudulent companies.
For independent websites that put in time and effort to produce genuine reviews, this is a death knell. Their fates precariously hangs on the unpredictable whims of search algorithms, SEO, and ultimately, their placement on search engine results pages. Thus, any changes to those will impact their websites.
Product Reviews
Back in 2021, Google Search introduced the Products Review Update. After years of silence, they finally heard the pleas. Google will finally promote reviews that dedicated time, effort, and money into actually testing products, countering lazy publishers that haven't even seen the product. This sounds like a good thing, right?
Well... things didn't quite happen as expected.
This isn't to fault Google. Google's Product Review Update did really alter the search landscape; real review websites were rewarded, lazy publishers weren't. Naturally, these big media publishers weren't really happy at the loss of traffic; however, they had a trick up their sleeves.
Untrustworthy Product Recommendations
So, people don't generally start off with specific reviews of particular products. Instead, they need to determine which products are even relevant at solving the specific issue they need to solve. Whether that's a 'best of' list, Reddit thread, forum post, you'd need to start somewhere.
Unfortunately, savvy SEOs at big media publishers have discovered that they can create 'best of' product recommendations without dedicating time or effort in actually testing and reviewing the products they recommend.
"All they had to do was say what they needed to say to pass a manual check if it came to that."
By faking their experience with the product in bogus tests, quoting non-existent subject-matter experts, and exploiting the public’s trust in their brands, these publishers can trick Google and the public into believing their content is trustworthy and reliable.
They merely need to include the right things: E.g. "rigorous testing process", "our lab team", "[X Expert] we've collaborated with", "evaluated with [Y methodology]". Maybe even sprinkle some photos of post-it notes, tape measures, people holding clipboards.
Even when their content is manually reviewed by a Google human, how can one — as a non-subject expert — determine that these seemingly genuine recommendations aren't authentic?
The Web: Inundated
"Why trust us?
Popular Science started writing about technology 150 years ago... first issue in 1872... our mission to demystify the world of innovation for everyday readers... writers and editors [with] decades of experience... trustworthy voices... very best recommendations..."
-Popular Science, at the bottom of every article
Big media publishers have started to recognise the value of their brands. Trusted by people, privileged by Google. What better way to honour that value by pumping out 40 different pages of 'best of' recommendations for home cleaning products? Fully-tested by experts, mind you.
Huh, this Better Homes & Gardens article seems suspiciously similar to this Real Simple article. The photos seem to feature the same person with the same air purifier in the same room at the same time, just at different angles? Same photographer? Same 'expert'? What's going on?
Buzzfeed... is literally just the Amazon reviews copy and pasted. Reddit seems to have good discussion. However, the top comment links to another website... that is simply a word-for-word copy of the Real Simple article. Also, the Reddit account is banned, yet the comment somehow remains.
An aside: If this sounds like a nightmare, it honestly is. I've already given up on general web. But now? Even Reddit has been astroturfed to the abyss. Nowadays, I really don't know where to go for authentic product recommendations. /endrant
The Exploitation of Trust
"Private equity firms are utilizing public trust in long-standing publications to sell every product under the sun
In a bid to replace falling ad revenue, publishing houses are selling their publications for parts to media groups that are quick to establish affiliate marketing deals."
Two results below Buzzfeed, we've got Popular Science. Founded 1872, it was recently sold to North Equity LLC in 2020. In 2021, it switched to an all-digital format. In 2023, it stopped being a magazine altogether.
Gone are the days of its team of journalists and editors. Gone are the days of its lists of authentically tested products. Gone are the days of its truthfulness and trustworthiness. Every single Digital Goliath are pumping up their bottom line with affiliate earnings in lieu of their publications' reputations.
"The strategy of [these big media giants] for their publications seems to be to optimize resources and maximize profit.
However, most readers don't know this. Not only do they slap on a deceptive "Why Trust Us" text box on every product recommendation page, their page recommending Molekule air purifiers was created a month after the company had gone bankrupt. Hugely ironic.
Shouldn't Google Step In?
