I make very little use of Kagi's value-add features. Like, I think I use a bang or two, but I can replicate that in the browser with Firefox bookmark keywords and a bit of configuration. They have dark mode, but I can do that (at the cost of a bit of slowdown) on websites with Dark Reader. I do use the "search the Threadiverse" feature, which they call "Fediverse Forums". But outside of that, I really just care about the no-log no-profile privacy stuff, which is what really interests me. Well, and not having to fight with a search engine over putting ads in is handy, but thus far, ad-blockers have managed to stay ahead.

However, I did think of one feature that would be kind of neat, though I don't know how much value it'd have to most today.

With a lot of work and digging up comments and such, people managed to reconstruct most of what was searchable at one point. There was a point where I think AltaVista was running a Usenet index. Then Google acquired them and linked it into their Google Groups search, which last I looked was kinda broken and mingled data from other forums that Google had indexed.

I don't know if anyone else (The Internet Archive?) has indexed that. Might be interesting for them to index that; current search engines won't do that.

kagis

It looks like at least as of three years ago, Google Groups still could provide Usenet data and still was kinda broken:

https://old.reddit.com/r/usenet/comments/zn8x6a/searching_for_old_usenet_posts/

It looks like someone's running an archive at usenetarchives.com with limited searchability (I.e. just a string from the text).

He announced it on Reddit here, and it sounds like it's a volunteer thing supported by donations, so I dunno if it'll be up forever.

https://old.reddit.com/r/usenet/comments/in6u06/free_usenet_text_archive_goes_online_300_million/

Ah, and it wasn't AltaVista, based on this post. Was DejaNews.

To preface, what I'm about to say is no hate towards Kagi and I've actually considered trying them.

Think about your last few searches. How many times did you: Scroll past several ads disguised as real results? Add “reddit” to your search just to get human opinions instead of SEO spam? Feel slightly weird searching for something personal, knowing it’s being tracked and stored? Get frustrated by results that felt absurdly off, like they were optimized for someone else’s agenda?

I have never felt this way. I use an adblocker as god intended, I append reddit when I feel like it's something reddit comments would answer well, if I'm searching something I don't want attached to me I use an incognito tab, and my results are never absurdly off (and in fact practically read my fucking mind by how well optimized the results are). I genuinely don't understand what people are searching to have this hard of a time with google search results.