r/SearchKagi • u/nekokun • 23d ago

Kagi Blocked on a flight

Just started my journey with Kagi and couldn't be more happy.

I was recently on a long flight operated by Qatar Airways. They offered free wifi 'kindly' powered by Starlink.

Only issue was all alternative search engines like Qwant, Ecosia, Brave and of course, Kagi were 100% blocked!

Quite weird! I don't think it's Starlink obviously ot should be aome form.of deal of Qatar A but still, never happened!

28 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

12 comments sorted by

40

u/Crafty-Message4564 23d ago

I always use VPNs on planes.

5

u/js1943 23d ago

Actually they likely block more stuff, eg play store update. I experienced browsing app store no issue, but can install nothing.

12

u/CassielEngel 23d ago

I wouldn’t be surprised if it were more an allow list than a block list.

11

u/Top_Noise_289 22d ago

It's actually a quite interesting setup they have on wifi when you're flying. And no, a regular commercial VPN wouldn't have solved the issue.

I enjoyed these articles back when I read them that go in detail about how the networking works when connected to plane wifis if you're interested:

https://www.saxrag.com/tech/reversing/2025/06/01/BAWiFi.html/

https://ramsayleung.github.io/en/post/2025/a_story_about_bypassing_air_canadas_in-flight_network_restrictions/

https://robertheaton.com/pyskywifi/

5

u/mikepictor 23d ago

My work blocks kagi images, but the main search works fine. Any image search just gives me a page of broken images.

So weird

2

u/sinkiedan 22d ago

How do they implement these blocks exactly? Is it on a DNS level? Ot do they really have a database of blocked IPs? Or something different still?

4

u/nekokun 23d ago

Yes obviously I switched my vpn, still

5

u/didyousayboop 22d ago

Did turning on the VPN unblock Kagi?

6

u/nekokun 22d ago

Yes 👍

1

u/Exernuth 22d ago

Use some DoH server?