ditch Google!! (build your own PRIVATE search engine)

Youtube ^ | 1 July 2022 | NetworkChuck

[martin_fierro]

Ugh, that guy’s shtick gets old, fast.

“You need to do X, no matter what the cost!”

[Angelino97]

Without having seen the video, I assume he's talking about piggybacking onto preexisting search engines, then filtering their results to your liking.

To build an actual search engine, one that would spider the entire internet, well, wouldn't that require massive bandwidth and processing power?

[ShadowAce]

You're close. It's a meta-search engine--taking results from several engines and combining them for you.

The neat thing is that before it performs the search, it creates a new, randomized profile so that the engines cannot build up any information on you.

It does that for *every* search you perform--not just for each browser session.

[Yo-Yo]

Searx is a local install. You're sending nothing to Searx.

Unless you are also installing your own personal web crawler that scans all of the web pages of the world and indexes them on your local machine, then something is reaching out to someone else's server somewhere to search their database for the inquiry you are making.

Because your machine reached out to someone else's server, then that someone else knows what you searched for, and can build a database of inquiries from you (or your local install of Searx.)

[ducttape45]

That brings back memories! Excite was another one.

[RebelTXRose]

btt

[ShadowAce]

Because your machine reached out to someone else's server, then that someone else knows what you searched for,...

This is true.

...and can build a database of inquiries from you (or your local install of Searx.)

Except that your local install of Searx creates a brand new, unique, randomized profile every time you perform a search--not just for each browser session.

That makes tracking rather difficult. For this reason, an extra layer of security would be to put this installation in the cloud (like Linode) to hide your own IP.

[ShadowAce]

For this reason, an extra layer of security would be to put this installation in the cloud (like Linode) to hide your own IP.

Or stick it behind a VPN like NordVPN and randomize the connection server every day.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

“Ugh, that guy’s shtick gets old, fast.”

Yeah. Ugh, indeed. I set YouTube playback speed at .75X to make it somewhat listenable. I’m too old to play around with all the things he is doing. Even though he claims it is simple, I know I’d get 5% into it and something wouldn’t work and I’d never be able to figure out what went wrong.

[Albion Wilde]

bump

[Yo-Yo]

Except that your local install of Searx creates a brand new, unique, randomized profile every time you perform a search--not just for each browser session.

That is what they claim, and it may be true for Google, or any of the other 70+ databases they are querying, but not necessarily true for Searx or its masters.

Hopefully, being open source means that others have examined the code to make sure data isn't being sent to other servers surreptitiously.

[dayglored]

AltaVista and Netscape Navigator -- They were my tools of choice after I migrated off CompuServe in the early 90's. I did a huge amount of work with those programs, including building and maintaining my first few serious websites.

The good ol' days, fer shure.

[daniel1212]

"I use Bing. There’s no manipulation. You can filter whatever news your looking for to the past 24 hours, the past week, month etc."

Same with Google and duckduckgo.com, but to varying degrees they favor liberal media. Long ago I posted on how you can create your own custom search engine using Google tools, which works, but it limits how many sites you it will search. Thus I created a custom search engine https://cse.google.com/cse?cx=011383487679067898861:gug5bh6z5ol for conservative news. I have made another custom search for apologetical issues: https://cse.google.com/cse?cx=011383487679067898861:d5mux31ku3h Very limited use, and there is with no guarantee for the future, but thank God for the option.