I want to start by inviting everyone who are looking into this post to check the git commit linked before reading and after that read their current page, it will make more sense.
I think most people don’t understand the fact that Kagi is meta-search engine which literally collect the results of other search engines and display it and add very small amount of results from their index(tecilis).
They are starting to act shady this year(check the attached git commit to see their changes to their documentation page).
People basically pay them to search Yandex and Brave for them.
Before anyone say but privacy, they are closed source and there is a better open source meta search engines which actually respect your privacy and need your donations more than Kagi shareholders.
Open source alternative:
How would they be able to provide a way for you to filter and/or downrank certain (known “less helpful”) domains without you having an account?
You can store them in the browser locally.
So you’d need to set up your whole block list on every single device you use?
For a privacy focused search engine. At least the option would be nice. I personally just use my PC and phone, so I’d only need to set it up twice. Additionally, I imagine an export/import function wouldn’t be too hard to set up.
SearXNG generates a URL that contains all the preferences you’ve set, so it’s a matter of copying it and setting it as a default search engine on another device.
Convenience or privacy? Choose.
Why not both?
Sure.
Self host your own database and synchronize it that way.
Sync it with firefox?
If they have a great meta-search algorithm, users would be able to search without an account and see how great the results are. Then, when a user wants to personalize ranking and block sites, they can create an account.
I always assumed that they make you create an account to track search usage and cut you off once you hit the free tier limit.