Google Search is dead to me, so I self-hosted my own private, ad-free, AI-free alternative instead. Here’s everything you need to know about SearXNG.
Last time I tried a SearXNG instance, it was blocked by pretty much every search engine.
I’ve been self hosting SearXNG for about 1.5 years and it’s great. Use it every day, just works.
Just recently set up SearXNG for myself and I’m loving it as well. Although, do be aware, it sends your IP address and search query to google/bing/etc so I recommend setting it up to use a VPN or VPS to help mask your IP. In theory, google could build a profile on you based on that information alone.
If you don’t want to self host it there are also public instances that you can join. However, you’re trusting your data to the server owners, whoever they are.
it sends your IP address and search query to google/bing/etc
That does sound like an important thing to know when setting it up.
To be clear, that is a google requirement that SearXNG must follow for the service to work correctly.
it sends your IP address and search query to google/bing/etc
Seems like this completely negates the purpose…? There’s not really any way to have a strictly “private” search engine because you’d have to either run your own index, which is extremely resource-intensive and now you’re pinging every site on the web with your personal IP, or trust a third party to do it for you. The latter makes a lot more sense. Use Kagi, NeoSearch, DDG, Brave, etc.
Would you like to explain what this links to?
I’m questioning the legality of SearXNG, as it scrapes results from other search engines without paying, from my understanding.
Are you suggesting all search engines require payment before returning results? 😧
Most don’t and those that do won’t allow SearXNG to get results. So I’m not sure what you’re saying here.
Companies like DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, and StartPage pay Bing and Google to use their search index/API to get search results.
DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, and StartPage fund themselves through search advertising.
Brave Search uses its own search index, which they also sell access to, and they fund themselves through search advertising or an optional ad-free premium subscription.
SearXNG scrapes the search results without providing any monetary value to the search engine providers who are offering the service.
How dare we take what Google has rightfully stolen! That could cause Google to lose money and even go out of business!
I think you confuse search engines with AI. Search engines are supposed to index, not “steal”. I also questioned the legality, not what your moral compass is saying.
Are you always a narc?
It scraps results to the extent that Google scraps results from websites. Google doesnt pay me for including my personal blog in someone’s search results, so why would I pay Google for including them in my SearXNG results.
Some countries have gone after Google for search summaries, but SearXNG doesnt do that, and they haven’t gone after the other search engines that are closer to being a household name. So I think its safe, legally.
