Share This Result Page as we see, with all customizations (ranking, CSS, URL rewrite)

Browsing6853

One of the biggest differentials of Kagi is the customization. The idea is to create an extra option to allow users to share the result page exactly as we see, including custom ranking adjustments, URL rewrites, custom CSS and appearance options.

Of course, this should come with a trivial UI (nobody likes an extra button for everything). I'm not sure how to do it, but I'm pretty confident there is an elegant solution.

An additional point is the privacy, even though there shouldn't be a lot of private data in someone's search engine customization, it is for the best if the default share behavior stays as it is today while a "full share" needs some extra click (so nobody clicks on it unwillingly).

Vlad

Browsing6853 This has privacy considerations (your blocked or promoted sites will surface this way). Also it would require us to store your settings and results for ever, even when you close the account with kagi, and finally will show outdated results when looked in the future for current events..

That is why Kagi does what every other search engine does is to just remember the search, and results be optimized for the one searching with default settings. Happy to discuss more.

Browsing6853

Vlad What about starting with just the CSS? I was also thinking about sharing the summaries that we generated during the process so people can see the quality of it.

Vlad

Browsing6853 This is also a double edge sword as somebody could make Kagi look bad and share it intentioanlly this way?

Browsing6853

Vlad There's currently a huge header ("Showing results for") in the shared results for those without an account. Just add some note like "this user is using a custom CSS!" at the end.

petiole

Vlad And there would be privacy issues. I could create custom CSS that would reveal the IP address of anyone who viewed the shared page, for instance.

(Back in the day, custom stylesheets could even be leveraged to run Javascript in the victim's browser, using expression() or XBL. Those have since been closed up and I'm not aware of any remaining ways to get outright code execution from CSS, but... I'd say play it safe.)