this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2024
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Privacy

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actually awesome and fast search engine (depending on which instance you use) with no trashy AI and ADs results also great for privacy, if you don't know which instance to use go to https://searx.space/ and choose an instance closest to you

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

Been rocking self-hosted Searxng for the last 3 weeks now as my default search engine; it's as good or better than DDG and certainly better than Google. Results I need are usually within the first three items, no extraneous shit.

I thought I'd just try it out, but it's staying. The ability to tune the background engines is awesome. My search history is private (though I wasn't that worried about DDG, there was no way in fuck I was using Kagi) since it's running it's searches via a VPN and returning me results locally.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Because I don't want a direct link to payment information and my search history stored and sold later.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

it’s as good or better than

It's only as good as the search engines you select. Which ones have you selected?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Defaults are working fine, I might have added one or two.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

What does it default to? Google+bing+DDG?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Keep in mind that to protect your privacy you should also share your instance with others. All the searches are still linked to an IP which can be abused as well.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yes, that's the purpose of the VPN. It's out there mixed in with everyone else that's using that exit node.

Honestly, it's not too much of a concern to me, I'm not doing anything illegal or naughty, it's just making sure I'm not part of the dataset.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Yep, a VPN is a good solution.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (2 children)

How does it work self hosting? Is it querying other search engines or just maintaining a database on your server?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Its all calls to other engines, that you can choose and tune. So its making those calls and filtering out shit like AI results, and then ranking it to return back to you. Seems to do a good job.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

It's a meta search engine: it aggregates results from multiple sources for your search query. So yes, it queries other search engines.