6 ms·

Show HN: Self-hosted, ad-free, privacy-respecting alternative to Google search

32 points by vinushkah 6y ago

thih9 6y ago
I like the idea, I think we need more projects like this. Minor nitpicking re: title, I don’t view it as an alternative to google search, since it still relies on google search results.
- pedrogpimenta 6y ago
  I don't think it's either minor nor nitpicking. It's not an alternative at all. If Google doesn't exist, this doesn't exist. That said, I like the effort and it makes sense. It just shouldn't be called an alternative.
  - curiousgal 6y ago
    It wasn't called an alternative, you're criticizing the title of the HN post which has nothing to do with the project. Edit: Never mind I missed the upper project description.
    - andreareina 6y ago
      The project description is "Self-hosted, ad-free, privacy-respecting alternative to Google search", same as the title.
moepstar 6y ago
Just to add some perspective - i'm using DDG exclusively because i'm really wary sending G any kind of traffic at all, since that will be tracked anyways. Same goes for facebook - as long as you're logged in, you're sending them beacons for every site you visit that has a Like-button somewhere :S
- lozf 6y ago
  > Same goes for facebook - as long as you're logged in... Even if you're not logged in, AIUI they're still logging the IP's that load those like buttons, and anything else they can glean to match to "shadow profiles", which presumably they try to match with known profiles via cookies etc. if/when you log in later.
  - nsomaru 6y ago
    Use privacy badger
- iso1210 6y ago
  > Same goes for facebook - as long as you're logged in, you're sending them beacons for every site you visit that has a Like-button somewhere :S Doesn't facebook run in its own container by default?
- the_pwner224 6y ago
  This happens even if you're not logged in. You can go to the ublock origin settings and from the 'filter liste' section enable the social blocking ones. Those will disable the fb/twtr/etc. buttons completely. Or, as someone else mentioned, Privacy Badger should help without completelty disabling them.
brnt 6y ago
Lately I've been using searx, which I found out depends in quality greatly on the instance used. Searx.space has a list of instances you can use, and you should try another if one doesn't perform well for you.
- boudin 6y ago
  Same here, hosting my own. It has been working great. Never looked back since i switched quite a few years back now.
- unicornporn 6y ago
  I've tried plenty of instances in the past and they've all been defunct. May I ask which one you recommend?
  - brnt 6y ago
    Stinpriza.org works well for me. Tried searx.be and that one didn't give me good results.
    - unicornporn 6y ago
      Thanks!
baxtr 6y ago
I have been using the Russian search engine yandex.ru lately. You will get different results. It reminds me of the google of previous times with less "SEO optimized" content on-top.
patchtopic 6y ago
my first thought was "if it's self hosted, don't I have to index the entire internet first before I use it..?" .. before I read it's actually a frontend/proxy to google, not a separate thing. This is fine, but the seems a bit misleading to me.
obilgic 6y ago
Title is completely misleading
badrabbit 6y ago
Perhaps a common protocol to query index search items would help with all this. New search engines pop up but how can they realistically stand a chance unless they depend om bing or google at least in the back end,even if they can they simply can't out spend or out hire google
huhtenberg 6y ago
The crucial part is missing in the Readme - how it works. Nothing else matters until this bit is explained. From the looks of it, it's just a proxy that forwards search requests to Google. Unless these happen to go out via Tor or similar anonymizer tech, that's hardly a "privacy-respective alternative to Google search".
- tyingq 6y ago
  It does appear to strip cookies, and either some or all of Google's JS, depending the config. So, Google wouldn't see your client IP, any cookies, etc. Perhaps not fully private, but they do seem to provide better privacy.
  - rovr138 6y ago
    > So, Google wouldn’t see your client IP Yes they would. You can’t sent them a request without giving them your IP. - If you’re self hosting it on your device, they have that device’s current public IP - If you’re self hosting at a server you have, you’re giving them that (and will be easier to track).
    - tyingq 6y ago
      "Yes they would. You can’t sent them a request without giving them your IP." I suspect you know what I meant. They can't see the IP of your browser. Rather, they see a Heroku, DO, whatever IP.
      - rovr138 6y ago
        I actually tried it on my laptop. That’s why I pointed out the 2 cases.
- justaj 6y ago
  If that's the case, then why not just use googler [0] since it only appears to send IP address, user-agent (which is set to Google Chrome) and search term to Google [1] Edit: Forgot to add, also supports proxies. 0: https://github.com/jarun/googler https://github.com/jarun/googler 1: https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/gayf4i/googler_v41_is_released_google_from_the_terminal/fp4rctl/ https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/gayf4i/googler_v41_i...
montroser 6y ago
For a fully independent alternative, see https://private.sh https://private.sh which is uses https://gigablast.com https://gigablast.com as a data source. Gigablast itself is an open source crawler, index, and query engine. It is a bit of a quirky one-man project, but also kind of good.
- vinushkah 6y ago
  Since I found out that private.sh was owned by PrivateInternetAccess, I've been hesitant to use it given their recent acquisition by Kape Technologies.
  - rasengan 6y ago
    The code for Private.sh is open source so you can actually see what it’s doing instead of trusting it. Don’t trust, verify :)
    - livre 6y ago
      You can never be sure that the code you see is the same as the code that powers that website. If you trust the code the best you can do is run your own server.
      - rasengan 6y ago
        If you click View Source you can see that queries are absolutely encrypted. Running your own server just changes your IP but it’s still “yours.” Finally, you shouldn’t “trust” code and run it. You absolutely need to read and understand first and finally, determine if running yourself actually brings benefit.
        livre 6y ago
        You can't trust code you don't understand, if you do that don't call it trust, call it faith. Your query has to get decrypted somewhere or else the server wouldn't be able to proxy the request to Google unless it is E2E encrypted but then it is no different than just using a VPN or a socks5 proxy. If that's the case better just use Tor or a VPN and have privacy everywhere instead of just on your search page.
generalpass 6y ago
This seems like something Google doesn't like, as in, they'll stop serving you results.
foxhop 6y ago
It's like a search engine proxy? I'm assuming flask?
butz 6y ago
I wonder what server one would need to actually self-host web search engine. And how long it would take for initial indexing?
- t0astbread 6y ago
  And how much energy it'd take if everyone did that... Addendum: Maybe something like what package managers are doing would be feasible? Download an index that's as compact as possible and search locally. Does that exist already?
t0astbread 6y ago
Why is this flagged? Maybe it's something HN doesn't find very useful, okay, but that's not a reason to flag it.
- p49k 6y ago
  As someone who mostly uses HN on mobile, I occasionally accidentally flag things, and then they disappear from my feed making it impossible to correct my mistake, and there is no way (that I know of) to see a history of what I flagged. I wonder how many people accidentally flagging could trigger the notice.
- detaro 6y ago
  reading the comments, probably because it is not what the title promises.
  - t0astbread 6y ago
    Yeah, I see. I still think it's a bit harsh, especially since it kinda depends on how you interpret it here (i.e. what is "Google search"? The frontend or the backend? etc.) and it was made in good faith after all. This reminds me of a passage in the "Waterfox joins System1" blog post[1] where the maintainer of Waterfox goes into how they've recieved harrassment because some people felt Waterfox wasn't up to their standards in terms of privacy. [1] https://www.waterfox.net/blog/waterfox-has-joined-system1/ https://www.waterfox.net/blog/waterfox-has-joined-system1/
  - generalpass 6y ago
    > reading the comments, probably because it is not what the title promises. If that were the case, admins would simply change the title. I suspect the reason is that it's a tool that is designed to violate a specific site's TOS, which I think this tool does.
    - detaro 6y ago
      That admins could change the title doesn't mean users don't feel mislead and flag in the mean time.