"We might one day see the first page of Google results full of copycat recommendations once they roll out their hacks across all their websites, including Verywell, People.com, Health.com, Travel + Leisure, Byrdie, MyDomaine, The Spruce, Lifewire, Southern Living, TreeHugger, Parents.com… and so many other top tier publications.
Oh, wait, that’s already happening"
Technically, these 'best of' lists are classified by Google as 'reviews', and should provide "insightful analysis, original research" instead of “thin content that simply summarizes a bunch of products, services, or other things”.
In reality, Google has a clear bias towards big media publishers. Sometimes, these sites outrank even brands themselves on their own branded keyword.
Independent Sites are being Killed through Inaction
"This situation just isn’t sustainable. Many independent sites will go out of business if this trend continues."
These Digital Goliaths are not only taking traffic away from newer independent sites like HouseFresh, but also from established websites such as GearLab. Despite producing product reviews based on unbiased, independent testing, these sites have witnessed a significant drop in their traffic in the past few months.
The result? A barren web full of investment firms and ‘innovative digital media companies’ that sell you bad products.
The Future
Recently, Sports Illustrated was outed in using fake AI writers for product reviews. The publisher blamed an outside company, AdVon Commerce.
This is illustrative of the future spearheaded by these Digital Goliaths / investment firms. Buy beloved magazines, shut down their print editions, turn them digital-only, fire the actual journalists who earned our trust, and outsource the affiliate part of their sites to external firms.
Everybody loses but the investment firm.
"Google won’t be the gatekeeper forever, but they are the gatekeeper now.
I don't remember the last time I've actually used Google to find something. I still use Gmail, Google Maps and Youtube although I've been considering to switch out Gmail - though currently that's...
I don't remember the last time I've actually used Google to find something. I still use Gmail, Google Maps and Youtube although I've been considering to switch out Gmail - though currently that's unlikely for some personal administrative issues(very long story).
Large parts of the Internet are slowly zombiefying itself through AI. Interestingly, if you know where to look at times (this site being an example) you can still get to nice places. Which reminds me of a phase Reddit went through, 5-10 years ago, where smaller, specific subreddits often still had good content and nice communities. The same thing appears to be happening to the Internet as a whole.
Whether that means that the current zombification of Reddit will happen on all of the Internet though, who knows? I'm expecting small communities to still be there. But they may be damn hard to find, 5, 10 years from now on.
The optimist in me really hopes to see a resurgence of smaller communities akin to the 00s Internet, but I'm not holding my breath. The monetary interests at play makes the Big Tech companies something of an Internet oligarchy. And small businesses, like the ones who made this article, are getting swallowed up. Consumer comfort and capitalistic investment are two rather strong forces under our current economic structures.
Sloth and greed truly are sins that hurt us all, I guess.
Yup, Google is actively hostile to small businesses, and every “update” to their search over the past decade has been a massive regression for product and info discovery for real-life users.
I highly recommend this Freakonomics interview with Google’s VP of Search from a year and a half ago: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/is-google-getting-worse/. They’ve got weak, inept leadership that’s completely detached from end-users - and the “our search
usis fine; spammers have just gotten better!” cope vomited byLiz ReidMayer is so transparently false when you look at cases like this article, where degradationisin search results is directly tied to a “core search update”.Fortunately, I think Kagi is the redeemer that’s been needed, and even if they don’t succeed themselves, they’re living proof that a team of 3 engineers is more capable of delivering practical value than the entire search team of Google, despite all its resources and payroll.
I have indeed seen the best results from a trial of Kagi, but I can't financially support them until they reconsider their use of Brave.
To each their own, but I’m with Vlad on this one: they’re a team of three people and there are only so many indexing sources on the market.
In fact, I think in utilitarian terms of net harm, giving revenue to Google is the less-moral option. Brendan Eich is a twat, but Kagi money in particular isn’t going to make or break him.
Interesting conversation but I like how it was put here:
I'll still be giving them my money to make incremental shifts in the market.
I can understand your feelings here, but personally speaking as a queer person I would do everything in my power to not contribute financially to people who would take away my human rights.
