A lot of people have been pointing out that Google Search feels like it's been getting worse recently. With more ads, fewer relevant articles, and blog posts...
I selfhost a SearXNG instance in my homelab. It aggregates results from multiple sites, works without JavaScript and filters out all tracking, AMP bullshit and so on.
It is important to run it at home, Google tends to blacklist VPS address ranges, and if you have a public instance, you’ll get rate limited quite fast.
I did that a while ago but always ran in timeouts for some search engines (varied from time to time). Also the order of search results is often completely fucked up. And sometimes I search for something and got something completely different. For example I searched for something like “open source software” and the search results were filled with porn lol.
Also what’s bad about self hosting this in your home network is that your SearXNG instance does the searches from your home network of course. That means all the searches to all the selected search engines like Google, Bing etc. are made from your IP which is counterproductive when it’s privacy you’re trying to achieve.
I selfhost a SearXNG instance in my homelab. It aggregates results from multiple sites, works without JavaScript and filters out all tracking, AMP bullshit and so on.
It is important to run it at home, Google tends to blacklist VPS address ranges, and if you have a public instance, you’ll get rate limited quite fast.
I did that a while ago but always ran in timeouts for some search engines (varied from time to time). Also the order of search results is often completely fucked up. And sometimes I search for something and got something completely different. For example I searched for something like “open source software” and the search results were filled with porn lol.
Also what’s bad about self hosting this in your home network is that your SearXNG instance does the searches from your home network of course. That means all the searches to all the selected search engines like Google, Bing etc. are made from your IP which is counterproductive when it’s privacy you’re trying to achieve.
Whoaw! Neato! Dos it cost anything to self host?
A spare computer (e.g. a rpi), tailscale (free) and a bit of time to set up.
Sounds like a fun project. That’s really cool sounding. Thx
I did a ton of homelab stuff this weekend, planning to write everything down eventually and publish it somewhere…
I hope you do! Can you pls add a link to this comment chain if or when you do. Id be interested in learning more.