In my experience outside the niche of tech related content Kagi performed significantly worse than Google. Especially for content that was region specific and not just text natch based, like "children clothing stores in Boston"
I came in with basically the exact same complaint. A lot of gushing over Kagi in this thread but it is far from perfect. I would argue location aware searches like your example aren’t in the “good enough” territory either. They are just outright bad. Even DuckDuckGo is pretty usable in comparison.
I will say I have otherwise been using it as my daily search driver and as long as it’s not location aware it works great, oftentimes better than Google.
On the other hand, Google is easy to beat in contexts where it has become unbearably terrible over the last few years.
The other day I pointlessly attempted to craft queries (in Dutch) where "second hand" didn't mean "cars". It hilariously dropped surrounding words and tried to hard sell me a used car.
The engine didn't do a lot of miles, it was only used by an old lady on Saturday to do shopping.
This was my experience as well and was the reason why I ultimately quit Kagi (I was on the $10/mo plan). Google is still tops at searching for "non-tech life stuff", much of which is location-dependent.
Towards I end, I found myself comparing Kagi searches against Google because I didn't believe that the results I was getting from Kagi were the best I could get.
I'll try Kagi again once they figure out location-based searching while upholding privacy.
That's interesting. What are your use cases for location dependent searches? I rarely do them, but normally they'll be something like 'coffee' or 'Officeworks'. Without thinking conciously though, I open Google Maps for these querie (and did before I used Kagi).
SOLAR_FIELDS|2 years ago
I will say I have otherwise been using it as my daily search driver and as long as it’s not location aware it works great, oftentimes better than Google.
6510|2 years ago
The other day I pointlessly attempted to craft queries (in Dutch) where "second hand" didn't mean "cars". It hilariously dropped surrounding words and tried to hard sell me a used car.
The engine didn't do a lot of miles, it was only used by an old lady on Saturday to do shopping.
nunez|2 years ago
Towards I end, I found myself comparing Kagi searches against Google because I didn't believe that the results I was getting from Kagi were the best I could get.
I'll try Kagi again once they figure out location-based searching while upholding privacy.
averageRoyalty|2 years ago