Has anyone de-googled (stopped using Google services)? What was your experience?

[turbineseaplane]

I've been using Kagi for several months now and just started paying $10/mo for it

The amount of times I've bounced back to Google has been at most like 1 search a week
They've done a phenomenal job and I find the customization and results quality to be sensational.

Really recommend anyone who cares about an AD free and privacy focused search experience to please consider putting money where our mouths are and supporting them (or whoever you prefer)

We are always "paying" for search one way or another, and I vastly prefer to pay $10/mo vs give up all of my search data.

 

[MacBH928]

I've been using Kagi for several months now and just started paying $10/mo for it

The amount of times I've bounced back to Google has been at most like 1 search a week
They've done a phenomenal job and I find the customization and results quality to be sensational.

Really recommend anyone who cares about an AD free and privacy focused search experience to please consider putting money where our mouths are and supporting them (or whoever you prefer)

We are always "paying" for search one way or another, and I vastly prefer to pay $10/mo vs give up all of my search data.

You shouldn't be using Google at all because Kagi is a middle man between you and Google+Bing. If you didn't know this:-

DuckDuckGo: sends your query to Bing.com and brings results back for you , middle man

Kagi: Does same except they use Google+Bing and bring back the results. They have a little bit of mix in there with their own seach index which you can use on its own here: https://www.teclis.com

technically when you pay Kagi you are paying google because Kagi has to pay Google to use their service which I believe is about 0.0125 per query which should equal about 25-30 searches/day limit (Better check on the numbers) . The problem with Kagi is if most users query it more than 33 times per day its not sustainable and will go bankrupt. They are hoping that most users use it less so the heavy users get subsidized by them.

I have to give it to Vlad (founder) and Kagi team for being very transparent and clear about this.

If you want to use Google without using Google, Kagi is a good way of doing that. Startpage.com does the same, but free with privacy-respecting ads(like DuckDuckGo business model)

 

[turbineseaplane]

@MacBH928

Great details and information, thank you!

 

[smoking monkey]

technically when you pay Kagi you are paying google because Kagi has to pay Google to use their service which I believe is about 0.0125 per query which should equal about 25-30 searches/day limit (Better check on the numbers) . The problem with Kagi is if most users query it more than 33 times per day its not sustainable and will go bankrupt. They are hoping that most users use it less so the heavy users get subsidized by them.

Thanks for info. Interesting. I can't see that model being sustainable though. Anybody who pays 10 bucks a month to use this service is obviously not a casual internet user as a casual user wouldn't even know about this. So only 33 searches a day seems kind of low. I wonder, how many searches do we do a day??? I know I do absolutely buckets of them for work and research. But weekends I'd say it's significantly less. Mmm...

Oh and I don't use Google except for search. I tried DDG, but found the results rather poor for my use case.

 

[Nütztjanix]

1. I have used DDG for several years now. No Google search.
2. I use Apple Maps exclusively, Google Maps hasn't been installed on my devices since 2012 I think.
3. I used to have a Gmail account, but I stopped using that about 10 years ago.
4. I never used Chrome (always Safari on Apple products, Brave on my Windows work machine).
5. I very seldom use YouTube. I'm never signed in.
6. On my network, Google and most of it's services are blocked by my DNS resolver (NXDOMAIN).

I don't have any major problems or miss something. Point 6 does have it's caveats, though. As has been mentioned, a lot of websites use some sort of Google services and won't work (properly) without being able to contact some Google server. Fonts, captchas, lots of stuff coming from them that somehow gets used and is necessary for the website to work correctly. That's a problem.
And then, there's always that odd product in your household that uses time.google.com or 8.8.8.8 as hardcoded NTP or DNS server …

 

[planteater]

DuckDuckGo has been my only search engine since about 2010.
I use DDG browser now in beta on macOS, and also on iOS.
I block all G services via LittleSnitch.
The only G service I use is Youtube, and I never sign in.
If I must use a service like Chaptcha, I'll temporarily stop my firewall.
I use third party DNS.

I've been blocking and not using G for a dozen years now. Actually, I haven't run a G search since maybe 2008. Before I discovered DDG I used Bing to get away from G.

 

[turbineseaplane]

I can't see that model being sustainable though. Anybody who pays 10 bucks a month to use this service is obviously not a casual internet user as a casual user wouldn't even know about this.

I wonder about that myself

For me, it's been an enjoyable experience thus far and if the price goes up too much or I no longer enjoy it, I'll just move on.

For now though, Kagi has been a great solution for me.

 

[MacBH928]

Thanks for info. Interesting. I can't see that model being sustainable though. Anybody who pays 10 bucks a month to use this service is obviously not a casual internet user as a casual user wouldn't even know about this. So only 33 searches a day seems kind of low. I wonder, how many searches do we do a day??? I know I do absolutely buckets of them for work and research. But weekends I'd say it's significantly less. Mmm...

Oh and I don't use Google except for search. I tried DDG, but found the results rather poor for my use case.

I wonder about that myself

For me, it's been an enjoyable experience thus far and if the price goes up too much or I no longer enjoy it, I'll just move on.

For now though, Kagi has been a great solution for me.

Kagi was going to implement a pay as you go method, I believe it was $0.02 for each search. Would be about $30 for 50 searches a day. They also had an idea to put a cap limit, so for $10 you get about 33 searches a day then if you use more you pay as you go.

both of you are correct that those who are going to pay are usually power users -> power users use the search
a lot - > the business won't sustain unless the subscriptions goes way up like $50-100 or so. They even had a query meter in some part of the beta to check how much queries you make.

You are also both correct that this does not seem like a sustainable business model but they seem to think otherwise. They are testing with prices and offerings and hoping in the future people will use their maps service and roll out email and vpn service maybe.

@smoking monkey
Use startpage.com, it reflects Google results for the most part.

 

[lowendlinux]

If you looking for a YouTube player without much of the google give free tube a look, it's on homebrew