I’m a happy user of Kagi. There is a simple way to make it where Kagi wouldn’t be able to rug you even if they were trying. Use an anonymous email service (or hopefully soon a Login with Lightning option) and pay only with bitcoin. Then make sure you are connecting only to Kagi when using a VPN. Then, even if they are logging IP addresses, they won’t be able to rug you.
Discussion
I paid with LN and use a VPN. They still are able to link ALL of my queries to that token. How is that more private than using, say, Brave Search which doesn't require any token?
Sure I'm not personally identifiable but neither am I in the case of other search engines
For all I know Kagi could be charging me $10 AND selling my data (with way more accuracy than any other search engine) at the same time
They could be, but the data wouldn’t mean anything because it is for an anonymous person. I’m not sure who would benefit or get hurt by this. However, it does raise the risk that if you fail to login with a VPN that one time, then all the data could potentially be linked back to you.
Unfortunately it isn’t an “open source” model that would allow us to verify the code.
Good point. I guess the difference comes down to convenience and quality of results. I’m willing to pay for Kagi because of the lack of ads and because the results are better in my opinion. If they are collecting data then I just have to be extra careful to not do anything on Kagi to link that token to my actual identity). If always logged in with VPN, then there might be searches tied to that token, but what can they do with it as nothing identifiable is known by them.
I can also use Google without being logged in, while on a VPN, and with all tracking blocked. Same with Brave but I don’t like the results or layout as much.
I wonder how Kagi could still allow for customization while dissociating the searches from that individual user. There’s got to be a way to do that.