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

  • OfficerBribe@lemm.ee
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    23 minutes ago

    Aren’t all search queries available to whoever hosts an instance? In my eyes this is much worse to privacy and a much bigger risk unless you really know who is behind your chosen instance. I would trust some a company a bit more with safeguarding this information so it does not leak to some random guy.

  • Snapz@lemmy.world
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    1 hour ago

    Can someone explain the meaning of the name and the people having this project please?

    You’re trusting how information is filtered and funneled to you with a search tool, but a change to take lightly. Google sucks, but they have a lot to lose, a lot of eyes on them and I know generally their base motivations.

    • boonhet@lemm.ee
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      51 minutes ago

      Fortunately, you can read through the source code of SearxNG and even modify it - provided that you also publish the modified version to your users if you host it publicly.

      You can run your own instance, public or private. Or you can use a public instance.

      Internally, it uses other search engines, rather than crawling the entire web and indexing everything.

  • Mandy@sh.itjust.works
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    3 hours ago

    Man, i wish i had the same experiencr

    The couple of times I tried it out, the search results where barely accurate

  • ikidd@lemmy.world
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    2 hours ago

    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.

    • x00z@lemmy.world
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      1 hour ago

      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.

      • ikidd@lemmy.world
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        24 minutes ago

        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.

    • Corgana@startrek.website
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      2 hours ago

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

      • ikidd@lemmy.world
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        2 hours 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.

  • Shareni@programming.dev
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    4 hours ago

    It’s ok at best, when it works. When it runs out of API hits for the day at noon, you need to use something like https://searx.neocities.org/ and retype your search multiple times until you manage to hit an instance that can actually perform a search.

    Also, no suggestions.

  • ad_on_is@lemm.ee
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    3 hours ago

    I have it running on my server, and honestly… I almost love it more than kagi. Still evaluating both, to make a decision by the end of the year.

  • Dyskolos@lemmy.zip
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    6 hours ago

    Using it on my own server since… Ages ☺️ Can only recommend it. Even though google’s results are often… Weird up to completely unhelpful.

  • Matt@lemmy.ml
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    7 hours ago

    Dig out old PC from somewhere, install some Linux distribution, Tailscale and Docker/Podman, and install SearX that way.