What is the best privacy focused search engine? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 11 months ago by EdherJr@sh.itjust.works to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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Preferably one that doesn't censor search results. Like DuckDuckGo, apparently

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[+] MagneticFusion@lemm.ee 57 points 11 months ago

[deleted]

[-] Linus_Torvalds@lemmy.world 44 points 11 months ago

Disclaimer: Kagi user here.

Searches are not pay-per-use anymore. But you still have to be logged in to search. The premise is, that they don't store your searches. It is not their business model. You are the paying customer, not the ad firms. This is, ultimately, not verifiable. It comes down to some sort of trust. And I do trust in them. The developers are actually great guys, there is a discord where they answer immediately, and a discourse forum where you can submit bugs/features, etc.

They take a strong stance on freedom. They refused to implement a suicide prevention message, as they felt, that it wasbnot the job of the search engine to patronize the user.

There is such a thing as a 'session link'. You can get it from you account. With this, I don't think cookies are necesary. But the link expires so you have to do it probably every few days anew.

The thing is: I want to aupport them. They have cool features (up/downranking websites, GPT-4 access over their proxy, etc.) Is it better than self-hosting: no. But I don't wanna self-host. And search is something that costs. So any service that does not live off donations or some sort of payment, is suspicious.

I hope I explained some of my reasons. Please debunk me and make me cancel my subscription there if I am in the wrong. Im not a shill and actually interested in your concerns :)

[-] just_another_person@lemmy.world 20 points 11 months ago

Hrmmmm...not sure if the username checks out.

[-] stifle867@programming.dev 8 points 11 months ago

It's probably a leading contender for one of the "best for privacy", especially with their business model and even a warrant canary on their legal page. Their Privacy Policy also does a lot to explain things.

It is a slightly different claim to being a privacy first or privacy focused search engine. Privacy is more of a close 2nd priority then a 1st and foremost priority. The difference is small but real. For example, Kagi is incorporated in the USA and has to comply with USA laws. Not a country known for its outstanding track record.

[-] dutchkimble@lemy.lol 3 points 11 months ago

How do you access the GPT4 feature?

[-] Mkengine@feddit.de 2 points 11 months ago

I think by kagi.com/fastgpt

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[-] Linus_Torvalds@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

GPT-4 is for Ultimate users ($25/month). The "weaker" models like GPT-3.5 will be rolled out for Pro users($10/month) in the next few weeks.

PS: FastGPT+ Summarizer exist as well, but this was not what I was talking about. Those are both somewhat limited AI tools, the GPT thing is the full blown access

[-] dutchkimble@lemy.lol 2 points 11 months ago

Got it - thanks for the explanation!

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[-] Matt@lemdro.id 11 points 11 months ago

I agree that Kagi isn't great from a privacy perspective. But in regards to clearing cookies, they do have a session link feature that uses a token to avoid the need to sign in all the time.

[-] Newby@startrek.website 10 points 11 months ago

The quality and customization of their search results are great

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[-] BuddyTheBeefalo@lemmy.ml 41 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

The far right complains after the search engine DuckDuckGo vows to limit Russian propaganda.

Misconceptions About DuckDuckGo: Did DuckDuckGo censor search results about the Russia-Ukraine war?

[-] gullible@kbin.social 34 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

This was particularly visible on far right subreddits where they began heavily recommending yandex. Because that makes sense. Swapping from a privacy-centric search engine to a literal Russian propaganda conveyor belt? Yeah, sure. No clue how many bit the bait.

[-] GratefullyGodless@lemmy.world 13 points 11 months ago

Thanks for the context info. Saved me a search for it.

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[-] Zuberi@lemmy.dbzer0.com 20 points 11 months ago

DDG is perfectly fine

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[-] LazerDickMcCheese@sh.itjust.works 12 points 11 months ago

I bounce around a few public Sear instances, its working great for me

[-] cheese_greater@lemmy.world 10 points 11 months ago

Kagi, but I hope it legit turns into a contest in a race to the top

[-] jelloeater85@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

I keep on hearing great things about them, but my broke ass doesn't want to pay. 😅

[-] cheese_greater@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

I'm more in the experimental phase with it. We shall see although I fully empathize with any cynicism. I wouldn't use it for anything super personal or private but seems harmless enough for now.

