170 lines
6.2 KiB
Markdown
170 lines
6.2 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: "How to search Google without using Google, the self-hosted way"
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date: 2020-06-22T10:07:12-03:00
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lastmod: 2020-06-22T10:07:12-03:00
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tags : [ "degoogle", "selfhosted", "devops" ]
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---
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Hello everyone!
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Last week I was talking with a friend and he was complaining about how Google knows everything about us,
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so I took the chance to recommend some degoogled alternatives: I sent him my blog, recommended DuckDuckGo,
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Nextcloud, Protonmail, etc. He really liked my suggestions and promised to try DuckDuckGo. A couple of
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days later he came to me a little defeated, because he didn't like the search results on DuckDuckGo and
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felt bad going back to Google.
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So that got me thinking: **Are there some degoogled search engines that use Google as the backend but
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respect our privacy?**
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So I went looking and found a couple of really interesting options.
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# [Startpage.com](https://startpage.com/)
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According to their [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Startpage.com):
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> Startpage is a web search engine that highlights privacy as its distinguishing feature. Previously, it
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> was known as the metasearch engine Ixquick
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> ...
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> On 7 July 2009, Ixquick launched Startpage.com to offer its service at a URL that is both easier to
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> remember and spell. In contrast to Ixquick.eu, **Startpage.com fetches results from the Google search
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> engine**. This is done **without saving user IP addresses or giving any personal user information to
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> Google's servers**.
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and their own [website](https://startpage.com/):
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> You can’t beat Google when it comes to online search. So we’re paying them to use their brilliant
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> search results in order to remove all trackers and logs. The result: The world’s best and most private
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> search engine. Only now you can search without ads following you around, recommending products you’ve
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> already bought. And no more data mining by companies with dubious intentions. We want you to dance like
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> nobody’s watching and search like nobody’s watching.
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So this was a good solution for my friend: He could still keep his Google search results while using a
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search engine that respects his privacy
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But that wasn't enough for me. You know I love self-hosting, so I wanted to find a solution I could run
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inside my own server because that's the only way I can be 100% sure that my searches are private and no
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logs are kept on my searches, So I went to my second option: Searx
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# [Searx](https://searx.me/)
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According to their [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Searx)
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> searx (/sɜːrks/) is a free metasearch engine, available under the GNU Affero General Public License
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> version 3, with the aim of protecting the privacy of its users. To this end, searx does not share
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> users' IP addresses or search history with the search engines from which it gathers results. Tracking
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> cookies served by the search engines are blocked, preventing user-profiling-based results modification.
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> By default, searx queries are submitted via HTTP POST, to prevent users' query keywords from appearing
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> in webserver logs. searx was inspired by the Seeks project, though it does not implement Seeks'
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> peer-to-peer user-sourced results ranking.
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> ...
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> Any user **may run their own instance of searx, which can be done to maximize privacy**, to avoid
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> congestion on public instances, to preserve customized settings even if browser cookies are cleared, to
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> allow auditing of the source code being run, etc.
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And that's what I wanted: To host my own Searx instance on my server. And nicely enough, they supported
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[Docker out of the box](https://github.com/asciimoo/searx#installation) :)
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So I created my own `docker-compose` based on their `docker-compose`:
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```yml
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version: '3.7'
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services:
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filtron:
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container_name: filtron
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image: dalf/filtron
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restart: always
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ports:
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- 4040:4040
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- 4041:4041
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command: -listen 0.0.0.0:4040 -api 0.0.0.0:4041 -target 0.0.0.0:8082
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volumes:
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- ./rules.json:/etc/filtron/rules.json:rw
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read_only: true
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cap_drop:
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- ALL
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network_mode: host
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searx:
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container_name: searx
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image: searx/searx:latest
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restart: always
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command: -f
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volumes:
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- ./searx:/etc/searx:rw
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environment:
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- BIND_ADDRESS=0.0.0.0:8082
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- BASE_URL=https://myurl.com/
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- MORTY_URL=https://myurl.com/
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- MORTY_KEY=mysupersecretkey
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cap_drop:
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- ALL
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cap_add:
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- CHOWN
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- SETGID
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- SETUID
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- DAC_OVERRIDE
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network_mode: host
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morty:
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container_name: morty
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image: dalf/morty
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restart: always
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ports:
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- 3000:3000
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command: -listen 0.0.0.0:3000 -timeout 6 -ipv6
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environment:
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- MORTY_KEY=mysupersecretkey
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logging:
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driver: none
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read_only: true
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cap_drop:
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- ALL
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network_mode: host
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searx-checker:
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container_name: searx-checker
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image: searx/searx-checker
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restart: always
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command: -cron -o html/data/status.json http://localhost:8082
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volumes:
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- searx-checker:/usr/local/searx-checker/html/data:rw
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network_mode: host
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volumes:
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searx-checker:
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```
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And that was it! I had my own Searx instance, that uses Google, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo and many other
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sources to search around the web.
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## Don't want to host your own instance? Use a public one!
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Searx has a lot of public instances on their website, in case you don't want to self-host your instance
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but still want all the benefits of using Searx. You can check the list here: https://searx.space/
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# Conclusion
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I really like DuckDuckGo. I think it is a very good project that takes privacy to the hands of
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non-technical people, but I also know that "You can’t beat Google when it comes to online search"[^1].
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It is definitely possible to get good search results using privacy oriented alternatives, and in the end,
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it is a very cool and rewarding experience.
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I seriously recommend you to use https://startpage.com, one of the instances listed in
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https://searx.space, or better yet, if you have the knowledge and the resources, to self-host your own
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Searx instance and start searching the web without a big corporation watching every move you make.
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Stay private.
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[^1]: Taken from the Startpage website
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