Similar controversy when Kagi added Brave search.
this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2024
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Privacy
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I expected something more shocking when I read "working with Russia".
Kagi uses multiple search backends, and of course it needs to forward search terms to these backends. These backends probably can't trace the searches back to the individual Kagi user though, but Yandex could still analyze search trends for example.
What's worse is that - unless they use Yandex' API for free - customers indirectly (and likely unknowingly) support a Russian company with their paid Kagi subscription.
Kagi should at the very least release a statement about this claim.
I am surpised yandex aint sanctioned tbh
Same, but it's great for finding things US companies want taken down
As much as i hate russia and their bullshit, you aint wrong.
A shrewd internet enjoyer could be using it as a cross reference to check their beloved megacorps offering🐸
probably because us government employees use its reverse image search for how good it is
Google nuked that feature... Hmmm
Aside from reverse image search Yandex is wonderful for obscure things like software reverse engineering.
It’s not a fucking reveal, Kagi tells you exactly what engines they include in their results.
Do they? I remember seeing this in the past but can't find the information anymore. Now they only say "all major search providers" and that was part of the criticism in this "reveal". That they have become more opaque rather than being transparent about it.
This is all the official info I could find. Please share if anyone can find anything more. https://help.kagi.com/kagi/search-details/search-sources.html
You know what? DuckDuckGo uses Yahoo results, they must be working with the US government! What a nonesense.
Yandex is a really good search engine 🤷♂️
Many of Yandex’s employees resigned in protest, accusing the company of serving as a tool of Kremlin propaganda and actively concealing information about the war.
Every search engine ever is biased in the results it will show you.
You have to learn the biases and not fall prey to them.
If you think you're using an unbiased source then all you've done is failed to recognize them.
Go search palestine or ukraine on google news and tell me if you see unbiased news 😉
they are also worki g with the us 🙄
Hmmm keeping an eye on this thank you.
oof
And I was just thinking about getting a subscription.
Time to selfhost SearXNG instead.
SearXNG also supports Yandex as one of the many search-engine backend.
Can't you just not enable the Yandex backend if you're selfhosting searx?
You can disable any backend on SearXNG, Stract, 4get or some other self-hosted FOSS alternative. However, for Kagi, there's this feature called lenses, which probably works in the same way as Stract's Optics - not sure if it allows blocking of a particular search-engine service.
Gotcha, that sounds like searx is a good option then. At first I thought you were giving a reason why searx isn't a suitable alternative as the gp comment is downvoted a bunch.
Note that Yandex has an aggressive captcha, so it doesn't really work with SearXNG in its current state. Tested a couple weeks ago.