Mullvad Leta is the way
this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2025
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Technology
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With DuckDuckGo around it is hard to justify paying for Kagi personally.
I tried it and it was good, but not worth the money to me. Since that time, everything has been going more and more to shit, so while I am not there yet, everything else could eventually get shitty enough that I will maybe then be good to pay monthly for a search engine.
... How did you mispell the name of the service in the thread title?
Aside from that: I think so, but you need to make that decision for yourself. There are a few demos that various influencers have made (I was sold by the one by Remap Radio... Fuck Capitalism, Go Home, and Pay For Google?) but what sold me is:
- I do a LOT of searching in any given month. I'll use an LLM based "engine" for quick factoids (we'll get back to that) but I really need the ability to search from my browser's address bar or the steam browser without having to wade through all the bullshit.
- I REALLY like that I can prioritize, deprioritize, and outright block sites. No need for a sketchy anti-fandom extension that tracks everything I do when I can just click the dots and say to never show me warframe.fandom ever again. Also it is useful for blocking the REALLY chuddy news sites and misinformation blogs
- Speaking of Steam. I can just grab/assemble my login-less search string and use that with Steam so that all my in-game searches use kagi with my token rather than dealing with raw dogging google.
- And as for that LLM? While I wouldn't pay for it on its own, I do like the kagi assistant. Mostly because it shows me what search strings it is running/emulating and gives me citations. So when it tells me that smallpox tastes savory, I can see how it came to that conclusion and even check if that is contradicted by the website it linked to
I have a lot of concerns with the techbro libertarian attitude of the company itself and am not really huge with where my money goes (in terms of API calls) but... I have a lot more concerns with google shoving and obfuscating gemini more every single day.
Do I like that I am paying for what should be a basic fundamental element of the internet? Of course not. But also... kagi's approach kinda feels like what searching always should have been since it lets me cut through the SEO bullshit so effectively. I doubt I would be paying for this if google et al hadn't all decided it was better to emphasize advertisements and LLMs over all else but... I also could see myself doing so with the right demo?
No, it's just trading one centralized search product that is free and profits by using your data and manipulating you, for another that you have to pay for and profits from you more directly but still has financial incentive to keeping you engaged and searching instead of finding. Run your own decentralized SearXNG instead and take it into your own hands. Search isn't something that should be controlled by anyone who's in it for a profit.
Every SearXNG instance I've tested has been terrible for my test queries. Any chance you can account for that?
Up until a few weeks ago I was running my own private SearXNG instance and it's not just you, even I noticed on my OWN instance that it had progressively gotten worse. Initially it was great so I just left it be but then the performance and results just became horrible. It was hit or miss if the thing would even load or not when other instances on my server like my akkoma, piefed, redlib, forgejo, etc all ran smooth as silk.
Eventually I ditched SearXNG and switched to 4get which much better and faster results. thing never goes down and the search results have been fantastic.
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Feels like this is an add, but in case it's not, I use crypto to pay the lowest rate plan and this keeps me anonymous. I really like it but would strongly advise against giving a search provider your personal info which you have to do if paying by credit card. Its a much different thing having your searches linked to an IP vs your cc, name and home address.
Do you then need to buy the crypto anonymously? I'm always confused about that point
You can but I don't. You pay the crypto to Kagi through a third party pay service. Its not 100% untraceable but it's enough to keep you out of any automated tracking that Kagi is or will eventually be doing.
You can buy it anonymously, mostly through P2P exchanges and markets. But simply buying bitcoin or some other popular coin with fiat, then exchanging that to Monero and using that to buy your privacy things will work as well.
Monero is very private and anonymous.
Thanks! My barrier to using crypto has been this first purchase element. Because afaik crypto is not inherently pvt and anon?
I have paid for it since it started so have to say yes. Never going back to Google.
Other search engines have much worse results.