I donât remember when I started using Google. Google just⦠is. Itâs the verb for internet search, it commands 10 times the market share of all its competitors combined, and it is responsible for routing a huge amount of the internetâs traffic.
Almost two years ago, I got out. I signed up for a search engine called Kagi, which charges $10 a month and, in return, promises better search results, no ads, no data collection, and lots of advanced features. Iâve tried a lot of search engines and always ended up back with Google â the results elsewhere just felt somehow worse. This time, whether itâs because Kagi is great or Google is declining or both, Iâve felt no drop-off whatsoever.
Iâm still using Kagi, and itâs hard to imagine switching back. Itâs now Google that looks bizarre and unfamiliar every time I open it. As Google has become more visual, more chaotic, and consistently less good at simply finding the things Iâm looking for, Kagi has stayed simple and straightforward. It is a page full of links, and theyâre usually the right ones.
Kagi, as a product, is about three years old, but the company has been around since 2018. It was started by Vladomir P …
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