32 points by vinushkah 6y ago

I like the idea, I think we need more projects like this. Minor nitpicking re: title, I don’t view it as an alternative to google search, since it still relies on google search results.

pedrogpimenta 6y ago
I don't think it's either minor nor nitpicking. It's not an alternative at all. If Google doesn't exist, this doesn't exist. That said, I like the effort and it makes sense. It just shouldn't be called an alternative.
- curiousgal 6y ago
  It wasn't called an alternative, you're criticizing the title of the HN post which has nothing to do with the project. Edit: Never mind I missed the upper project description.
  - andreareina 6y ago
    The project description is "Self-hosted, ad-free, privacy-respecting alternative to Google search", same as the title.

moepstar 6y ago

Just to add some perspective - i'm using DDG exclusively because i'm really wary sending G any kind of traffic at all, since that will be tracked anyways. Same goes for facebook - as long as you're logged in, you're sending them beacons for every site you visit that has a Like-button somewhere :S

lozf 6y ago
> Same goes for facebook - as long as you're logged in... Even if you're not logged in, AIUI they're still logging the IP's that load those like buttons, and anything else they can glean to match to "shadow profiles", which presumably they try to match with known profiles via cookies etc. if/when you log in later.
- nsomaru 6y ago
  Use privacy badger
iso1210 6y ago
> Same goes for facebook - as long as you're logged in, you're sending them beacons for every site you visit that has a Like-button somewhere :S Doesn't facebook run in its own container by default?
the_pwner224 6y ago
This happens even if you're not logged in. You can go to the ublock origin settings and from the 'filter liste' section enable the social blocking ones. Those will disable the fb/twtr/etc. buttons completely. Or, as someone else mentioned, Privacy Badger should help without completelty disabling them.

brnt 6y ago

Lately I've been using searx, which I found out depends in quality greatly on the instance used. Searx.space has a list of instances you can use, and you should try another if one doesn't perform well for you.

boudin 6y ago
Same here, hosting my own. It has been working great. Never looked back since i switched quite a few years back now.
unicornporn 6y ago
I've tried plenty of instances in the past and they've all been defunct. May I ask which one you recommend?
- brnt 6y ago
  Stinpriza.org works well for me. Tried searx.be and that one didn't give me good results.
  - unicornporn 6y ago
    Thanks!

baxtr 6y ago

I have been using the Russian search engine yandex.ru lately. You will get different results. It reminds me of the google of previous times with less "SEO optimized" content on-top.

