I no longer trust Kagi

kirkmc

Kaguy For someone who has announced that he's leaving Kagi, you sure are spending a lot of time here telling people off.

ak42

Kaguy have a look at metager, contrary to startpage, it is a non-profit, it does not have ads, and it is funded by its users.

Kaguy

Emu7037 Thank you for bringing all this to my attention.

ak42 Thanks for the rec! I'll check that out.

Anonymous26 Sorry for that.

Emu7037

Kaguy Startpage nowadays mostly uses Bing results, not Google. Also, the ads in the results page link directly to Microsoft. You are being tracked by Microsoft whenever you click an ad in Startpage.

Their mobile apps also do have trackers in them though they claim they do not use them in a way that individually identifies users

Lastly, Startpage is also invested in AI through the Vanish AI app. You're better off using noai.duckduckgo.com rather than Startpage if what you want is a private search engine with no AI integration in the interface you use. They both use mostly Bing results, both integrate AI, both allow you not to interact with it, but DDG actually seems to care about your privacy to some extent while Startpage is exposing you to Microsoft tracking if you click on the ads they show you and for some reason feels the need to embed trackers in their apps

Anonymous26

Emu7037

Startpage nowadays mostly uses Bing results

That's a lie (even Startpage says that). Anyone can easily check that Startpage is 100% the same as Google and not at all similar to Bing.

Emu7037

Anonymous26 Years ago they were indeed a google proxy, nowadays they'll either give you uncurated bing results with ads populated by Microsoft or uncurated google results with ads by google. Something like 6 out of 7 searches it will be Bing, hence why I said "mostly" Bing.

Look it up online a bit. Startpage's own blog post about it, when they slowly started rolling out what became increasing levels of bing integration: https://www.startpage.com/privacy-please/startpage-articles/enhanced-search-results-on-startpage

There's also plenty of news articles about it. As an example: https://thedroidguy.com/does-startpage-search-use-bing-search-results-1265862

Its also been widely discussed in startpage's subreddit and elsewhere. Dare I say that anyone can easily check that they've been using Bing for years? 🤔 Its always good policy to check sources we ourselves mention, especially when going as far as accusing the other party of lying.. Even if you believe something is not true, when you accuse someone of lying you're implying intent to deceive. That's completely uncalled for.

That said, I guess in some regions/languages the split might be different, I remember that after everyone was talking about the switch I still got only Google results from them for months, with location set to Portugal. You can check it by seeing if the ads redirect to a Microsoft URL or not.

Anonymous26

Emu7037

Something like 6 out of 7 searches it will be Bing, hence why I said "mostly" Bing.

Just try and compare pls

Look it up online a bit. Startpage's own blog post about it, when they slowly started rolling out what became increasing levels of bing integration: https://www.startpage.com/privacy-please/startpage-articles/enhanced-search-results-on-startpage

I read that blog post already (that's why I said "even Startpage says that"), but what they say does not change what they do; they just proxy Google results.

There's also plenty of news articles about it. As an example: https://thedroidguy.com/does-startpage-search-use-bing-search-results-1265862

Thanks for the AI slop report; appreciated. The only news article I found was https://www.pcmag.com/picks/dont-just-google-it-smarter-search-engines-to-try, and it says: "Startpage uses privatized Google search results."

Its also been widely discussed in startpage's subreddit and elsewhere. Dare I say that anyone can easily check that they've been using Bing for years? 🤔 Its always good policy to check sources we ourselves mention, especially when going as far as accusing the other party of lying.. Even if you believe something is not true, when you accuse someone of lying you're implying intent to deceive. That's completely uncalled for.

When I saw your comment, I did 20 different searches between Bing, Google, and Startpage, and I saw that Google results = Startpage results ≠ Bing results. My policy is not believing what they say; it is testing what they say.

After doing the experiment, I don't care what some company says about something; I will just say they are lying.

As you know, Google always says, "We care about privacy," but I know this is a lie. You shouldn't trust companies that much. Do your own experiments and your own thinking.