Also totally understandable and justified feelings, but just to balance out the "as a queer person" energy in the universe:
As a queer person I recognize that pretty much any purchase made under capitalism will eventually indirectly land some amount of money in the hands of someone who wants to take away my rights or who otherwise possesses moral failings that would make me not want to "fund" them in any way.
This is an unavoidable part of living in our modern society. Kagi is doing it for pragmatic reasons in order to remain competitive in a space that desperately needs competitors.
I won't sabotage good and necessary companies and force them to operate at a disadvantage by playing "six degrees of separation from bigotry" while at the same time not thinking twice about the waiter I tipped extra to that probably donated that tip to Trump's reelection campaign. Or any single public company I've ever done business with that's funneling magnitudes more directly to conservative campaigns as opposed to a single person with bad opinions.
The existence of evil forces you cannot measure does not mean that the evil forces you can measure are not worth fighting. Society only allows people like Eich to be entrenched because we allow them to be. You have to be the change you want to see in the world. By my measure my existence is more important than the existence of a slightly better search engine.
And I think the harm someone like Eich is capable of causing is incredibly less than the consequences of an entire culture relying on and using daily a singular search engine run by a measurably evil company like Google.
Brendan Eich is an immensely tiny fish in the world of conservative activists. As a privacy and consumer rights activist, Google is my mortal enemy and is causing more utilitarian harm on an unimaginable scale. Not to mention the societal gains of growing a tool and supporting a business model that helps people actually search the internet better when that is our primary way of gaining information about the world these days.
The amount of money I've put into vending machines in the last year alone has probably led to more money in the hands of republicans than a Kagi subscription ever will. The scale is too small and indirect for me to possibly get upset about in comparison to every other purchase in my life I haven't thought twice about, and I say that as a fairly conscious spender.
You act as if Google is the only option for search. It is not. And even if it were you have the option of blocking their ads to take away their source of income on that service. If you want to talk about inconsequential actions then your subscription to Kagi is also immeasurably small and indirect in relation to forming a threat to Google. You are fighting Goliath by blowing on dandelions.
What are thise other options for search you speak of? And I hope you aren't referring to Bing or DuckDuckGo
And Qwant.
Those exist, and there are less anglophone centric options like Yandex, Baidu, and Naver. And unfortunately we are getting to a point where the internet is so consolidated that we could avoid general internet searches and use individual websites’ internal search engines instead.
If the goal is to minimize financial contributions to people who would take away your rights as a queer person, suggesting Yandex (Russian) and Baidu (Chinese) as alternatives is probably not ideal.
I completely understand your overall point though.
And the worst part is that Google is the only viable alternative to Apple in the mobile space. That's some 'rock and a hard place' decisionmaking to make there if you're concerned about competition and freedom.
"Hmm I can choose the company that passively mines everything I do or the company that doesn't want me to have any control over my devices."
Which is why it is an absolute shame that less people supported Windows Phone back in the 2010's
WP was way ahead of it's time. The UI, functionality, literally EVERYTHING was a superior experience to iOS and Android at the time IMO, with one significant limitation: App availability
In retrospect it's foolish, but as an example I remember the "shit" friends would give me for not having Snapchat, and the company did everything possible to keep itself from being on WP for reasons I'm not too sure about
It was a Microsoft product, and back in the 2010's that was a non-starter for many early-adopter folks like me. We saw (not incorrectly IMO) as Android being a path forward to weakening Microsoft's dominance in the OS space. We had not yet become disillusioned with Google, and saw them as one of the few companies with the resources to push back. Especially since we were just now loosening the grip of IE's dominance.
Also its predecessor, Windows Mobile had numerous problems that also had failed to make waves in the featurephone space.
Also they were late to the game by a large enough margin to hurt...those numerous delays for launch were not winning any PR. Especially with HP backing out before the initial launch due to their acquisition of Palm. Nokia, Blackberry, and Palm were some of the biggest players in the mobile smart space...and they didn't want anything to do with it.
And the whole iPod/Zune thing was still fresh in people's minds....Apple had won the hearts, minds, and wallets of a generation, and lacking that integration with iTunes libraries was a non-starter for a lot of people. Remember, streaming music wasn't really a thing yet... Spotify didn't launch in the USA until 2011.