patchtopic 6y ago

my first thought was "if it's self hosted, don't I have to index the entire internet first before I use it..?" .. before I read it's actually a frontend/proxy to google, not a separate thing. This is fine, but the seems a bit misleading to me.

obilgic 6y ago

Title is completely misleading

badrabbit 6y ago

Perhaps a common protocol to query index search items would help with all this. New search engines pop up but how can they realistically stand a chance unless they depend om bing or google at least in the back end,even if they can they simply can't out spend or out hire google

huhtenberg 6y ago

The crucial part is missing in the Readme - how it works. Nothing else matters until this bit is explained. From the looks of it, it's just a proxy that forwards search requests to Google. Unless these happen to go out via Tor or similar anonymizer tech, that's hardly a "privacy-respective alternative to Google search".

tyingq 6y ago
It does appear to strip cookies, and either some or all of Google's JS, depending the config. So, Google wouldn't see your client IP, any cookies, etc. Perhaps not fully private, but they do seem to provide better privacy.
- rovr138 6y ago
  > So, Google wouldn’t see your client IP Yes they would. You can’t sent them a request without giving them your IP. - If you’re self hosting it on your device, they have that device’s current public IP - If you’re self hosting at a server you have, you’re giving them that (and will be easier to track).
  - tyingq 6y ago
    "Yes they would. You can’t sent them a request without giving them your IP." I suspect you know what I meant. They can't see the IP of your browser. Rather, they see a Heroku, DO, whatever IP.
    - rovr138 6y ago
      I actually tried it on my laptop. That’s why I pointed out the 2 cases.
justaj 6y ago
If that's the case, then why not just use googler [0] since it only appears to send IP address, user-agent (which is set to Google Chrome) and search term to Google [1] Edit: Forgot to add, also supports proxies. 0: https://github.com/jarun/googler https://github.com/jarun/googler 1: https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/gayf4i/googler_v41_is_released_google_from_the_terminal/fp4rctl/ https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/gayf4i/googler_v41_i...

montroser 6y ago

For a fully independent alternative, see https://private.sh https://private.sh which is uses https://gigablast.com https://gigablast.com as a data source. Gigablast itself is an open source crawler, index, and query engine. It is a bit of a quirky one-man project, but also kind of good.

vinushkah 6y ago
Since I found out that private.sh was owned by PrivateInternetAccess, I've been hesitant to use it given their recent acquisition by Kape Technologies.
- rasengan 6y ago
  The code for Private.sh is open source so you can actually see what it’s doing instead of trusting it. Don’t trust, verify :)
  - livre 6y ago
    You can never be sure that the code you see is the same as the code that powers that website. If you trust the code the best you can do is run your own server.
    - rasengan 6y ago
      If you click View Source you can see that queries are absolutely encrypted. Running your own server just changes your IP but it’s still “yours.” Finally, you shouldn’t “trust” code and run it. You absolutely need to read and understand first and finally, determine if running yourself actually brings benefit.
      - livre 6y ago
        You can't trust code you don't understand, if you do that don't call it trust, call it faith. Your query has to get decrypted somewhere or else the server wouldn't be able to proxy the request to Google unless it is E2E encrypted but then it is no different than just using a VPN or a socks5 proxy. If that's the case better just use Tor or a VPN and have privacy everywhere instead of just on your search page.

generalpass 6y ago

This seems like something Google doesn't like, as in, they'll stop serving you results.

foxhop 6y ago

It's like a search engine proxy? I'm assuming flask?

butz 6y ago

I wonder what server one would need to actually self-host web search engine. And how long it would take for initial indexing?

t0astbread 6y ago
And how much energy it'd take if everyone did that... Addendum: Maybe something like what package managers are doing would be feasible? Download an index that's as compact as possible and search locally. Does that exist already?

t0astbread 6y ago

Why is this flagged? Maybe it's something HN doesn't find very useful, okay, but that's not a reason to flag it.

p49k 6y ago
As someone who mostly uses HN on mobile, I occasionally accidentally flag things, and then they disappear from my feed making it impossible to correct my mistake, and there is no way (that I know of) to see a history of what I flagged. I wonder how many people accidentally flagging could trigger the notice.
detaro 6y ago
reading the comments, probably because it is not what the title promises.
- t0astbread 6y ago
  Yeah, I see. I still think it's a bit harsh, especially since it kinda depends on how you interpret it here (i.e. what is "Google search"? The frontend or the backend? etc.) and it was made in good faith after all. This reminds me of a passage in the "Waterfox joins System1" blog post[1] where the maintainer of Waterfox goes into how they've recieved harrassment because some people felt Waterfox wasn't up to their standards in terms of privacy. [1] https://www.waterfox.net/blog/waterfox-has-joined-system1/ https://www.waterfox.net/blog/waterfox-has-joined-system1/
- generalpass 6y ago
  > reading the comments, probably because it is not what the title promises. If that were the case, admins would simply change the title. I suspect the reason is that it's a tool that is designed to violate a specific site's TOS, which I think this tool does.
  - detaro 6y ago
    That admins could change the title doesn't mean users don't feel mislead and flag in the mean time.