Emu7037

Anonymous26 Just try and compare pls

I did... Again, plenty of reports and discussion about it online though, as previously stated, your mileage might vary. Results from Startpage are a carbon copy of Bing's for me. Bing struggles with a lot of queries in Portuguese whereas google does just fine so its incredibly easy for me to spot.

On another note, the ads you get being from Microsoft or Google is another tell. As Vlad has stated in community streams, both Google and Microsoft like to bundle their ads with their search results and Startpage clearly complies.

But... I have left the best for last. Startpage itself has now removed any mention about using results from Google in their updated support page regarding their sources: "Powered by partnerships with MapQuest, HERE Technologies, Priceline, OpenWeatherMaps, Search Expander, and Microsoft Bing, our updated search result experience brings you richer information in a clean and easy-to-use interface" - https://support.startpage.com/hc/en-us/articles/12727471498644-What-are-Startpage-s-enhanced-search-results

Clearly, looking at Startpage's social media channels, people prefer google results and Startpage certainly knows that, them having long insisted they were not phasing out google completely even as they are doing precisely that. Why would they then turn around and remove mentions of google if they were still intending to continue using it? That just doesn't make a any sense from a business standpoint

Some better research before insisting on misinformation seems warranted 😅

Anonymous26

Emu7037

Looks like there's some A/B testing or regional variation happening. (reddit 1, 2) Some users say they see Bing results on mobile, while on desktop they still see Google results. This would explain why we're seeing different things 😄

Emu7037

Anonymous26 It's what I've been trying to tell you 😉. They're slowly but surely moving to using exclusively Bing results. Nowadays they often no longer bother to challenge the premise that they're quickly becoming a Bing proxy; instead, they openly compare themselves with DuckDuckGo in other respects and are removing mentions of Google from their support pages, while more and more people are getting mostly or exclusively Bing results.

As previously mentioned, I was still getting only Google results from them until fairly recently. Now it's mostly Bing, whether on desktop or mobile. Elsewhere, when I mentioned I was still getting only Google results in Startpage, someone insisted I must be mistaken because they were just getting Bing and everyone else there was saying the same...

Anonymous26

Emu7037 Anyway, Kagi gives me Bing, Google, Brave, Yandex and so much more. As someone who loves to do research, I just can't give up Kagi.

Emu7037

Anonymous26 Nor was I telling you to 🙂

Pleonasm

Anonymous26 Kagi gives me Bing, Google, ...

I also believed that Kagi used the Bing and Google search indices - but, according to a recent blog, that does not now appear to be the case:

"We approached every major index vendor seeking direct licensing on FRAND terms (Fair, Reasonable, And Non-Discriminatory): fair pricing, no mandatory ad syndication, ability to reorder and blend results.... With Google and Bing, we failed...."

MustafaD

Anonymous26 me too

MustafaD

Pleonasm No they use Google and Bing indices.

They mean by that: 'we asked Google (and Microsoft) to directly hand us the index data, but they refused.
So we have to rely on what we already do: SERP (search engine results page).'

SERP is basically recreating an index manually from the results which Google/Bing return from their services.

Pleonasm

MustafaD No they use Google and Bing indices.

@MustafaD, I suspect you are correct. Upon reading the blog again, I believe Kagi is attempting to distinguish between direct and indirect access to the Google and Bing search indices: "Because direct licensing isn't available to us on compatible terms, we - like many others - use third-party API providers for SERP-style results" (e.g., HasData or SerpAPI).

@Luis, can you kindly confirm and clarify whether and how Kagi Search utilizes the Google and Bing search indices?

P.S.: Interestingly, if you ask the Kagi Research Assistant (Experimental) "Does Kagi use the Google search index?", the answer is: "No, Kagi does not use Google's search index."

MustafaD

Pleonasm P.S.: Interestingly, if you ask the Kagi Research Assistant (Experimental) "Does Kagi use the Google search index?", the answer is: "No, Kagi does not use Google's search index."

It makes its own index, utilizing SERP results from other services like Google, Bing, etc.
This is because crawling the web yourself and creating an index from scratch is a colossal task.

@blogpost Microsoft spent roughly $100 billion over 20 years on Bing and still holds single-digit share. If Microsoft cannot close the gap, no startup can do it alone.

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