Looking for a decent privacy-respecting search engine
Looking for a decent privacy-respecting search engine
Been using SearXNG for about a year now, and I just can't deal with instances constantly getting blocked by search engines anymore. So I'd like to find something a bit more reliable. I've read that DuckDuckGo has had some controversies in the past, and I wouldn't touch Brave with a 39 and a half foot pole.
Kagi is the best search engine on the web right now.
They charge for it because they need to get money some other way then selling your data. But it's well worth it.
We have to stop expecting things to be free. They can't be free if you want privacy and quality and no ads.
19I've seen it mentioned and you're quite right about expecting to get quality, privacy, and free. It's always a pick two.
But can you explain why Kagi is so good?
7Also a Kagi user here. First thing you'll notice compared to other search engines is no ads at the top.
Comparing between multiple search engines, Kagi consistently delivers relevant results for world wide content, but also for more local searches.
You can further refine your search by up/down ranking sites for yourself or even create customized lenses that search specific (types of) sites if you know where you might find the answer. There are multiple predefined lenses, for example searching only .edu domains, forums or programming language websites.1I could but you should just try it and see what you think. You can search 100 times for free to check it out.
If you find what you are looking for and even getting new good results you never saw on Google, that's a very good rating. :)
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kagi is great, ddg is also improving
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Definitely give Kagi a try. Reliable, pretty accurate and privacy respecting. For that though you'll need to actually pay for the service.
18Can you explain what's so good about it compared to Google besides the privacy aspect? I hear it's "better" a lot.
7+1 for Kagi. I finally decided to drop Google after their bullshit WEI proposal with Chrome recently and it has been great so far. Yes, Kagi is paid, but we all know the saying that "if you're not paying for it, you are the product." That's not the case with Kagi.
4Curious, do they accept crypto as payment?
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12The DDG problems where with their app because it had some Microsoft tracker in, nothing with the search engine.
6I'm pretty sure DDG said they were censoring certain results that were misinformation related to Covid stuff.
Some people flipped out because ddg said they were removing results for what they deemed as conspiracy theories about Covid, at least that's what I heard.
4The Microsoft trackers issue is bad and they eventually had to address it due to the backlash, but that's not the only issue.
They also began explicitly censoring search results and information. Regardless of any given persons stance on any particular issue, things like censoring or downranking particular results or labeling content mis, dis or mal information means an entity like DDG is acting as an arbiter of truth and limiting the information users have access to rather than acting as a tool for users to utilize in searching for info and presenting any and all viewpoints, allowing the user to make up their own mind.
https://reclaimthenet.org/duckduckgo-down-ranking-russian-disinformation
1DDG does not index .onion websites, is it censorship?
And downranking search engine optimized Covid and Russia desinformation is part of being a useful search engine. If you search for "Ukraine" and the first 20 results are obviously Kremlin propaganda, your search engine is trash and nobody will use it because the results are unreliable at best.
The tracker issue had and has nothing to do with the search engine, just with the app. Yes that wasn't a good thing but rather insignificant.
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Between the ones I tried startpage, DDG, and Brave the 1st one gives me the best results, all of them are privacy respecting
5You can use Farside with a Whoogle instance.
That way you don't have to rely on a single instance.
4TIL about farside, it looks very useful
1Could this be done with searx too?
1How can I set this up on cromite?
I've added farside.link searx instance "main link" (https://farside.link/searx) to "homepage" but it gives me the same searx instance everytime
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What are the controversies with DuckDuckGo? I’ve never heard of anything.
4Their browser is sharing data with MS, since they're using their services instead of Google. They've been upfront about it and explained there is no way around it.
As long as you just use their search engine, you're fine.
9In addition to the Microsoft trackers, I referenced this as well in another reply in this topic:
https://reclaimthenet.org/duckduckgo-down-ranking-russian-disinformation
There are plenty of other sources that also reported on this.
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Maybe you should give Qwant a try
3Qwant just shows Bing results, like most alternative search engines.
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Startpage.com Other i use are listed on privacytools.io
3I selfhost SearXNG and route it's traffic through a VPN. I rarely get blocked by search engines, and when I do I just change the VPN server. You lose the benefit of your data being intermixed with everyone elses on a shared instance, but you still get the other privacy improvements from SearXNG
1Do you have the ability to run your own Whoogle instance?
1Mullvad Leta is a good option but it's not convenient because you need to be connected to their VPN
1Search (pun) for a SearxNG (read as searching) instance.
It's an open source meta search engine. You can make it even more private if you selfhost it.
0OP said they want to stop using SearxNG.
Also, selfhosting it makesist less privacy friendly, if you are hosting it only for yourself, as the search engines your instance is contacting can easily determine that all those searches are coming from a same IP. Sp, even if it is preventing the telemetry collection, a detailed profile can be made on the person hosting it. Butiff multiple people are using it, profiling becomes difficult. Same is the case with using self-hosted VPNs. They are good against censorship and for some other things, but not for privacy.
10Oh, thank you for correcting me! It's right there and I didn't see it. My bad.
You raise good points. I confess I hadn't thought about it like that. So, not only you corrected me, you also enlightened me. I'm today's lucky 10000!
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