Microsoft would have had much better luck having tight integration in the enterprise space and pushing them as work phones...people hated carrying multiple devices.
What’s wrong with brave? Like the browser right
The company behind it has made a multitude of questionable choices in the development of brave that go counter to their privacy and user-centric claims. Only to reverse course after significant negative press about these things.
Things like:
And a few more things. Every time the Brave team either is irked (but changes it anyway) or goes "oh, yeah we'll remove it in the future".
This consistent pattern over a period of several years has, to me anyway, shown that issues such as privacy are not a core part of their thinking but merely a marketing gimmick.
To be clear, from a technical point of view it is still a decent browser. If privacy isn't your main concern then you could still opt to use it, but given that privacy seems to be a concern for a lot of people using the browser....
Can you recommend an alternative? This is all news to me (both Eich and the unsavoury privacy decisions), so now I'm thinking of swapping out.
I personally do use Vivaldi which was founded by one of the founders of the original Opera.
https://vivaldi.com
From wikipedia:
As far as I am aware, it is one of the few Chromium-based browsers where the company behind it actually puts the user first and does not use it as the product. For example, Vivaldi is pretty clear about their source of income: https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-business-model/
Regarding privacy:
And of course if you do not care that much about using a Chromium browser, firefox is also a great option.
Vivaldi is great. Might still be the fastest Android browser out there, though others have caught up in the past year or two.
It's a pity they don't support mobile extensions.
That's a lot more effort than I expected! Thank you for doing that, I really appreciate it.
Thanks, that's very informative. I've been on Firefox for over a decade and have no intentions on switching, so I tend to ignore press from other browsers. I appreciate the explanation
Moreso the founder and CEO Brandon Eich.
Here's the problem: Even if it starts like that, it'll eventually slide back to what we have now as pressure to become ever more profitable increases.
Once they have sucked the advertising teat, they will never ween.
Nope, I'm with you or perhaps we're both cheapskates. I think search should be both free and high quality like the good old days. I understand there's a bit of sticking my head in the sand element to that position, but it's just where im at right now
I think some one in the comments below had it right. Sure... it will start out that way. But with capitalism it will eventually slide to what google is now as the demands for making more and more money and their dependence on ads to get money means they have to cave more and more to what advertisers want.
I think that I would pay money for search if it had elements of human curation.
Say for instance, a company would pay money to people to investigate domains for the ads they serve or, how clickbait their titles are, and how much SEO bullshit their pages contain, or if content is user-generated so that I can customize my search preferences based on those things. Sure, the small guys would be left out, but they arguably already are by the current web search environment.
Yahoo really dropped the ball when they acquired delicious, they could have integrated that into their search infrastructure for improved search...
I am really enjoying the curation tools Kagi gives me. Sure, like a decent adblocker, it takes time to develop and set up the lists and rankings, but then it really helps to weed out the clickbait and AI generated noise.
Not sure if I’d want someone else to do that for me, would just open up the whole pay for exposure dynamic again.
Can you elaborate on those curation tools? That's the sort of hook that might get me to switch, but they didn't seem highlighted on Kagi's site when I was looking into them a short time ago.
My understanding is you can select sites you want to see higher or lower in your results. For example, I want to see the fan run Yugipedia at the top of my search results instead of the Fandom pages. It's also easy to block domains.
Thanks!
Sure. There is a little shield icon next to each result. Clicking on that opens up a dialog where you can rank the site the result is from, so that it gets weighted more heavily or blocked essentially. It’s on a scale so you have some granular point system.
Example use case: Looking up recipes or reviews. All those spammy sites just generating or scraping content get weeded out by a personal block list.
Another feature is lists that allow you to collect pages for certain topics. So you can focus on certain areas when looking for things that might return different results depending on context, eg compressors for audio context or for machines. To be honest, I hadn’t taken the time to fully dive into this feature since the results I am getting are generally good enough as they are in my general list.
Not sure how this compares to the competition, but I find Kagi’s time filter very good. Looking for recent news? Just show me results from the last 24 hours. Reviews for for some gadget? Only the last 6 months please. Works like a charm.
