I was a happy user of Kagi and I switched to Qwant a year ago because they are based in Europe (Ecosia seems to have US servers?).
But I have to say:
1. It's slow. As compared to Google or Kagi, getting the results of a search feels sloooow. I could live with that though.
2. The results are just not as good, it feels? And I don't think it's an impression: I left Google like 7 years ago. I have been happy with DuckDuckGo for years, then Kagi for years, and now Qwant... just frustrates me. I can't imagine why.
I wonder if I am using Qwant wrongly... maybe it tries to search in a different language because it's a French engine? In any case I end up searching in Google when I don't find what I want in Qwant, which I hadn't done with DuckDuckGo/Kagi in 7 years.
Am I the only one experiencing that? Maybe I should give a shot at Ecosia.
Is Kagi still using Russian government owned tech (Yandex) that censors informations about the illegal Ukraine war crimes ?
If so, even if I do agree with your claims about the need to avoid ads so that the user is not the product, I believe there's a double standard in action here.
I really liked the product before having to cancel my subscription for this reason.
Now I'm stuck with boring Qwant and Ecosia...
Well hopefully Oursie.com based on Staan with a subscription system will be a good alternative soon.
As a Ukrainian user of Kagi, their partnership with Yandex is unfortunate, since they are indirectly funding the war, but at the same time I can totally see why it makes sense for the service they're providing
With a service like that you want as much diversification as possible, since western search engines can get heavily censored too. Even if they aren't as censored right now, this might change at any moment with us not even noticing it
For example, right now Yandex tends to be much more lenient to piracy, since it's basically legal in Russia
Yandex is only for image search. Implementing a "I don't want to fund Yandex" option would solve the problem for customers trying not to fund this war.
This would even lower the cost of the user's actions.
I agree whole heatedly with severing ties with Yandex, but no, Europe still continues to funnel billions of Euros to Russia; €5.57B in goods (plus €7.81B in exports) and €3.63B in energy[0] in Q1 2026.
I don't understand your question. The person you replied to never said anything about a boycott. They said that diversification is kind of necessary, so to use both Russian and American services, as both sides do censor/block different things.
Yes, I have de-googled to the extent possible. I haven't used it for search in more than 3 years, I'm off all of their cloud products including gmail, and I don't use them for auth whenever possible. I'm 100% sure I've missed plenty, but I have to do SOMETHING about Techno-Feudal-Fascism.
This is not the gotcha you people think it is. Browsing HN does not put money in the pockets of the US government. Lost of people the world over avoid US products and services if they can. The jingoism of the US is well known.
The relevant difference between Russia and America seems to be - that Russia is killing less people? Or is there another thing that makes the difference for you?
> that censors informations about the illegal Ukraine war crimes
If your concern is specifically about the censorship, then it's not an issue with Kagi, since Yandex is used as one of many sources (and mainly for images afaik)
Well there are millions of European trying to avoid US tech. It's hard. A lot harder than Russian tech.
As for the comparison, I don't think it's fair. The US has not yet invaded its neighbor, Canada, leading to millions of deaths and heavy casualties. Let's not adopt your binary view on this matter.
So it's ok if they invade far-away countries, napalm bomb them leading to millions of casualties, but not ok to invade neighboring countries?
The US is responsible for far more pain and suffering in my nock of the world, so it's funny when Americans act like they have some sort of moral high ground.
The US has at least led the longest window of relative peace in the world. Might seem worse or the same to you if you're in one of the flashpoints, but for Europeans they've been reasonable hegemons until recently.
Russia has no such redeeming qualities, as far as I can tell they've always been extractive expansionist assholes like all previous empires. The only reason you might not despise them is that they might not be active in your area, as their ability to project force has always been pathetic. In Eastern Europe they're roughly Satan, and have been for at least a century.
>As for the comparison, I don't think it's fair. The US has not yet invaded its neighbor, Canada, leading to millions of deaths and heavy casualties. Let's not adopt your binary view on this matter.
No, just bombed, invaded, overthrew governments, etc in dozens of countries all around the world...
Given that we talk about mostly white European settlers, just the huge majority of native american lands, a good chunk of Mexico, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and several smaller places, areas controlled as "banana republics", Phillipines, and who knows, eventually Greenland, and even talk about Canada, unserious as it likely is.
And with no own ethnic population there to begin with or continuous historical ties to the area.
Yes, I know, didn't you read the "Well there are millions of European trying to avoid US tech. It's hard. A lot harder than Russian tech." sentence above ?
