Sunrise/sunset times

Connor

When searching for related terms (ie. "sunset time") a time card should appear at the top of the search for sunrise/set times at approximately the current location.

buteo

As another user, I love this idea but also appreciate this may be hard to do correctly. Putting privacy issues aside, how would one determine sufficiently precise location for both mobile and "desktop" devices? Also, NOAA's formula for these calculations is probably best, but most websites don't use it — for those in quite northerly or southerly locales, some formula (e.g., Meeus) can be pretty imprecise. I've not found a reasonable alternative to running locally installed software for sunrise/sunset calculation.

z64

buteo With regards to privacy, we approximate your location using an offline geoip database, as DDG and others do. We cannot opt out of receiving your IP, but if your IP and the mapped location is something you want protected, a VPN is the best option.

We use this to center your location when you open https://kagi.com/maps, and other time-related features. Primarily you can review what data you are sending us by reviewing our IP widget:

https://kagi.com/search?q=what%20is%20my%20ip

(Known issues with rendering ipv6 addresses, fixed soon - we just added support for ipv6!)

With regards to the original feature request, I think @buteo makes good points with regards to delivering a good quality result. As such, this is probably best left for implementation by users - we are looking strongly at creating a widget API to allow the community to explore more niche widgets like this one.

So we will probably pass on this for now.

buteo

z64 I appreciate this explanation about how Kagi handles user location. The problem I've seen with geoip is that location precision can vary considerably with the connection — it isn't rare for IPs assigned by some mobile providers to resolve to cities hours away from the user's actual location, while some residential fixed-line providers can be eerily accurate (e.g., within 1 km²). Browser geolocation would be the way to go with this imo (which DuckDuckGo does support iirc), but "desktop" users aren't likely to benefit. In any case, I agree this feature is probably best put on the back burner for now. Thank you for sharing my concerns about quality output!

z64

buteo

The problem I've seen with geoip is that location precision can vary considerably with the connection — it isn't rare for IPs assigned by some mobile providers to resolve to cities hours away from the user's actual location, while some residential fixed-line providers can be eerily accurate (e.g., within 1 km2).

Definitely a considersation of ours. It was deemed "good enough" for our purposes for now; our map - the primary use case of this - intentionally starts at a pretty zoomed out state to allow some forgiveness. What you suggested could definitely be a future improvement though! Or something like allowing users to set a fixed "home view" to prefer. Bit off topic now though 🙂

You're welcome, thanks for the discussion.