Ever since discovering them around 6 month ago, I made the jump and hadn’t looked back. It’s really well integrated with my browser on desktop as well as mobile and would be definitely in my top five utility subscriptions.
It really does seem like the sort of thing I'm going to end up using sooner or later. I wonder why they don't push that angle more, that's the sort of customization that would really help sell the value imho
The HouseFresh website may be better than the others that they're criticizing, but it isn't obvious to me that they're better than Wirecutter.
Here is their article about air quality monitors. The reasons you should trust them are kind of weak: "I bought each of the devices on this list to test them in my home." This is a little suspicious: did they buy any more than the six devices they recommend? And it doesn't seem like they did much to test the accuracy or reliability of these sensors.
Compare with Wirecutter's article, which explains more about what you're getting, and their first choice is a free app.
They also explain that the products you can buy aren't very good; it seems they've mostly given up on them:
I can confirm that. I bought the M10 (on Wirecutter's recommendation) and occasionally it just goes crazy. Fortunately rebooting seems to fix it.
Also see their section on Problems with indoor air quality monitors.
(And while I'm on the subject, neither of these websites reviews AirGradient which is an open source, open hardware version that you can build from a kit or have them assemble for you. It would be interesting to know how well that one holds up. Maybe I'll buy it someday.)
I saw in some formerly reputable tech magazine review of like the 'top 5 air purifiers' rank a Dyson at the top because it looked pretty in their living room.
Consumer Reports has a very detailed breakdown of air purifiers with test descriptions and the Dyson was dead last in all but like 3 categories. In particular, it was garbage at actually purifying air.
Bad reviews will always be bad reviews, but having AI-generated SEO garbage is just making that haystack larger.
PS, thanks for AirGradient. Also, for the USA people here's NOAA's air quality page and AirNow.gov. I believe there's a Home Assistant integration as well.
I was meant to post this article earlier today, so I've already written a summary.
I don't want it to go to waste, so I'll post it here.
However, I highly recommend reading the article, particularly for the images.
Summary
BuzzFeed, Rolling Stone, Forbes, Popular Science... what have they all got in common?
They all know the best air purifiers for pet hair and the best cooling sheets for hot sleepers; the best home saunas, best beard products, best gifts for teens, best cocktail kits. best. best. best.
But do they really know what's 'best'?
Search Engine Ranking
Sixteen or so 'Digital Goliaths' dominate the Google Search results. No matter what you google, the same publishers keep showing up at the top of the results page.
These big media publishers and their dubious 'best of’ product recommendation lists are ranked above independent sites that actually test the products they review. They recommend products without any firsthand testing, data, or evidence; often paraphrase Amazon listings; and sometimes even promote products from bankrupt or fraudulent companies.
For independent websites that put in time and effort to produce genuine reviews, this is a death knell. Their fates precariously hangs on the unpredictable whims of search algorithms, SEO, and ultimately, their placement on search engine results pages. Thus, any changes to those will impact their websites.
Product Reviews
Back in 2021, Google Search introduced the Products Review Update. After years of silence, they finally heard the pleas. Google will finally promote reviews that dedicated time, effort, and money into actually testing products, countering lazy publishers that haven't even seen the product. This sounds like a good thing, right?
Well... things didn't quite happen as expected.
This isn't to fault Google. Google's Product Review Update did really alter the search landscape; real review websites were rewarded, lazy publishers weren't. Naturally, these big media publishers weren't really happy at the loss of traffic; however, they had a trick up their sleeves.
Untrustworthy Product Recommendations
So, people don't generally start off with specific reviews of particular products. Instead, they need to determine which products are even relevant at solving the specific issue they need to solve. Whether that's a 'best of' list, Reddit thread, forum post, you'd need to start somewhere.
Unfortunately, savvy SEOs at big media publishers have discovered that they can create 'best of' product recommendations without dedicating time or effort in actually testing and reviewing the products they recommend.
By faking their experience with the product in bogus tests, quoting non-existent subject-matter experts, and exploiting the public’s trust in their brands, these publishers can trick Google and the public into believing their content is trustworthy and reliable.
