For the past year or so, I’ve been using and enjoying the search engine Kagi.
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@CptSuperlative
Thank you. I guess I can see the appeal and decreased resource usage compared to keeping all those open in separate windows
@inthehands@viq @CptSuperlative It's also less unwieldy than having a bunch of pinned tabs all in a row, especially if you only want to look at one set of pinned tabs while you're working and a different set when you're relaxing at home, and maybe another for your hobbies.
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@viq @CptSuperlative It's also less unwieldy than having a bunch of pinned tabs all in a row, especially if you only want to look at one set of pinned tabs while you're working and a different set when you're relaxing at home, and maybe another for your hobbies.
@trishalynn
Ah, for that I use multiple profiles
@CptSuperlative -
@trishalynn
Ah, for that I use multiple profiles
@CptSuperlative@viq @CptSuperlative That's what I did in Chrome, too. Firefox can do that?
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@viq @CptSuperlative That's what I did in Chrome, too. Firefox can do that?
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@viq @CptSuperlative Ooh, thanks for the info. Now there's one less reason for me to miss Chrome. However it doesn't look like there's a one-button solution for either opening or switching between profiles the way there was with Chrome. Any suggestions a hack for that?
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@viq @CptSuperlative Ooh, thanks for the info. Now there's one less reason for me to miss Chrome. However it doesn't look like there's a one-button solution for either opening or switching between profiles the way there was with Chrome. Any suggestions a hack for that?
@trishalynn
I haven't really used Chrome, so you'll need to tell me how it works there.
The way I used to have it is to have a separate shortcut that starts a specific profile.
Now I use QubesOS, where basically each profile lives in a completely separate VM
@CptSuperlative -
@trishalynn
I haven't really used Chrome, so you'll need to tell me how it works there.
The way I used to have it is to have a separate shortcut that starts a specific profile.
Now I use QubesOS, where basically each profile lives in a completely separate VM
@CptSuperlative@viq @CptSuperlative Oh, Qubes? Fugghedaboutit. My spouse complains about Qubes all the time.
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@viq @CptSuperlative Oh, Qubes? Fugghedaboutit. My spouse complains about Qubes all the time.
@trishalynn
It's not without quirks and drawbacks, but they are known and acceptable and less messing around with than when I was trying to achieve separation on a "normal" system. It's not for everyone, it's not for everything. But if I have a separate system for watching videos and gaming, then I very much like it for everyday use.
@CptSuperlative -
@trishalynn
It's not without quirks and drawbacks, but they are known and acceptable and less messing around with than when I was trying to achieve separation on a "normal" system. It's not for everyone, it's not for everything. But if I have a separate system for watching videos and gaming, then I very much like it for everyday use.
@CptSuperlative@trishalynn
Though I bet there are less invasive ways to get multiple profiles easy to use
I just never felt the need to research them, because I have a waaaay overkill & over engineered method to do so 
@CptSuperlative -
@inthehands thank you for posting this. "give kagi a focused trial and consider a sub" was on my near term todo list, but this information changes things for me.
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@louis@emacs.ch @donaldball What •this• previously paying Kagi thought he was paying for was:
- decent search results
- without ads
- without privacy abuses
- without appeasing authoritarians
- without ignoring human impact
- and, in general, with greater concern for ethics than Google has shown of lateWhen they marketed themselves as “humanizing the web” — their term — that’s certainly the picture I got.
Not “search quality at any cost, nothing else matters.”
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@louis@emacs.ch @donaldball There is an entire thread above, which I encourage you to scroll up and read
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@inthehands Sorry, I don’t think such a company exists or can exist. Companies are not people. Companies are entities that do what they are legally permitted to do for the sole purpose of maximizing profit for shareholders and enduring to do it again and again. That is their obligation and it dominates over any other concern. It is a grave mistake to expect human virtue from a corporation. They will ignore ethical requirements not enshrined in law or market forces.
@meltedcheese @inthehands this. Companies ALWAYS go for just money. Now or eventually.
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@alexocado @mastodonmigration QFT: “our mere existence is often already political”
Yup yup. And that’s why “I just stay out of politics” sounds to me like “I just don’t look at the road when I’m driving.”
Sigh.
@inthehands
“I don’t look at the road when I’m driving”
That’s a great phrase. -
For the past year or so, I’ve been using and enjoying the search engine Kagi. Its search results are…fine, no worse than others, and it’s ad-free, stated privacy as a primary goal, and seemed to have a better ethical sense than its competitors.
Or so I hoped.
1/
@inthehands well shit.
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Kagi recently started using some services provided by Brave, a company run by immensely objectionable people. Kagi community members rightly raised concerns about this.
I was curious to see Kagi’s response. This is a tricky question that requires a thoughtful, careful response. Their response would be telling: not just about the question of Brave, but about their general ethical outlook.
2/
@inthehands Well damn, I didn’t know Brave was a problem. Boo.
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@grechaw Indeed. And I’m a complete weirdo who believes there is zero contradiction in being both a tech person and a humanities person.
(You might enjoy my pinned thread on taking a course about the letters of Paul.)
@inthehands @grechaw 100%. User interfaces are about people. Computer security is about people. We build techno-social systems, not just machines, and especially once networks are involved.
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@inthehands @grechaw 100%. User interfaces are about people. Computer security is about people. We build techno-social systems, not just machines, and especially once networks are involved.
@inthehands @grechaw Plus, while traditionally there are lots of autistic people in tech (like me), who have limited social skills ... the converse is that we tend to have lived experience of marginalisation and inaccessible systems.
So yeah, there's politics in tech. Even in everyday design tasks.
See e.g. Recall!
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ADDENDUM 2/2: A search engine is going to face some of the toughest ethical problems a tech company can face. And they’ll face most of those problems ••out of public sight••.
I’m interested in the people, their thought process, their temperament. How do they engage with ethical questions? Perfection is impossible, but will they at least •try•? Do they have the capacity to try? Do they even give a shit?
Or do they actively •refuse• to give a shit and call that a virtue? Apparently so for Kagi.
@inthehands thanks so much for this thread. I came away thinking of a quote I cannot currently remember the attribution for but which goes something like:
"Technology is not inherently good or inherently bad, and neither is it neutral"
Fully agree with your approach of "yes i fully understand that perfection is impossible but what is the standard they are aiming for and what is their general temperament, esp around correction?" Very reasonable to step away from relationships where the other party responds as defensively and with as much visible disinterest in taking responsibility as they did in this anecdote, bc hoooo boy is that rather a parade's worth of red flags

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@inthehands What's most disappointing here is the lack of seeing how this clashes with #Kagi 's supposed mission of "humanizing the web".
You can't do that while pretending ethics aren't part of it. Or by defending your business relationship with someone who denies basic human rights to some.
I think it'd be recoverable for Kagi if they end up revisiting the issue, but right now, I'm disappointed a.f.
@larsmb @inthehands Never used Kagi and never plan to.
Try Quant, Searxng, Startpage, Brave Search. Many options out there.
Brave search being independent with their indexing, rest are whitelables of Google with small self-indexing database.