this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2024
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Privacy

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if you looking for a good alternative for google search, try "SearXNG" (lemmy.ca)
submitted 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) by ColdWater@lemmy.ca to c/privacy@lemmy.ml
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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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[–] Anon518@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 minutes ago

I checked it out, but most of the public instances I looked at use google + bing. I think I only came across one that used Mojeek, but they deranked it so google results were still at the top.

Yeah you can customize them -- if you never clear your cookies.

Pretty much need to self-host it to customize it.

[–] usernameusername@lemm.ee 3 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

I'd use it if its public instances didn't get rate-limited so often

[–] egsaqmojz@lemmy.ml 5 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

i get a lot of simpsons pictures in the image results for some rsn

[–] monovergent@lemmy.ml 3 points 7 hours ago

same here but with hentai on searx.be

[–] glimse@lemmy.world 1 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Some raisin

[–] Alk@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 hours ago

Some resin

[–] kaiyo@lemmy.world 31 points 14 hours ago (5 children)

I mean it's often better than nothing, but it is a meta search that still often uses Google or Bing to gather results. IMHO, cut off the need for that data on the whole and use an option like Mojeek

[–] Quail4789@lemmy.ml 1 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

The homepage took 5 seconds to load. I'll pass.

[–] HootinNHollerin@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

Not at all for me

[–] Steve@communick.news 35 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

For all their talk of doing things different with their own index and rankings. Mojeek is following exactly what Google did. It's still an ad based business model that makes users into products to be sold to advertisers. They're good now, while still trying to build market share. But once their investors get hungry, the enshitification will commence.

[–] JustMarkov@lemmy.ml 9 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

Mojeek is cool, but trying to search something in my first language results in 0 results find.

[–] bullshitter@lemmy.ml 7 points 14 hours ago

Mojeek reminds me of early Google results which only searches title and inurl I like it

[–] ColdWater@lemmy.ca 2 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (1 children)

~~You can use Mojeek with SearX~~ Nvm with nothing enabled but Mojeek returned no results, I wonders why is that?

[–] ColdWater@lemmy.ca 0 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

~~I could be wrong but didn't Mojeek also index results from Google and Bing?~~ I'm wrong they index their own results, I mean Qwant is a search engine built in EU and they index their own results

[–] ben_dover@lemmy.ml 3 points 8 hours ago

have been using it for a while on my mobile and so far i like it better than ddg or startpage

[–] sga@lemmy.world 2 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

If you are on a desktop, you can run it locally, you are much less likely to be rate limited, but this comes at cost of your ip being still visible to google or whatever search engine you choose to scrape from

[–] Quail4789@lemmy.ml 1 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

IP addresses are not some super-secret PII. You don't have to try to hide it unless you don't want to reveal the country you're in. You can also proxy SearXNG through tor. Though Google wouldn't work then, and of course search time increases as well.

[–] WalnutLum@lemmy.ml 2 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

It's your queries + your IP combined with the rest of the data the net collects from you that identifies you.

[–] Quail4789@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Your IP is waay down the list on the fingerprint vector. Go to fingerprint.com, connect to a VPN, hard refresh the page. They'll know you're the same person. Nobody uses IP to fingerprint people. SearXNG mitigates a lot of the things that they actually use.

[–] sga@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago

I completely agree with you, and what i wrote was in haste, essentially, what i wanted to say, was that an individual running searxng does not provide the anonymity benefits you would get by using some public instance, but it it still better because you are not directly using google or whatever website, and now searxng kinda acts like a browser between you and them, which does limited conversation - there aren't any js based fingerprinting. I also use searxng locally, i cant stand the constant rate limiting of public servers, or sometimes only a few engines are blocked, and variation in result quality is unacceptable to me. I just wanted to add that bit for transparency,

[–] ColdWater@lemmy.ca 7 points 14 hours ago

[–] cmgvd3lw@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

How is it compared to DDG?

[–] ColdWater@lemmy.ca 9 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

I never use DDG before, but I think it's pretty similar since DDG and SearX index their results from Bing (SearX and also index from Google, qwant... if you enable them), but SearX is decentralized and open source but DDG at core is not, you also have to trust DDG with your info (who know? maybe they lie about their privacy policy but I hope not)

[–] kekmacska@lemmy.zip 1 points 13 hours ago

a lot more search results, but they are ordered in a very weird way. it lists subdomains first, then the main domain

[–] drwho@beehaw.org 3 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

It's pretty nice. The REST API for running searches makes running SearxNG worth it, if nothing else.

[–] cyberwolfie@lemmy.ml 3 points 8 hours ago

Could you elaborate on what you mean by that?