I’m looking into self-hosting a SearXNG instance for my own use. One thing I don’t get is how the results are aggregated if I’m using a local instance. Is it just going to all the configured search engines and making requests? If that’s the case, what’s the benefit of using SearXNG instead of just going to that search engine myself from a privacy perspective?

  • mbirth@lemmy.ml
    4·
    3 months ago

    The thing with SearXNG is that it will search in multiple search engines in parallel and then aggregate the results. If the same result appears in all of the queries, it’ll be weighted more than one that appears in only one of the results.

    This way you get very neutral overall results compared to the biased ones Google usually delivers.

    Also, you can easily define custom search engines, so you could make it search on your favourite website as well.

    • Quail4789@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
      2·
      3 months ago

      yeah, I’m well aware of these features. Just didn’t get the benefit of running a private instance vs. using a trusted public instance, which would hide my IP from the search engines.

      • Findmysec@infosec.pubEnglish
        2·
        3 months ago

        Configure the TOR Duckduckgo and Brave search engines and only search over TOR. Switch circuits every x hours.

      • mbirth@lemmy.ml
        1·
        3 months ago

        You never know when this public instance is going away and don’t have a say in additional custom search engines.

        I run this on a Raspberry Pi at home. My ISP bumps me to a different IP address every few days. So no worries there for me.