My favorite search engine isn't Google or Bing — it's the one that finally cut the clutter

One cannot imagine the history of the internet without Google Search, and most of us have used it throughout. Lately, however, using Google Search has been an annoying privacy nightmare due to sponsored ads, superficial AI integration, and more. While options like Bing exist, they also cause more problems than they solve. Therefore, it's unsurprising that people have been looking for alternatives.

During this search for better options, I've tried quite a few search engines, most of which focused on privacy. I've also come to realize that effective search is not just about removing ads and trackers, but about offering an optimized experience. Recently, however, I came across a search engine that cuts out the clutter and offers a brand-new search experience: Kagi.

Kagi's default results are just results

No ads or the summary you didn't ask for

Something I have noticed about Google search results pages recently is that I have to cross multiple hurdles to reach the actual search results. These pages are filled with ads, sponsored content, AI overviews, and everything Google wants you to see. These are Google's attempts to sell your attention to advertisers instead of to websites that might actually have the response you are looking for. The privacy implications of these websites, along with the problematic ads they display to users, are also concerning.

Coming from this place, I found Kagi's default results to be quite different.

Kagi is a paid, subscription-based search engine that does not show ads or use trackers. Instead of creating ad profiles or selling user data to third parties, Kagi focuses on providing a clutter-free, customizable search engine experience.

The first thing I noticed was how clean the space is. Regardless of what you search for, there is no clutter on the search engine results pages of Kagi. Instead, I get a results page that focuses on usability. As part of this, Kagi may categorize results into sections such as discussions or listicles. As with Google, I can also switch to other categories, such as images, videos, news, podcasts, and maps. There are also plenty of filtering options based on order time and advanced options.

All the features aside, what the first experience with Kagi made me feel is that this page is made for the user, not the advertiser.

It is incredibly customizable to the core

Kagi does entertain my preferences

As I said earlier, merely removing advertisements and sponsored content does not guarantee a superior search engine experience. It needs more, and Kagi offers one of these advantages through customization options. Compared to big players like Google and Bing, Kagi offers multiple options to customize search results and how they appear. These options are in addition to the standard options, such as Safe Search, Theme, and Status, available in the sidebar.

Here are some of these features that help make Kagi my favorite:

• You can choose and enable multiple keyboard shortcuts, decide what happens when you click links, and set how Kagi displays time and temperature.
• The appearance page lets you customize settings such as font size, themes, URL placement, content positioning, and more. There are enough options to make the search engine feel yours.
• When it comes to search, you can also adjust various aspects. There are different sections for personal results, and one lets you combine or select the AI features you want. You can also choose between search widgets and advanced privacy settings.

Some of these features are really impressive. For instance, if I do not want inline discussions or inline maps featured on the Kagi results page, you can disable these options. I have not come across such features in other search engines, even those focused on privacy. I also found additional privacy features, including Privacy Pass, which uses cryptographic technology to manage your credentials.

Lenses are search engines inside a search engine

I have one for the whole web and one that's basically just Reddit

Something else I really loved about Kagi is its Lenses feature. I get to create as many Lenses as you want, and they function as mini search engines. That is, instead of searching the entire web, these Lenses will search only the websites you have selected. Kagi already has 8 lenses enabled by default. For instance, you can use the News 360 lens to get results only from news websites, whereas the Programming lens will give you results from official programming language websites and forums.

There are so many possibilities with this feature as well. For instance, I might want to create a small search engine that gets information only from a particular set of websites, such as all the universities in a particular area. I can easily do it by creating a Lens on Kagi. The advanced options also allow me to include pages that contain specific keywords or specify a date range for the results. This is always more convenient than memorizing search keyword shortcuts and meddling with the on-page filters.

You can also set up keywords as a bang to invoke a Lens. I have also come across instances where a Lens found many results that the main Kagi search pushed to later pages. Overall, this feature saves a lot of time.

I'm still on the free trial

I am still using the Kagi free trial, and I am closer to hitting the limit than ever before. In all fairness, 100 searches during the free trial won't be enough for anyone, let alone someone who does research and writing. But the search engine experience is really addictive, and there are plenty of reasons it has become my favorite.

Whether you need Kagi depends on your priorities. If paying $5 or $10 and avoiding potential data sales and privacy concerns matter more than the savings themselves, Kagi is definitely an option worth trying. I think the search engine offers ample features and value once you make that switch.