Searx - Private Search Engine


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Greetings,
I'm still trying to figure out how to author my own CA apps. But for now here's an easy setup that I'm pretty sure a number of you will appreciate. 

 

Searx, is a self hostable meta search engine with a focus on privacy and complete control.

Here's their description from the site: "Searx is a free internet metasearch engine which aggregates results from more than 70 search services. Users are neither tracked nor profiled. Additionally, searx can be used over Tor for online anonymity."

Features: (Also pilfered from their site)

  • Self hosted
  • No user tracking
  • No user profiling
  • About 70 supported search engines
  • Easy integration with any search engine
  • Cookies are not used by default
  • Secure, encrypted connections (HTTPS/SSL)
  • Hosted by organizations, such as La Quadrature du Net, which promote digital rights


Links:
Homepage: https://asciimoo.github.io/searx

List of publicly hosted engines: https://searx.space/

Wiki: https://github.com/asciimoo/searx/wiki

Source Code: https://github.com/asciimoo/searx

Twitter Account: https://twitter.com/Searx_engine

 

Ok, Now down to the setup :)
You'll need to "Enable additional search results from dockerhub"  (fig.01)

05.thumb.PNG.69e0add6d0836f147969efc16e430d13.PNG

 

Head on over to the community apps tab and search for "searx"

06.PNG.cb379c6b3575aed0b5f21ae99da0f8ae.PNG

 

Next click the text "Click Here To Get More Results from DockerHub"

07.PNG.ea12a90760292925ce18e12aebab8b92.PNG

 

There's a number of results. We'll want to choose the actual author of the build. So look for the result below:

08.PNG.85804c57f49cf5ac8854371bf52c6ab0.PNG

 

In the setup we'll want to assign a verify the host adapter is set to "Bridge"

09.PNG.212fb86802b871d59d1fd81d7d8441aa.PNG

 

We'll need a port to access it by so click "Add another Path, Port, Variable, Label or Device" and select "Port" from the drop down

I've named it: Web UI

set the Container Port to 8080 (this is the port searx listens to by default)

I set the Host port to "8843" (any unused port will do here, just remember it for later)

10.PNG.bf5ff83688a2f604d6f74fe2fa4c1f33.PNG

 

Click "ADD"

And now before we finish lets make a few tweaks. We'll be adding a WebUI to the drop down in the dashboard and we'll assign it an Icon
For the Icon URL paste in the following link: https://asciimoo.github.io/searx/_static/searx_logo_small.png

For the WebUI paste the following: http://[IP]:[PORT:8843]/  (remember I mentioned that port number?)

11.PNG.cb938a98cef7a28ced63d8e3e45ac063.PNG

 

Click "Apply"

Your Dashboard Icon should look like this:

12.PNG.8b4f4ab7b35a0b69c9d9aea4f0834d11.PNG

 

You now have your own self-hosted private search engine!

13.PNG.611a0854d2796b9a3dae8dff0d4a31bf.PNG
In the preferences you'll be able to configure which search engines you'll want to use by default. It even searches those "Linux ISO" sites. I'll leave the rest up to your imagination. (I'm personally a fan of the legacy theme, as shown above)
Enjoy your privacy!
Hope this helps everyone.
~Iron

 



 

  • Like 1
  • Thanks 1
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6 hours ago, testdasi said:

If you have problems setting things up in the app store, you can msg Squid for help.

 

I think this would be a good addition to the app store.

 

Thanks! I may do exactly that. But I'm sure there's still plenty of reading I haven't done yet so I'll inquire if I have trouble.

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On 3/31/2020 at 5:52 PM, ironface077 said:

Not yet, I generally do not access my system outside of my local network. I suspect this wouldn't be difficult to set up though.

I found how to acces it via let's encrypt.

But impossible to add it as default search in firefox. I have this error :  Firefox can't find search plugin from https://mydomain/opensearch.xml

Do you have an idea ?

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On 4/5/2020 at 2:34 AM, deadnote said:

I found how to acces it via let's encrypt.

