I don’t think this thread is helping.

This to me more sounds like I have made up my mind to not like this guy or his product and nothing will change this.

That’s a really unfair reading of the situation. People aren’t obligated to listen to us and change their minds. As long as they’re willing, sure, do your best, but no means no. Vlad seemingly doesn’t understand no. That’s not good, and added to their previous insights, I can understand why the author wouldn’t want to enter a call with a such a person.

most of the issues being discussed are nit pickings at details and fights on being right or wrong on things that really don’t matter

It might help if you elaborate, but right now I can’t agree. For example, Vlad’s views on privacy and biases are kind of wild (no suicide hotlines numbers because they’re biased but also put LLMs everywhere) and that matters if you’re going to use his product to search information online (and possibly his e-mail service as well).

I don’t see how your comment responds in any way to the criticism presented.

this comes up every time Kagi gets mentioned anywhere.

Because it’s relevant. Should I never share it because you’ve already seen it? What about those who haven’t? I haven’t seen Kagi properly address these issues. So I asked about newer developments I might’ve missed. No one volunteered any yet.

Someone is personally hurt by the CEO and is now in a crusade to spread bad karma about them.

The author clearly explains how they arrived at their stance, and it wasn’t just “hurt feelings.” I’m not claiming this was what you intended, but it feels like you’re trying to dramatize the criticism and downplay the issues rather than address them.

I also don’t see the crusade thing. They wrote down their thoughts, then others found and shared them. They’re not the ones posting in ycombinator, or here. It’s people like me, unaffiliated with them. We just think more people should know.

You finished saying you liked Kagi and think it’s good. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I don’t see how it helps here, either. I used Kagi for a short while and liked having more control over results, but… the issues remain. It’s beside the point.

An article about Kagi’s leadership, uncontroversially titled “Why I lost faith in Kagi.” If anyone has updates to add here, good or bad, I’d appreciate it.

Between the absolute blase attitude towards privacy, the 100% dedication to AI being the future of search, and the completely misguided use of the company’s limited funds, I honestly can’t see Kagi as something I could ever recommend to people.

…and I’m surprised this quote doesn’t mention the CEO, considering what the blog post has to say about him.

Nooo… I haven’t finished it yet, I thought I’d be able to do so on Linux :'^(

We’re only talking about the original at least, right?

No need to apologize, I’ll take a late reply over nothing any day. I’m not the fastest replier, myself. That said, I’m sorry, but isn’t that the guy that calls everyone stupid, delusional, and entitled when people (often) point out his mistakes?

I honestly appreciate the comment from a Firefox dev, believing in good faith that it’s truthful—such insights are often hidden, strewn over comments, old IRC messages, etc.—but I’m definitely wary of taking anything that creator says at face-value. Tech-influencers may have been a mistake.

…Well, I’ll give it a shot anyway, since you say there’s value in it. Thank you.

It’s cool, thanks for correcting.

I don’t think so, where did you get that? Last I checked, they weren’t interested in adding it. That’s why tools like bfs exist.

Thats part of why I try really hard not to let perfect be the enemy of good.

That’s fair, I hope I didn’t come across as attacking usage of “imperfect” solutions. It’s definitely not my goal, I’m in the “try to use the least bad thing” camp.

Thank you for taking the time to acknowledge and engage with that context. I spend too much time on the internet and fully understand it’s unsustainable for most—it’s not doing me good, either—so I’m glad I get to share relevant content I’ve accumulated from time to time.

I get that, I was excited for Brave as an independent search engine before learning more about them. Kagi genuinely seems to be a good meta search engine, but its leadership is ignorant, reckless, and frankly embarrassing. I won’t comment on Searx since I haven’t tried or read about it in a long time. Bit bleak, eh?

That second point sounds interesting, do you remember any names or other sources I could look into?

These are off the top of my head, will add links in a bit.

Vaxry is the lead developer of infamous compositor hyprland, known by many for its toxic community. He is on record saying “I do believe there could be arguments to sway my opinion towards genocide”. There is a print of this, somewhere. I’ve seen it. I will find it and put it here.

Brendan is CEO of Brave and known homophobe, kicked out of Mozilla for… being a homophobe. He now leads the foremost crypto browser, known for its bravery and gathering a large cult of cunts. N.B. not all brave users are cunts, but cunts are seemingly attracted to brave, where they may find a welcoming community of people just as proudly horrible.

I think Ross is ok (I haven’t seen anything horrible so far at least), the issue is really Lunduke who, for those unaware, is also a known transphobe and extreme right-wing propagandist.

Hey, quick question, what do you think of the lead developer of LadyBird calling Brendan Eich, known homophobe and CEO of Brave, “Senpai.”

It’s completely unrelated, right? He just doesn’t know, right? I’m sure nobody ever tried telling him. Or maybe he’s only capable of perceiving technical information, so the rest of Brendan’s history never entered his head?

…Not at all, he’s fully aware, and he regrets joining the people who spoke out against Brendan, something he only did to fit in. He should damn well know Eich is a homophobe if he’s so smart, he just doesn’t give a shit.

I wasn’t aware he deleted it, that’s a shame. Hopefully at least some posts were backed up in the internet archive or such.

For what it’s worth, the rest of the report is mostly fine, and I’m inclined to believe I learned something about Drew. But I also felt that was not honest, and question if it had to be included at all. Looking around, it seems the author likes Stallman, and regardless of how they felt before, they probably disliked Drew when they found he was connected to the Stallman report.

So thanks for mentioning that weird vibe. I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who paused at that section.

Aight, I’ve spent my allotted 20 minutes reading open source project drama and still don’t get this comment. Mind sharing some context?

I volunteered because I worried for the community. There were few comments and I couldn’t sit by when it seemed so straightforward to step up for the sake of something I care about.

Later, admins shared that they’d been taking care of it (things were never as dire as I feared), and they’ve since appointed actual moderators. Even one with actual experience, too! I trust things will be fine, now.

All this to say: I’ll be here as an option, should you want more people, but I’m happy with how things turned out. Much better than the communities that (sadly) spend months looking for volunteers.

More people than I expected volunteered, which is nice to see. Since I ended up creating an account, I’ll leave it here anyway.