I’m enjoying Kagi instead of Google, but it’s still not quite right. For a paid search engine, there should be no clutter. If the query is an actual question with an answer, give me a ChatGPT-style UI, free of distractions. If the query is to find a web page, give me 10 blue links and nothing else.

@manton I don‘t get your point:

• If you only want a search engine then deactivate Quick Answer and you only get search results.
• If you want answers then use FastGPT, or (The) Assistant (only accessible on the Ultimate subscription level) and you get answers in a ChatGPT style.

@thosch To clarify, I want a search box that just switches seamlessly between those two modes in whatever way makes sense for the query. So instead of deciding “should I search the web or use AI?”, I go to one place and it can handle both interfaces.

@manton

There's a new one called Maapl. I've tried it but not enough to know how it compares.

https://maapl.net/search

#searchengines

@manton Thanks, now I understand your point.

I have a similar use case, and Kagi covers it for me:

• Quick Answer is deactivated for me by default, so I usually get the normal search results.
• If I want an answer, I add a “?” to the input and get a Quick Answer.
• If I need more, there is an icon beneath the Quick Answer that opens The Assistant with the question.

This works for me (and the integration of The Assistant is keeping me from canceling my Ultimate Subscription…).

Of course your mileage may vary.

@thosch @manton
Yes, this is the way. You can probably set up a custom !bang as well, which could send you to FastGPT for instance.

They don’t need to have an exclamation mark, but “!?” could be a good bang for it. 🙂

@manton you can enable "Quick Answer" in settings

@Havn @thosch I like adding a question mark at the end. Refining that convention might get most of the way to what I want.

@thosch I didn’t know the “?” trick even though I’ve been using Kagi for months. Just tried it and it was perfect—a quick answer with reference links provided. Thanks for the tip, which I was apparently not going to discover on my own.

@manton Very intrigued by Kagi, I’ve switched off of many Google services and the remaining ones (google maps) are just due to laziness. Saw @thingelstad.com wrote about it in his newsletter today. My main questions is (if you use Brave) why not just use Brave’s search? Seems to scratch the privacy itch thoroughly and provides decent enough AI summaries.

@bongkiwi I think I do need to tweak the settings a little. And really Kagi is already a little cleaner than Google by default.

@alttext I haven’t actually used Brave much. The search does seem nice, though.

@andreagrandi We discussed this in another part of the thread: @manton wants to have a clear distinction between search and answers. Therefore, activating the Quick Answer doesn’t fit his use case.

@andreagrandi We discussed this in another part of the thread: @manton wants to have a clear distinction between search and answers. Therefore, activating the Quick Answer doesn't fit his use case.

@Havn Are the results from Quick Answer and FastGPT significantly different from each other?

I’ve never tried it. Quick Answer is often enough for me, and if I need more, I go straight to The Assistant.

@manton Having the ? option is one of my favorite things in Kagi. I usually know ahead of time whether I want a direct answer or not, and it’s so natural to just write and phrase a question in that way.

@alttext I swtiched to Kagi six months ago and will not go back. It’s amazing. Didn’t look at Brave. Also switched to Orion browser. Life is way better than $10/mo better because of this. (Also “hey!”)

@thosch @manton
I don’t really know about the difference between Quick Answers and FastGPT, to be honest. I just thought perhaps doing the custom bang would be even more reliable. And wouldn’t you be able to make a custom bang to the Assistant as well, if you want every browser search field to be a portal there?

I don’t use Kagi’s AI stuff, really, though, as I always have Raycast AI accessible with a hotkey. So I don’t subscribe to the Assistant. (Also, I’m still weary about using LLMs for facts that I don’t intent to check somehow. So I’ll usually do web searches for those.)

@manton i found kagi strangely opinionated and biased in its search. i check them out but found their operation either unhealthy or ‘ethically questionable’ for a search.

@thosch66 @manton a single text entry cannot know your intention (question or search?) so the other option is to keep Quick Answers always disabled (like I do) and only click "Quick Answer" link when you want one.

@andreagrandi
…or add a “?” at the end of the search query to get the Quick Answer.

@andreagrandi
…or add a "?" at the end of the search query to get the Quick Answer.

@thosch66 options are indeed available.

The only thing I can't personally find is an excuse to keep using Google :)

I've used Kagi for the last 1,5 years and subscribed for a full year.

Definitely not looking back.

@thosch Huh. I’ve been using Kagi for months and I’ve never seen Quick Answer because I never use “?” in my searches. TIL. Will have to start trying that out.

@Bricker I tried Orion but DAMN is it slow for me. I saw it mostly in interacting with extensions (I use Proton Pass as a password manager). It was unacceptably slow.

@manton Brave uses it’s own index so I think that it isn’t quite as good in the results as Kagi, but, like you, I have some quibbles with the Kagi UI that make it less than a joy to use.

@alttext you can upload custom CSS for Kagi as a paying customer… if that is a thing you’d like to do.

@jthingelstad You can. And I looked at it.