I’ve recently started using a self hosted SearXNG instance but I’m still using the search engines enabled by default (google, duckduckgo and qwant). What search engines do you have enabled or which ones do you feel you’ve gotten the best results with?
My Searx instance has Google, DuckDuckGo, Startpage, plus Wikidata and Wikipedia. I also have it configured to block all results from all the socials, including Reddit.
Google probably isn’t necessary given I have Startpage enabled, but FOMO.
I’ve used it for about a month, but the number of searches I do is over the $10/month plan, so I should switch to the next that is $25/month, definitely too much! I’ll keep using Google within it’s own container in Firefox so that it can’t track anything and without any ads thanks to PiHole (or is it uBlock Origin?).
DDG doesn’t like to exclude words from your searches though. It lets you exclude sites using the -site: parameter, but won’t exclude individual words. And it constantly gives me search results that don’t include the words that I’m searching for.
Have you tried using exclusive terms with quotation marks? Like “how to get rich fast” That should only feature sites with exactly that search term. Additionally you could link words with + between them i think.
I have tried, and it really doesn’t work that well. Often I’m looking for a specific word, and if I search the page that DDG gave me, the word doesn’t appear at all. Either it finds words it thinks are close enough, or it just ignores the request.
With SearXNG you get all of the search engines in one. With some configuration it gives me the best results I ever had. Not too niche not too spammy. Also having direct torrent and fdroid/apk search integration is a blessing!
I just define my own bangs. Both Firefox and Google let you set up custom search engines easily. For example I just type d bag of holding into my URL bar and it searched my favourite D&D reference site. Faster, private and I can select whatever search engine I want for regular search.
That’s good to know! And I’m sure it’s beneficial information for those that were unaware of that. However, (unless I’m wrong) the method you described requires you to be deliberate and precise in the placement of your own bang; i.e. bag of d holding or bag of holding d wouldn’t work. As I often just start typing whatever I want to search/look for and only notice midway/afterwards that I hadn’t specified where I would like to search, the built-in ‘bangs’ in Firefox/Chrome just wouldn’t cut it unless I would try to rewire my behavior.
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