The new Safari extension 2.0 does not work

NickD

Maybe I'm missing the point because I'm not a developer but what was the point in completely rewriting the extension from scratch? It literally worked 100% of the time before the update and now it almost never works. You guys put a bunch of time and effort into making your product significantly worse. Part of me feels like you're intentionally making the safari extension a terrible experience so everyone just installs Orion.

Vlad

NickD Last thing in the world we want to do with our scarce resources is (re)building Safari extensions, heck, we even have our own web browser.

But for many people it didn't work. Also many people did not like its broad permissions. Safari extension issues remains number one reason cited in cancellation reasons. So we had motivation to fix it, and there will be a bumpy period because of the new architecture but once we are past that we should be fine.

CrunchyFritos

Vlad I for one appreciate these changes to the extension, especially the narrower permissions required for it to operate. That’s a meaningful improvement in my book, and it speaks to the care the Kagi team takes to address even potential privacy and security concerns. Kudos 👏👏👏

TheBOT

1) there are two Kagi search apps in the app store, would not have known if I had come here, a status alert would have been helpful

2) i don't want to use orion that is not the answer!

3) when will the ultimate plan add on be available on the family plan so I can add for one user, thank you

metaeaux

I found the prior implementation was 100% reliable when “preload top hit” was disabled in Safari settings.

I’m guessing the new implementation is using declarative net requests to rewrite the URL of the selected search engine. The buggy behaviour suggests to me that the rewrites are generated dynamically from the selected default search engine. After some time when the Kagi extension is backgrounded, the rewrite is lost.

If that assumption is correct, then you would be better off writing a static set of rewrite rules that ship with the extension and not asking users to select the search engine in the extension, but instead ask them to enable permissions to use the extension on the domain of the Safari default search engine that they have selected.

metaeaux

Another benefit to shipping an extension with static rewrites is that I can choose DuckDuckGo as my search engine for privacy with search suggestions, and I can enable permissions on google.com to rewrite google search links to Kagi searches.

riddley

I'm seeing two extensions in the app store. Not clear what the difference is or which one I'm supposed to use.

I installed the more recently updated one (2.0.2) and it doesn't work.

On an up-to-date iPad, can't remember the iPadOS version but it's current.

bert

Which of these is the correct extension for iOS?

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/kagi-search-for-safari/id1607766153

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/kagi-search-for-safari/id1622835804

Ideally, if possible, the two extensions would just be combined into one cross platform app.

Erlend

Same bug here...

iPhone 13 Mini
iOS 17.2.1
Kagi extension 2.0.2

user41

iPhone 13 on iOS 17.2.1 with Kagi for Safari 2.0.0. I have noticed another version that has redownload icon even though I don't remember uninstalling Kagi for Safari. I think that other one appeared after update to 2.0.0.

I have noticed immediately after updating to 2.0.0 that Kagi randomly fails to catch redirect from default search engine (Ecosia in my case). Since it is random it was hard to reproduce the issue but I got two vids attached below. Issue seems to be completely random using Look up from any app or Safari search field and issue before 2.0.0 did not exist.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that issue stops randomly or you can stop it by restarting Safari (dismissing it from multitasking menu).

Second vid is interesting because it was first and only time that after failed redirect from default search engine it actually did redirect but with significant delay. Usually it just fails to redirect randomly.

bert

I've noticed that when this issue occurs, force killing Safari always fixes it (temporarily).

andreagrandi

Vlad I just noticed that I was using the “wrong” extension (but it looks the same as the new one, so not really my fault :/ ) I see 2.0.2 available for the extension I uninstalled.

Please make the old and the new one distinguishable in App Store, to avoid this kind of confusion.

I will give the “new” one a try and let you know.

Vlad

andreagrandi We delisted the old one to prevent confusion.

nexus7556

I've tried both the new and old and have double and triple checked my settings however about 50% of the time I end up at the other search engine and not Kagi. This is on iOS 17.2.1 on iPhone 15 Pro. Please let us roll back to a working version of the extension.

ajimix

I'm using the new extension, version 2.0.2 on iPhone 15, iOS 17.2.1 with Duckduckgo as default and all settings correct, and the issue is still there. Most of the time works but then eventually stops working and I need to restart Safari

nompan

Vlad

Happy to help, of course. My phone is iPhone 15 Pro. OS is 17.2.1. I’m running Kagi 2.0.2.

Queries can be anything, and I type them into the address bar. I’ve attached a screenshot of my Kagi extension settings. The Kagi app is set to ddg. I’ve tried giving the extension access to just ddg as well as all sites. I’ve also tried Bing and Ecosia (and set the Kagi app accordingly).

Let me know if there’s anything else I can provide to help. I’ll try to make a video when I get a chance.

nompan

@Vlad

Also… If I force quit Safari, searches then go to Kagi. But, if I do something else and come back later, searches go back to ddg. Perhaps that’s why you’re not seeing the issue. It seems to work sometimes upon a fresh installation or a force quit. You may need to leave and come back to Safari to reproduce it. (Btw, I do like Orion, but I need it to work in Safari.)

Is there any chance you guys could roll the extension back to v1 and put v2 on TestFlight to sort this out? 🙂

TheBOT

This is true, v2.0.2 is broken, please let us use v 1 again thanks.

andreagrandi

So, I removed the old extension, I installed the new one (with 2.0.2 version) and did the configuration again, giving the right permissions to Kagi extension (as you can see from the screenshot), but I just did a search and I landed on DuckDuckGo website (which was my previous default).

I tested this from an iPad Air with latest (17.2) OS

P.S: I did read all the thread and I understand your intention was to make the Safari extension better, but unfortunately it’s not the case yet. Aside from not working as expected, it’s even more complicated to configure (with the engine in Kagi settings which must match the default engine in Safari settings etc..) but I understand from permissions perspective it should be an improvement. My only suggestion is to maybe test it (with opt-in in Test Flight) a bit more before releasing a new version, to avoid disruption

Vlad

andreagrandi

My only suggestion is to maybe test it (with opt-in in Test Flight) a bit more before releasing a new version, to avoid disruption

We did do that with a group of 20 testers but for various reasons we did not run into these problems while testing. The nature of the bug (extension initially works and then gets unloaded by Safari after "some" time) has probably contributed to this being missed. I would assume that the many testers we recruited for this from Kagi community also use Orion by default and have switched back to it after initially confirming everything is OK (this was the case with myself).

What we are doing now is getting the code ready to be open sourced so that we can get comunity involved with it as well.

Vlad

Just to note that after 24h with 2.0.2 on my iOS phone the extension stil properly redirects to Kagi.

Does anyone have any idea what may be happening here?

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