But impossible to add it as default search in firefox. I have this error :  Firefox can't find search plugin from https://mydomain/opensearch.xml

Do you have an idea ?

So looking into this there appears to be at least one addon that redirects you to someone else's Searx engine. I'm pretty sure this is the only way to go if you want it to be a one-click or default search engine.
I personally wouldn't do this as it really defeats the point of hosting your own engine.

I do however set my hosted Searx engine to my home page. So upon launching a new browser it does come up ready for query.
Hope that helps. There might be a way to do what you are asking, but I suspect we'll both need to dig a little deeper to find a way.

 

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2 minutes ago, ironface077 said:

So looking into this there appears to be at least one addon that redirects you to someone else's Searx engine. I'm pretty sure this is the only way to go if you want it to be a one-click or default search engine.
I personally wouldn't do this as it really defeats the point of hosting your own engine.

I do however set my hosted Searx engine to my home page. So upon launching a new browser it does come up ready for query.
Hope that helps. There might be a way to do what you are asking, but I suspect we'll both need to dig a little deeper to find a way.

 

Of course no sooner than I hit reply on that message I found an addon that allows you to add custom search engines.

Head over to the firefox addons and have a look for:

"Add custom search engine by Tom Schuster"
I can't speak for the security of this addon, as I've not looked into it. But it does have a pretty good review collection.

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  • 9 months later...
On 4/5/2020 at 8:34 AM, deadnote said:

I found how to acces it via let's encrypt.

But impossible to add it as default search in firefox. I have this error :  Firefox can't find search plugin from https://mydomain/opensearch.xml

Do you have an idea ?

If I might ask, how did you get the reverse proxy to work exactly? Did you use A75G's searx docker template?

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20 hours ago, sgraaf said:

If I might ask, how did you get the reverse proxy to work exactly? Did you use A75G's searx docker template?

Yes, I use the image available in CA.

For reverse proxy, I've abandoned Let's Encrypt and use NginxProxyManager now
Here is the conf provided by NPM

 

server {
  set $forward_scheme http;
  set $server         "192.168.1.127";
  set $port           7070;

  listen 8080;
listen [::]:8080;

listen 4443 ssl http2;
listen [::]:4443;

  server_name searx.YOURDOMAIN.COM;

  # Let's Encrypt SSL
  include conf.d/include/letsencrypt-acme-challenge.conf;
  include conf.d/include/ssl-ciphers.conf;
  ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/npm-28/fullchain.pem;
  ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/npm-28/privkey.pem;

  # Block Exploits
  include conf.d/include/block-exploits.conf;

  access_log /config/log/proxy_host-12.log proxy;

  location / {

    # Force SSL
    include conf.d/include/force-ssl.conf;
    # Proxy!
    include conf.d/include/proxy.conf;
  }

  # Custom
  include /data/nginx/custom/server_proxy[.]conf;
}

 

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On 1/17/2021 at 11:15 AM, deadnote said:

Yes, I use the image available in CA.

For reverse proxy, I've abandoned Let's Encrypt and use NginxProxyManager now
Here is the conf provided by NPM

 



server {
  set $forward_scheme http;
  set $server         "192.168.1.127";
  set $port           7070;

  listen 8080;
listen [::]:8080;

listen 4443 ssl http2;
listen [::]:4443;

  server_name searx.YOURDOMAIN.COM;

  # Let's Encrypt SSL
  include conf.d/include/letsencrypt-acme-challenge.conf;
  include conf.d/include/ssl-ciphers.conf;
  ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/npm-28/fullchain.pem;
  ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/npm-28/privkey.pem;

  # Block Exploits
  include conf.d/include/block-exploits.conf;

  access_log /config/log/proxy_host-12.log proxy;

  location / {

    # Force SSL
    include conf.d/include/force-ssl.conf;
    # Proxy!
    include conf.d/include/proxy.conf;
  }

  # Custom
  include /data/nginx/custom/server_proxy[.]conf;
}

 

Thanks! NPM is a great tool! I made the switch from SWAG easily.

Edited by sgraaf
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