Kagi relies on Safari extensions to hijack search engine queries and redirect them to Kagi. When Kagi goes down, my instinct is just to visit another search engine and type my query there. But, because extensions take over these queries, my queries redirect me to Kagi, and I have to wait for close to a minute to see another error page to see that I screwed up. And when I know the situation, I need to be aware of which bang syntax to use for which search engine, or I have to go to settings and disable the right extensions. That said, why do we need two extensions ("Kagi Search" and "Kagi for Safari"), by the way?
My recommendation is to have an alternative search engine form on the error pages ("hey, use this while we're down") instead of obscure "stream timeout" text. It can even be automatically filled in with the query text which uses a special query syntax (or bang syntax) to bypass the Safari hijacking extensions.
That would increase usability tremendously. Currently, the friction is frustratingly high for downtimes.
- First and foremost, I expect Kagi not to go down, but that's obviously unrealistic.
- I expect Kagi not to suddenly become a hindrance when it's down. I still want to be able to use a search engine easily even if it's not Kagi.