You're comparing a war currently being played by Russia, destroying their own country by the way, to past wars.
I'm not saying the US didn't trigger wars and their casualties. It's of course true.
> You're comparing a war currently being played by Russia, destroying their own country by the way, to past wars.
During the past year and a half, the US has bombed Iran, Venezuela, Iraq, Yemen and Mexico.
It has provided free bombs to a country that has been bombing Palestine (genocide), Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iran.
It has kidnapped the leader of a country and assassinated the leader of another country.
Avoiding Russian tech, specifically Yandex, is also hard because Yandex is one of only three search indexes that aren't corrupted to all hell with business interests. The other ones being Marginalia and Mojeek. Of those, it's the only one that has image search.
I mean yes, there's an enormous movement to diversify away from american tech currently in the EU, and a massive amount of investment to get away from the entire american tech bubble
I have no idea why you're phrasing this like this when so much money is being put into solving precisely this problem right now
You don't think the genocide in Ukraine has enough scale of a tragedy, with more than 2 million casualties since 2022? Isn't this enough to flag a product?
The Ukrainians posed no threat to anyone, they didn't have a nuclear program, in fact they surrendered the third largest nuclear stockpile and one of the signatures of the memorandum is trying to delete Ukraine.
Why are you trying to dilute this event which is directly related to the topic?
Is it to try to normalize the crime of genocide in Ukraine?
Because your argument suffers the fallacy of proving too much. You're trying to say that all Russian technology must be boycotted because it does a war, but your argument also says American technology must be boycotted, Chinese technology must be boycotted and European technology must be boycotted. No transistors for anyone who subscribes to your argument!
Why is the Ukraine war the only war that matters? Shouldn't we also stop helping prolong the Iran war? I'm not diluting one event - I'm saying we need to care about all wars.
>Why is the Ukraine war the only war that matters? Shouldn't we also stop helping prolong the Iran war? I'm not diluting one event - I'm saying we need to care about all wars.
It matters within the context of this comment thread about a company using assets from specific state commiting genocide that had caused more than 2 million casualties in 4 years.
We're talking about cities razed to the ground, more than a thousand medical facilities destroyed, and of course the systematic and deliberate attempt destruction of a culture - just because they wanted to be a sovereign democracy.
> No, it's simpler than that - there's an ongoing genocide in Ukraine, a country that was at peace and posed threat to no one.
Cherry picking the facts or blinded by your own beliefs? There was conflict for years prior to the announcement of Russia's involvement on the world stage[0].
Stop using all Russian tech for the illegal Ukraine invasion, stop using all American tech for using the illegal Iran war, stop using all Chinese tech for the Uyghur genocide, stop using all Arabian tech for their modern-day slavery, stop using all (most?) European tech for their direct support of the Palestinian Genocide...
Very few acceptable countries left, it seems. Canada, maybe?
Well the last time the US committed genocide of a culture was way before any tech company was founded, while Russia is doing it since 2022 - by their own admission.
If we count of course the illegal annexation of territory, one of the most egregious crimes against sovereignty, it's been doing it since the occupation of Moldova, Georgia, Ukraine in 2014, you get the idea.
What I don't understand is why you're trying to divert the attention to the US, the topic regarding the current crimes against humanity and war crimes of Russia have enough merits to be a topic on its own.
I think you need to research US foreign policy. They are literally trying to do that with Iran. They helped Israel do it to the Palestinians. Not to take away from the Ukraine atrocities but US is just as bad as Russia.
Well Russia Today isn't really a news source. It's more of a propaganda outlet. But so are most of the sources that we call news, anyway. Maybe if high quality news sources existed, Kagi could uprank them, but they don't.
This isn't similar to the Yandex situation because Yandex actually returns good results and Russia Today is garbage.
Where is the dehumanisation in “I stopped using this because it makes extensive use of a source I consider untrustworthy”? That seems like quite a leap.
1. Yandex is dutch controlled, the russia-related business got sold in 2024 to Russian investors.
2. Yandex was never owned by the Russian government, albeit government-related censorship happened (but so does on Twitter/Google/Meta etc as they all have to comply with local laws where they operate).
3. Kagi answers questions about Russian war crimes. You can try yourself [1]
4. There's no such thing as a legal war, the closest is a UN sanctioned peacekeeping operation.
this is absolutely not true. yandex IS the russia-related business that got sold in 2024, the dutch entity (now known as "nebius group") is basically just data centers now.
enrico, at this point you're knowingly spreading misinformation. I corrected you in my last comment: the yandex search index is owned by the russian entity. there is no non-russian "yandex" anymore, period.
