As asked.
I self-host searXNG, but you can use one of the public instances as well. My understanding is that it is more secure because you’re search results are commingled with whoever else uses the instance, but you also can use something like libredirect to further distribute your search results across various instances for further security
How exactly do you self host your own searxng instance? Also, based on what you said, wouldn’t having your own instance make you stand out more?
Having your own instance can be bad for privacy, as all your searches come from your IP (hosted at home) or the same IP (hosted on a server). They might not be traced to you personally, but you might still get personalized results or your search may still be tracked, depending on how they track you.
That’s circumvented when using it with some or better many other people. But then, you need to trust the admin of that instance.
Self-hosted is easy if you know a bit about servers. You need a domain pointing to a server. If it’s the only thing hosted on that server and you have set up docker on it, you can just follow their instructions here to get it running in less than 5 minutes (assuming you run the default config and don’t customize all of the settings for a while): https://github.com/searxng/searxng-docker?tab=readme-ov-file#how-to-use-it
Ah ok gotcha. So it’s a trade-off of having the instance always up vs privacy? Interesting. Thanks for the detailed info! I keep meaning to get into self hosting lol
No, it’s not „always up“.
There are three main ways how Google, Bing,… can track you:
- When you’re doing a search while being logged in, it’s probably you
- If you’re not logged in, they can set a cookie to recognize you on your next visit (although they may not be able to link this to you, your email address,… but that’s not needed). They may mix your searches with those of the other users of your PC, when those are using the same PC, browser and account (e.g. if you have a family PC with a single windows/Linux account that everyone uses)
- Even if you’re not logged in and don’t accept / delete your cookies, they still see your IP. Depending on your ISP you might have the same Ip for a long time or you might have it rotated regularly. Now they could only track the searches of your household (assuming everyone isn’t logging in and deleting cookies immediately)
With Searxng, they can only do the last variant. But assuming you use a “real” server in the internet (and not one at home), it will likely have the same IP for its lifetime. And if you’re using it alone, that’s the only thing they need to identify you and track your searches. The more other people use your instance, the less useful this kind of tracking gets. Too much noise to identify a single person.
Ah ok that makes more sense, thanks!
I want to take this time to say DDG is getting worse in the hopes they reverse course if I say it enough times.
They are giving location based results even when location is off. They are putting us in the bubble they based their marketing around being outside of
duckduckgo is a US company and the CEO is the previous founder of The Names Database. i don’t know how anyone trusts it when there are so many EU alternatives
So many yet in a thread asking for names you could name one.
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I think mojeek is the best in privacy atm but it isn’t really good as a search engine.
you can smash the “submit feedback” button on the page when you get a duff search and send it into us, it’s how we improve: https://blog.mojeek.com/2024/02/major-algorithm-update.html
Will do and i love your ethics.
First time I’ve heard of Mojeek. Why should I trust it more than any other company? Is there anything particular about its economic model or governance that makes it less likely to decide to be unethical?
MetaGer is a metasearch engine focused on protecting users’ privacy. Based in Germany, and hosted as a cooperation between the German NGO ‘SUMA-EV - Association for Free Access to Knowledge’ and the University of Hannover, the system is built on 24 small-scale web crawlers under MetaGer’s own control. In September 2013, MetaGer launched MetaGer.net, an English-language version of their search engine.
And it was initially founded in 1996!
_Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MetaGer_
It currently supports the following languages/regions:
Dansk (Danmark)
Deutsch (Österreich/Schweiz/Deutschland)
English (Great Britain/Ireland/Malaysia/USA)
Español (España/México)
Suomalainen (Suomi)
Français (Canada/France)
Italiano (Italia)
Nederlands (Nederland)
Polski (Polska)
Svenska (Sverige)
_Source: https://metager.org/lang_
There is a TOR-hidden service too:
It is open source:
https://gitlab.metager.de/open-source/MetaGer
And other useful features, for example:
That you can hide yourself behind our proxyserver just by opening the result anonymously? Use “OPEN ANONYMOUSLY”; this also affects the following links.
_Source: https://metager.org/tips_
Alternatively I use some SearxNG-instances, preferably hosted in the EU:
searxng is my first, ddg second
How do you propose that?
if youre asking for the link, i use search.bus-hit.me, more instances can be found on searx.space
what?
I’ve used DDG for years but I’m worried that Microsoft has some power with them. Also that its headquarters is in the US, where there are hardly any laws that protect the user. I used Qwant for a season, based in France, but he asked me to remove the browser’s ad blocker. Since then, I use a SearXNG instance, waiting to mount my own. Very happy.
Duck duck go is my 2nd lol. SearX is my first.
Why?
Duckduckgo doesn’t remove microsoft’s trackers. We really need a good search engine out here, searx is the best I’ve found.
How would you say it compares to old Google?
Seems to be ok enough. Honestly imo better since google most often serves bullshit instead of answers these days.
This is what I use because they take your ad revenue and plant trees. Judge for yourself.
Second this, it’s fast and they have good privacy practices as far as I’m aware.
I used to use DDG until they started censoring results.
I use Brave Search and Startpage. The latter is basically just a private Google proxy with some cool features and the former is fully independent, private, aesthetically appealing and has nice optional AI features.
No one really talks about it and it’s in its infancy, but I’ve really been enjoying Stract.com
I was cheeky and put Lemmy into the “find a website” menu and it listed off a bunch of instances.
If you’ve used Kagi, it has a feature much like “lens” to raise the weight of fediverse results too
I really want to like stract but I can’t get it to give me good results. I typically search for programming related things and it has difficulty pulling up relevant information regarding things like documentation and posts regarding the issue.
That’s fair, I can’t say I’ve daily-driven it yet since I’ve still got my Kagi sub, but I’m thinking of defaulting it on my work computer to put it through its paces. It’s done fairly well with some of my tests, but definitely seems to still be getting refined, I’ve noticed recent information can be difficult to find on it
My own searx-ng instance (routed via VPN), followed by Startpage
DDG has a weird relationship with Microsoft, I wouldn’t use it. I currently pay the Pro plan for Kagi and I’m very satisfied with it.
gemini search engines are not so bad for likeminded folks with likeminded topics.
ex: 12 results!
vs searching windows how to pay for windows. 0 results. srry. gemini is small.Gemini as in google AI search? Or gemini as in the protocol?
gemini protocol. thank u for prompting for clarification.
what search engines are there?
gemini://tlgs.one (is the default when u type anything into address bar of buran browser.)
gemini://kennedy.gemi.dev/
gemini://geminispace.info/
gemini://gemplex.space/
gemini://tlgs.one/doc/search
gemini://kennedy.gemi.dev/docs/features.gmi
gemini://geminispace.info/documentation/searchingwow, thanks for the follow up!
