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

  • ikidd@lemmy.world
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    2 months 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.

      • ikidd@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

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

    • Anon518@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      it’s as good or better than

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

    • x00z@lemmy.world
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      2 months 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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        2 months 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 months 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 months 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.

      • yonder@sh.itjust.works
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        2 months ago

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