Private search engines.

https://lemmy.world/post/1095147

Private search engines. - Lemmy.world

I was using DuckDuckGo for some time, but heard that there are better alternatives. I’m confused, because DDG is used by default in TOR browser, and other privacy respecting browsers (ex. Librewolf). Can you guys recommend any other search engine, and tell me why u recommend it? Or, is DDG enough?

I used to run a private instance of SearXNG, but it wasn’t for me. I don’t really know exactly why.

I switched to Kagi now and I’m pretty happy with the results. However, there are some things to consider:

  • Kagi costs money
  • They claim to be privacy-friendly and that they don’t build a profile of you
  • There’s no proof on that
  • There’s no private way to pay, credit / debit card only
  • Like that, they could totally build a profile of you
  • They’re US-based, so what happens when one of the 3-letter-agencies asks them for user data?

Anyway. I’m trying to be positive and I really hope that I’m funding something good here. So far, I really like it.

GitHub - searxng/searxng: SearXNG is a free internet metasearch engine which aggregates results from various search services and databases. Users are neither tracked nor profiled.

SearXNG is a free internet metasearch engine which aggregates results from various search services and databases. Users are neither tracked nor profiled. - searxng/searxng

GitHub
I have been using Kagi since before the price hike. It’s like using Google without any clutter. Kagi is really helpful for my research because it’s much easier to find and summarize a PDF directly from the search results.
I’ve heard of Startpage (which appears to be a frontend for Google results), but I personally like Brave Search more (visually, also you have !bangs for quickly searching wikipedia, ddg or startpage when you need it). I heard ecosia should be private, buy I’ve been ciritical and didn’t look into it yet, because its main focus appears to be planting trees.
Wow I’ve been using Brave search for a while now and had no idea bangs were a thing. It’d be nice if there was more ways to showcase them visually to help discover this nifty feature
I came from ddg, so I just assumed / tried and they worked :D
I’ve looked into ecosia and they store IPs for a week to “protect ourselves from spammers”. They encrypt your searches, use Bing for results and ads, but they filter the “annoying” ones. I think they are pretty good overall.

Brave search because it is their search company that finds new ways to make users more anonymus, Brave is not a middle man for another company.

I don't recommend because they force users to verify when searching if Startpage detects a VPN or Tor.

Some will say SearX, a self hosted search engine, the issue with SearX is the search results can be irrelevent or something random. I support it but I don't use it due to not consistently being relevent to my search or not informative.

SearX instances also get blocked from other search engines a lot.
Oh, I was not aware of that.

the issue with SearX is the search results can be irrelevent or something random. Haha, oh, right! I just remembered that often times when I searched something completely harmless some weird porn sites would appear in the results which had clearly absolutely nothing to do with the things I’ve been searching for. It’s one of the reasons why I stopped using SearX(NG).

Are you being serious? You're not mocking what I was saying?

I really want to like Searx but it's not helpful.

I am/was serious, yes. These were my experiences of using SearXNG for over 1.5 years. The project is great but it has some big flaws. Maybe give Whoogle a try. It’s what I’m currently using.
You have to set SafeSearch at least to “moderate” to stop NSFW stuff appearing in your search. SearXNG nly proxies what other engines feed to it.
Well yea, I tried this once. It didn’t eradicate all of the NSFW results, even on strict safe search mode. Anyway, I moved on. :)
I modified my searxNG to basically look through the results for anything on a ban list and exclude those items. But out of the box its just pulling stuff from a bunch of unreliable sources. I think you have to do a lot of tuning by using their built in tools to add sites you want to index and get rid of stuff you don’t. The cool thing is that you can fine tune it though.
I use DuckDuckGo at home, but at work it’s blocked. I’ve argued for it to be unblocked but to no avail. I use Startpage at work because it appears to have the same results as Google but also lets you view images anonymously when possible.

When it comes to search engines, I value not only privacy, but supporting independent indexes ans avoiding Google’s monopoly.

Ddg is working in this aspect, so I consider them to be ok.

