Meowshell
Mike FraserA reminder we've created a search platform with no ads, no tracking and no AI. Just relevant search results hosted in Canada.
PeachMcD@mike
Bookmarking
Bookmarking
CavyherdI'll be interested to see how this evolves. Preliminary tests return useful surface-level hits, but doesn't seem to have deep clarity.
I'm curious if @pluralistic has given this a try?
Samuel ✅ moved to raphus.socia@cavyherd @mike @pluralistic aah, a SearXNG instance. Metasearch engines have their strengths.
Maaple gives better results than mine, at first glance. I wonder how it's tuned?
Maaple gives better results than mine, at first glance. I wonder how it's tuned?
Stephen Elliott~Buckley@Jirikiha @cavyherd @mike @pluralistic
So...hmmm
Feels like when we moved past yahoo and Altavista to webcrawler then metacrawler.
Then Google...which at the time I thought was actually a metacrawler evolution. Sooooo wrong.
Is maapl more like metacrawler than say duckduckgo and google, just advanced 22 years?
@Maxfieldripken @cavyherd @mike @pluralistic when you search with maaple, notice that under each search result are one or more references to brave, duckduckgo, google, etc. The way a metasearch engine like SearXNG works is for each search it starts a new session ID, which improves privacy, and takes your search term and sends it to a variety of other search engines - google, brave, etc.
The results you get are from those other search engines. Thankfully, the AI dreck from them is scrubbed out.
The results you get are from those other search engines. Thankfully, the AI dreck from them is scrubbed out.
@Jirikiha @Maxfieldripken @mike @pluralistic
Oh interesting, thank you. It seemed like something like that was going on. That clarifies things.
@cavyherd @Maxfieldripken @mike @pluralistic one of the nice things about these engines is they can be tuned in the admin settings. The admin can include/exclude source search engines as desired. It's open source, and users are never tracked or profiled.
@Maxfieldripken @Jirikiha @mike @pluralistic
Heh. I'm sure this isn't how it works, but with Google at least, I imagine you could start by simply excluding the first page of results by default, since those are all ads.
Erin Dalzell (He/Him) 🇨🇦
sb arms & legs@mike
Awesome stuff man, thanks for doing this!
Cheers from NB
c0c0bird
Quarky@mike it’s fast.
franebleu@mike
I just tried it and it's great, all functions work independently of google and AI crap unlike other alternative search engines (ecosia apparently forks towards some google services), 'maps' brings you to openstreetmaps, ...etc.
Fast, efficient, excellent, highly recommended.
I just tried it and it's great, all functions work independently of google and AI crap unlike other alternative search engines (ecosia apparently forks towards some google services), 'maps' brings you to openstreetmaps, ...etc.
Fast, efficient, excellent, highly recommended.
Graeme 🏴@mike Thanks! We'll try it out!
EpiscoGrrl@mike intriguing. Added as a search engine to Brave, so we’ll see how it works.
Gatekeeper..@mike
Puck Trump!
Puck Trump!
theDLCguy@mike Neat, although the idea of a georestricted search engine seems antithetical to what the World Wide Web is all about
@the1dlcguy Didn't know it was. Must be some cloudflare rule from another site.
@mike I think I used the wrong word. I didn't mean the site couldn't be accessed from other countries; I meant the search engine restricts itself to Canadian sites.
I thought the project was odd, because the World Wide Web being global is literally in it's name.
I thought the project was odd, because the World Wide Web being global is literally in it's name.
@the1dlcguy It does not restrict itself to Canadian sites. If only Canadian results are coming back its due to the nature of your search criteria.
@mike Oh, I thought that's what "Just relevant search results hosted in Canada" meant. I misunderstood what you were saying, my bad.
@the1dlcguy The gear is hosted in Canada.
Daron Brewood 🇬🇧@mike Looks good, but I can't see a way to add it into Brave as a custom search engine?
Wordstitcher 
@mike
Thanks. Will be using this now. Looks great!
Thanks. Will be using this now. Looks great!
@mike
Mike, this meta-engine is just great and its results are the most relevant I ever had with any other one (inc. google, duck duck go, ecosia etc.).
Exceptional stuff, I want it as my default.
I want to integrate it into a Firefox fork, but i can't find any dedicated extension and I couldn't manage to make it a custom search engine (perhaps because privacy or because it's a meta engine and you need to enter the search in the pages dedicated frame ?)
Is there a way to achieve that maybe ?
smorks@mike your search engine is now lemmy famous, haha: https://lemmy.ca/post/40511750
@smorks Thanks for letting me know!
Adderbox76@adderbox76 @mike yep there's a few out there.
https://cosocial.ca/ is another one, where it's run as a coop, and you pay $50 yearly, i believe.
then there's some more regional ones like:
https://ottawa.place/
https://socialbc.ca/
i'm sure there's more that i'm forgetting about too.
CodieneC@mike I like maapl - you get what you searched for instead of a bunch of crap
Guillaume Parent-Ruest@mike Quebec used to have a web search engine called "La Toile" (yeah, just the Web in french) that was hosted by Quebecor but unfortunately was shut down in 2014. With the overinflated AI craze, it's good to see alternatives such as maapl.net available. Thank you and to everyone working on this project!
John Francis 🇨🇦🦫🍁💪⬆️@mike I found it a challenge to understand what this search site does. The info pages describe the search tech, but not what its for, how its configured etc
@johnefrancis It's an open source meta search engine. The site is a serxng instance. In a nutshell it aggregates query results from several search engines and proxies them stripping trackers, ads, etc..
Infrogmation@mike
Took a few test searches on it. Oh, I like it!
Took a few test searches on it. Oh, I like it!
Remy Rose@mike oooh it's a searXNG instance? It would be super awesome to see it show up in one of the searXNG randomizers like https://searx.neocities.org/
@MxRemy Yup serxng instance.
Callalily@mike
This is a great search engine. I bookmarked it. And I have added it to my homescreen. I will use it instead of other browsers.
This is a great search engine. I bookmarked it. And I have added it to my homescreen. I will use it instead of other browsers.
Eric KansaI just tried it! It seems really good! Thanks!
Dan Yoder@mike Trying this as my default search engine. Working great so far!
@mike It really is a good search engine. Sometimes even better results if you change the 'English' to 'English CA'
Diabetic HeihachiSearxng is the bee's knees. I have an instance installed myself.
Funky thing you can do with it as an admin is enable JSON for chatbots and apps, using discord as an example DM a bot with your search query, maybe add prefixes for specific searches like !wiki or !video and poof results in your bot or app.
David August ❌👑
calvin 🛋️ @mike Who is "
we"? The about page is just talks about searXNG, but who is hosting it on maapl.net? Or is it trivial to run a searXNG instance? I thought search engines were hard.@calvin The we is TheCanadian.Social. We host a serxng engine from our data centre's in British Columbia. We run it under the maapl.net domain so you know its our instance. It's our own metal in DC space leased to us.
Jennifer Moore 😷Thank you for this!
gnomeoffender@mike you have to add it to the existing search engines in the list first.