Today we are announcing a new privacy feature coming to Kagi Search.
Today we are announcing a new privacy feature coming to Kagi Search. Privacy Pass is an authentication protocol first introduced by Davidson and recently standardized by the IETF as RFCs. At the same time, we are announcing the immediate availability of Kagi’s Tor onion service.
In general terms, Privacy Pass allows “Clients” (generally users) to authenticate to “Servers” (like Kagi) in such a way that while the Server can verify that the connecting Client has the right to access its services, it cannot determine which of its rightful Clients is actually connecting. This is particularly useful in the context of a privacy-respecting paid search engine, where the Server wants to ensure that the Client can access the services, and the Client seeks strong guarantees that, for example, the searches are not associated with them.
Kagi user chiming in here. Have been incredibly happy with the service in terms of search quality and overall usefulness since subscribing. Feels like Google in the early, early days (I was there) before they lost their soul. Their changelog page is instructive; -- https://kagi.com/changelog
Kagi has been criticized for removing their list of partners - originally, they admitted to partnering with Yandex, but they recently hid that partnership after receiving backlash. I'm not sure if the changelog will reflect that information, but I am curious to check now.
This makes it all the more frustrating that Vlad refuses to re-add them, instead asking to know why we would care. Here's a link to that conversation, which is on a platform controlled by Vlad, which appears to be resistant to archiving services that attempt to fetch those particular comments. Also for posterity:
There is really no proper information about search sources. We need to know what resources are used and at what rate.
Please make a more detailed and clear edit.
Vlad
Oct 29, 2024
[@]slamor Is there any particular reason you are asking for this? More context will help us better understand the need.
slamor
Nov 2, 2024
[@]Vlad why not?
Searching through kagi.com for "Yandex" yields a lot of dead links. The one living link is the Changelog, which says they added Yandex to their image search, back in December 2024... But that's hardly a revelation. The changelog doesn't go back very far either, AFAIK
As for the other links: Google says these links used to contain it the word, but I don't know why. Maybe this one was for raised sites, maybe it was for lowered sites, which would at least give a little insight into whether users loved or hated the domain...
Another result seems to suggest Yandex Images served up a photo of Steve Jobs in a demo search, but that is no longer the case. Maybe it's just a coincidence.
Very interesting.
You you for your efforts.
Do you mind if I create a post in BestOfLemmy to share your findings and bring this to the attention of others? I feel this needs to be discussed.
Or do you have a more fitting place?
I think so and hope others do too. ^^
I hope I didn't butcher this. If you think something should change or some added context is needed, let me know or correct the record there if youd like of course. Here it is: https://lemmy.world/post/25584230