Don’t they take search results from bing?
They do, partially. Nowadays they have their own scraper too.
Like already mentioned, they still do, in addition to other sources, but they’re also developing their own index.
Go to searx.space and enjoy (one of these instances is mine).
SearXNG instances

Online and offline instances

It depends on your goal.

If you just want privacy for your daily not-to-weird usage and ease in both in the sense of setting it up and in that of good results and that’s it, DDG is probably fine for you.

I use Brave, simply because unlike most others, it has it’s own crawler. For me it’s results have been slightly better than DDG too, but I also hear people claim the opposite so I guess it really depends. DDG uses Bing’s results, and many others are also more like privacy front-ends for Bing or Google. If you want to totaly leave Big Tech, be it to not help with their power or because of principle, that’s likely the one that’s the most easy with the best results that fits.

SearXNG is self hosted and less accurate, but the most privacy friendly and not attached to any company as you host your own instance, while with Brave you still rely on Brave’s goodness. If you want total control, you want something like this.

I don’t use anything else from Brave, and default search engines are easy to change, so I’m personally not too worried about Brave’s power over me. I do preffer to stay away from Google and Microsoft, and only access them (prefferably trough privacy front-ends) if no other option works decent enough for me. I also prefer not to self-host due to the time and knowledge needed to do so securely. Well, I have knowledge, but I don’t want to worry about those things for my peivaye stuff all the time. Hence the choice of Brave.

It depends on your goal.

If you just want privacy for your daily not-to-weird usage and ease in both in the sense of setting it up and in that of good results and that’s it, DDG is probably fine for you.

I use Brave, simply because unlike most others, it has it’s own crawler. For me it’s results have been slightly better than DDG too, but I also hear people claim the opposite so I guess it really depends. DDG uses Bing’s results, and many others are also more like privacy front-ends for Bing or Google. If you want to totaly leave Big Tech, be it to not help with their power or because of principle, that’s likely the one that’s the most easy with the best results that fits.

SearXNG is self hosted and less accurate, but the most privacy friendly and not attached to any company as you host your own instance, while with Brave you still rely on Brave’s goodness. If you want total control, you want something like this.

I don’t use anything else from Brave, and default search engines are easy to change, so I’m personally not too worried about Brave’s power over me. I do preffer to stay away from Google and Microsoft, and only access them (prefferably trough privacy front-ends) if no other option works decent enough for me. I also prefer not to self-host due to the time and knowledge needed to do so securely. Well, I have knowledge, but I don’t want to worry about those things for my peivaye stuff all the time. Hence the choice of Brave.

Give Whoogle a try. Just choose an instance; or, you can combine it with Farside. This way it will choose the best instance for you.
GitHub - benbusby/whoogle-search: A self-hosted, ad-free, privacy-respecting metasearch engine

A self-hosted, ad-free, privacy-respecting metasearch engine - benbusby/whoogle-search

GitHub
I forgot to mention, it gives you Google results without tracking, or any ads.
Can Farside be used for the browser search box or do you mean visit Farside as a one-time thing to find an instance?

I’m not sure I’m following, so I’ll answer the question for both of the ways I can interpret that question.

If you mean to use site: operator in your <favorite-search-engine>, I don’t think you can.

You can use it to choose your instance once, but why not to always use it?

You can use it in the URL bar. Except the domain itself, the rest of the URL is remaining the same.

https://gооglе.соm/search?q=nyan%20cat would become farside.link/whoogle/search?q=nyan cat.

(You can do search.garudalinux.org/search?q=nyan cat, but Farside is fantastic.)

Whoa that’s awesome! Think this might be a better solution than LibRedirect for me.
Searx/Whoogle. Both on farside.link.
I host an instance of searxng and I am quite happy with it. It displays results of a combination of engines. If you want to spin up your own, I have a blog that explains how to do in basic steps : mustafacanyucel.com/blog/blog-13.html
Mustafa Can Yucel - WebView2 with WiX and MSI

Mustafa Can Yucel - WebView2 with WiX and MSI