> After a short transition period following completion, YNV will cease to use the Yandex brand, which will be retained by the Target group. We expect that our International Businesses will develop their own branding going forward. We intend to seek shareholder approval to change the legal name of YNV in due course.
The guy who started it has previously been here on HN defending Kagi's business with Yandex, and personally I think his arguments are BS. Yandex does not add any special feature or functionality that is so great they should make it obligatory to include as a default option.
Is it? I can't find an official source that supports that claim. Also, Yandex disinvested from Russia and split the non-Russian business into a different company. So is it Yandex or "Yandex (copy)"?
I'm not trying to defend / take a position. I just find it difficult to reason without having an official (up-to-date) source.
Trying to say that Yandex isn't a Russian company is preposterous. It's the largest search engine in Russia and runs tons of other online services that are analogous to social media and cloud things in the English and Western European language speaking world.
they're conflating yandex with the international entity that sold it off to russian investors (now known as "nebius group"). the entire basis of the argument is wrong.
no it didn't. the international entity sold off the vast majority of yandex businesses and assets to russian investors, then rebranded to "nebius group". that is to say that the yandex index/api used by kagi is wholly russian-owned and has essentially doubled down on russia/its allies.
if you're curious, the dominant business retained by the international entity was their data center stuff (though yandex still operates its own cloud business in russia/elsewhere).
I wish I could say that funding the US or Israel or China was better. It's not all equivalent, but pretty much every major country is supporting atrocities in one way or another, today.
I feel like the advantages of cultural exchange outweights the drawbacks. Boycottes should be on the margin or they are counterproductive and bellicose.
I'm not saying I agree with it, but I think this comment
> Yandex does not add any special feature or functionality that is so great they should make it obligatory to include as a default option.
kind of captures kagi's argument: that its removal would degrade search results in a not-immediately-noticeable way, particularly for certain areas of the world, which might actually be worse than a loss of a distinct add-on feature or something.
...but yeah, from my perspective, it'd be great if you could turn it off.
is this a joke? namecheap did years ago the brave move by suspending services to russian customers. why should we support a company that seems involved in russian war affairs?
Unfortunately it appears to not be a joke, my best theory is that either the persons running it have sympathies with Russia and their war efforts, or they value the marginal gain in revenue from having Yandex integrated in some sort of ultra cut throat free market capitalism approach with no qualms or concerns about anything ethical or moral.
Consider that perhaps the person you're responding to really does treat Russian and the US equally... by continuing to import goods from both, and use technology or services from both countries.
Many people in Europe eat Russian fish, warm their houses with Russian natural gas, use American SaaS, and fill their houses with goods made in China.
That doesn't mean they support everything those countries do.
It does mean their solution for nation-state level conflicts isn't a total embargo of the country.
The two comments above mine is a clear example on how mob mentality works. Albeit an impotent mob rage among anonymous internet commentators, but the exact same mentality that IRL usually escalates into violence and later into the killing of a designated victim(s).
Lies and accusations get enforced and exaggerated at every step. From purchasing services from a Russian IT company -> " involved in russian war affairs" -> "the persons running it have sympathies with Russia and their war efforts".
I really thought Europeans got this kind of mentality out of their system in the 20th century, but it's alive and well still. And there will be innocent people killed as a consequence. And people here on HN will celebrate and rejoice in that. They know they are on "the right side", and therefore have the right to do anything to anyone. Just like Mr Putin might think over on his side.
> On the censor bit all companies operate within the law of the country they are in .
Yes, that's why I don't want my money poured from Kagi to Yandex, a company owned by the state of a country that invaded its neighbour and doing war crimes.
Do you instead, want it poured to companies in the US, A country that invades other countries and bombs schools and hospitals? And is currently supporting another country ALSO engaging in war crimes abd headed by an internationally wanted criminal?
> Yes, that's why I don't want my money poured to a company owned by the state of a country that invaded its neighbour and doing war crimes.
What makes you think Kagi is owned by the Russian state?
Should we cancel all US services because the US government started the Iran war for no reason?
Kagi is also a company owned by the state of a country that invaded its non-neighbor and does war crimes. So is Google. Is it only bad if the countries are neighbors, or what?
Why would France not be sovereign, the license is Apache2, that's the whole point, they can take the model and rebrand it as Mistral and incorporate it as part of their model list?
Of course it should have been a Webpage. You can even code a whole modern map application on the Web, that's under 3 Mo gzipped, instead of the 600 Mo Java applications that we're served.
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