I’m having the same experience. Hasn’t been reliable since a long time now. Used to work like a charm, really reliable. Nowadays not most of the time. Don’t know what changed, there are too many variables.

Never heard about Kagi before, thanks for mentioning it! How is your experience with it? I tried DuckDuckGo for a while and wasn’t to happy about it. Is it comparable?

Nothing will ever feel the same. It’s an illusion to think that one platform will ever ‘replace’ another. In my 20+ years of being online (oh God), that has never happened. Platforms will eventually fade away or become unbearable, but the void will be filled by many other niche platforms. Google+ didn’t succeed because it aimed to replace Facebook. Now it’s WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, it’s BeReal, it’s Instagram, it’s TikTok. My guess is that it will be Lemmy for the nerds, Reddit for what “they” think it’s for (when I look at “new” Reddit — something like 9gag), and other platforms for what I can’t think of yet. However, the Fediverse certainly reminds me of the internet as it was about 15 years ago when it focused on open protocols and similar aspects. XMPP comes to mind. I am filled with joy when experiencing the freedom and prospect of an Internet without dependency on but commercial companies again.