PeARS-orchard VS searxng

> We now have a distributed crawler that runs on our volunteers' machines! If you have Firefox you can help out by installing our extension.

This is a very interesting idea that other search engines have tried before. Actually, the Brave search engine is built over Cliqz[6] that implemented this same idea but *without* the user's consent.

Copy pasting from an old comment I made about this "human web" crawler idea:

Both PeARS[1] and Cliqz[2] tried to do that. Both got direct support from Mozilla[3][4] but it looks like neither really kicked off.

PeARS was meant to be installed voluntarily by users who would then choose to share their indexes only to those they personally trusted, so the idea is very privacy conscious but also very hard to scale.

Cliqz, on the other hand, apparently tried to work around that issue by having their add-on bundled by default in some Firefox installations[5] which was obviously very controversial because of its privacy and user consent implications.

I still think the idea has potential, though, even if it's in a more limited scope.

[1] https://github.com/PeARSearch/PeARS-orchard

[2] https://cliqz.com/en/whycliqz/human-web

[3] https://blog.mozilla.org/press-uk/2016/06/22/mozilla-gives-3...

[4] https://blog.mozilla.org/press-uk/2016/08/23/mozilla-makes-s...

[5] https://www.zdnet.com/article/firefox-tests-cliqz-engine-whi...

[6] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/03/brave_buys_a_search_e...

Don't use Youtube without going through a proxy like Invidious [1] or Newpipe

Don't use {site} Search without going through a proxy like SearxNG [2]

Don't use TwiXXer without going through a proxy like Nitter - this has gotten more difficult lately but it still works as long as you feed the daemon some registered accounts. Video does not work at the moment but that seems to be fixable.

Don't use Reddit without going through a proxy like libreddit [4]

Start noticing the pattern? Maybe it is time to start producing promotional posters:

The only thing to come between you and ADS could be a proxy / ADS. I'ts just not worth the risk

ADS / New rules for a sane net / Sane net protects you, your partner and your community

A proxy here and a filter there, ADS nowhere

The more you tighten your grip, ${site}, the more viewers will slip through your fingers

[1] https://github.com/iv-org/invidious

[2] https://github.com/searxng/searxng

[3] https://github.com/zedeus/nitter

[4] https://github.com/libreddit/libreddit

privacy-focused metasearch engines, like SearXNG[1] and 4get[2], should be considered more comprehensive and private than any one index or engine.

[1]https://docs.searxng.org/

Global configuration for an instance:

https://github.com/searxng/searxng/blob/f1a148f53e9fbd10e95b...

I would recommend https://github.com/searxng/searxng

One of my biggest gripes with Google search these days are it's bad UI. Started using searxng a few years ago when Google made everything above the fold useless videos and dynamically poping in content to accedently click.

Use a meta-search engine like SearXNG [1] and point it at Google/DDG/Brave/Bing/... and you'll be spared the mediocrity that is all those sponsored results, the profiling, the personalised results (which I consider to be a good thing to leave out, others may disagree) and you'll also start noticing which engine remains quiet on certain queries. You can easily run SearXNG yourself on that same SBC which you got to run your own mail and XMPP server [2], it doesn't take much (if any) maintenance and can - with the Recoll engine - also be used to search your own network.

Source: I've been doing this for years and made the Recoll engine for SearX.

[1] https://github.com/searxng/searxng

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39052731

Recently I came across SearXNG, it's a privacy respecting search engine Aggregator. Amazing tool. Worth checking : https://docs.searxng.org

I would first try SearXNG[0].

0. https://github.com/searxng/searxng