They merely need to include the right things: E.g. "rigorous testing process", "our lab team", "[X Expert] we've collaborated with", "evaluated with [Y methodology]". Maybe even sprinkle some photos of post-it notes, tape measures, people holding clipboards.
Even when their content is manually reviewed by a Google human, how can one — as a non-subject expert — determine that these seemingly genuine recommendations aren't authentic?
The Web: Inundated
Big media publishers have started to recognise the value of their brands. Trusted by people, privileged by Google. What better way to honour that value by pumping out 40 different pages of 'best of' recommendations for home cleaning products? Fully-tested by experts, mind you.
Huh, this Better Homes & Gardens article seems suspiciously similar to this Real Simple article. The photos seem to feature the same person with the same air purifier in the same room at the same time, just at different angles? Same photographer? Same 'expert'? What's going on?
Buzzfeed... is literally just the Amazon reviews copy and pasted. Reddit seems to have good discussion. However, the top comment links to another website... that is simply a word-for-word copy of the Real Simple article. Also, the Reddit account is banned, yet the comment somehow remains.
An aside: If this sounds like a nightmare, it honestly is. I've already given up on general web. But now? Even Reddit has been astroturfed to the abyss. Nowadays, I really don't know where to go for authentic product recommendations. /endrant
The Exploitation of Trust
Two results below Buzzfeed, we've got Popular Science. Founded 1872, it was recently sold to North Equity LLC in 2020. In 2021, it switched to an all-digital format. In 2023, it stopped being a magazine altogether.
Gone are the days of its team of journalists and editors. Gone are the days of its lists of authentically tested products. Gone are the days of its truthfulness and trustworthiness. Every single Digital Goliath are pumping up their bottom line with affiliate earnings in lieu of their publications' reputations.
However, most readers don't know this. Not only do they slap on a deceptive "Why Trust Us" text box on every product recommendation page, their page recommending Molekule air purifiers was created a month after the company had gone bankrupt. Hugely ironic.
Shouldn't Google Step In?
Technically, these 'best of' lists are classified by Google as 'reviews', and should provide "insightful analysis, original research" instead of “thin content that simply summarizes a bunch of products, services, or other things”.
In reality, Google has a clear bias towards big media publishers. Sometimes, these sites outrank even brands themselves on their own branded keyword.
Independent Sites are being Killed through Inaction
These Digital Goliaths are not only taking traffic away from newer independent sites like HouseFresh, but also from established websites such as GearLab. Despite producing product reviews based on unbiased, independent testing, these sites have witnessed a significant drop in their traffic in the past few months.
The result? A barren web full of investment firms and ‘innovative digital media companies’ that sell you bad products.
The Future
Recently, Sports Illustrated was outed in using fake AI writers for product reviews. The publisher blamed an outside company, AdVon Commerce.
This is illustrative of the future spearheaded by these Digital Goliaths / investment firms. Buy beloved magazines, shut down their print editions, turn them digital-only, fire the actual journalists who earned our trust, and outsource the affiliate part of their sites to external firms.
Everybody loses but the investment firm.
I don't remember the last time I've actually used Google to find something. I still use Gmail, Google Maps and Youtube although I've been considering to switch out Gmail - though currently that's unlikely for some personal administrative issues(very long story).
Large parts of the Internet are slowly zombiefying itself through AI. Interestingly, if you know where to look at times (this site being an example) you can still get to nice places. Which reminds me of a phase Reddit went through, 5-10 years ago, where smaller, specific subreddits often still had good content and nice communities. The same thing appears to be happening to the Internet as a whole.
Whether that means that the current zombification of Reddit will happen on all of the Internet though, who knows? I'm expecting small communities to still be there. But they may be damn hard to find, 5, 10 years from now on.
The optimist in me really hopes to see a resurgence of smaller communities akin to the 00s Internet, but I'm not holding my breath. The monetary interests at play makes the Big Tech companies something of an Internet oligarchy. And small businesses, like the ones who made this article, are getting swallowed up. Consumer comfort and capitalistic investment are two rather strong forces under our current economic structures.
Sloth and greed truly are sins that hurt us all, I guess.