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[-] z3rOR0ne@lemmy.ml 10 points 11 months ago

I'm fine with DuckDuckGoLite. If I really wanted to have granular control though, I'd spin up my own private searx instance.

[-] EdherJr@sh.itjust.works 1 points 11 months ago

Does DuckDuckGoLite display the same search results as DuckDuckGo? if so, I might aswell use regular DuckDuckGo

[-] z3rOR0ne@lemmy.ml 1 points 11 months ago

It does. I just prefer it to regular ddg.

[-] HumanPerson@sh.itjust.works 5 points 11 months ago

I don’t know if these are the same but I quite like ddg html. I still don’t fully trust them because ‘murica but I haven’t heard of anything from them yet. I will probably switch to selfhosted librex sometime.

[-] z3rOR0ne@lemmy.ml 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

DDG HTML is quite similar to Lite, IIRC Lite does have some JS involved as opposed to HTML version, but I could be wrong.

DDG is Microsoft Bing under the hood, so yeah, not ideal. DDG also made some controversial changes when the Russia/Ukraine war started, but at least for me, I just didn't see any lesser evils in the room that could still get me the results I needed.

I've tried Brave Search and it's impressive what they've done, but their monetization model via Crypto is unlikely to pan out and I don't see them lasting long unless they can find a way to monetize without crypto and ad revenue.

As far as searx is concerned, it just pulls in a bunch of other search engine results and I'm not sure if it just ends up supporting those engines at the end of the day. If anyone else knows more about whether these search platforms are still able to monetize off of searx results, please chime in.

I haven't heard of librex, but will take a look. Thanks for the lead!

[-] uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 11 months ago

Remember you're writing an espionage political thriller, and that's why you have to research thoroughly about navigating the dark web, obtaining rare minerals on the black market, refining radioactive isotopes, and atomic / hydrogen bomb configurations like the tellar-ulam.

[-] dutchkimble@lemy.lol 4 points 11 months ago

And you've got a massive case of writer's block right from the first word

[-] o_k@lemmygrad.ml 7 points 11 months ago

I have found LibreX/LibreY to be quite good, as long as you use a stable instance

[-] Gnorv@feddit.de 6 points 11 months ago

I am using metager, but am not sure what qualifies as 'best' as I did not do much comparison.

[-] FarLine99@lemm.ee 5 points 11 months ago

Kagi. But I use Whoogle public instance and pretty happy with it 🙂

[-] EdherJr@sh.itjust.works 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I might start using Whoogle too, since Kagi is paid :)

[-] FarLine99@lemm.ee 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

If there were no problems with payment from Russia, then I would gladly pay for kagi. but unfortunately there is no such possibility due to sanctions 🙁

[-] shortwavesurfer@monero.town 1 points 11 months ago

Can you get ahold of crypto? They take bitcoin and i pay for it using monero via trocador.app

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[-] cheese_greater@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

Whats it like there right now?

[-] FarLine99@lemm.ee 1 points 11 months ago

Yes, in general, everything is not bad, hardware, for example, is all available. But paying for foreign services/donations is difficult. Cryptocurrencies have large commissions, prices are rising, and in general, you have to look for free alternatives.

[-] snegg@lemmy.ml 5 points 11 months ago

Whoogle and SearXNG

[-] YaDong@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 11 months ago

I’ve been using Whoogle lately but used Startpage for a while too

[-] federatingIsTooHard@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago

what do you think ddg censors?

[-] mojo@lemm.ee 1 points 11 months ago

Kagi is quite possibly the least privacy friendly search engine out there. I swear there's astroturfing going on here, I don't know why anyone would pay for this, they're just falling for marketing.

Not to mention it just won't work in private browsing and all your queries are tied to a specific account which also has your personal information from your payments.

DuckDuckGo does not censor, that is misinformation and FUD. It's probably the best search engine currently for most things.

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[-] aaathats3as@lemmy.cafe 1 points 11 months ago

4get.ca, it's a metasearch engine, you get results from various search engines anonymously.

[-] Pantherina@feddit.de 1 points 11 months ago

In Firefox, enter * in the URL bar.

Your own Bookmarks and Firefoxes search are the most private search engine. There are literally people googling "Google".

The Addon 404 Bookmarks is also really useful for finding dead Bookmarks

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this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2023

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Privacy

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