ditch Google!! (build your own PRIVATE search engine)

About this video

The creator argues that Google and Microsoft build advertising profiles from searches, that incognito mode does not prevent this, and that DuckDuckGo is compromised by its relationship with Microsoft, so the privacy fix is to self-host your own metasearch engine. He deploys SearXNG, a fork of SearX, using Docker and Docker Compose on a Linux cloud server (he uses Linode, citing a $5-per-month tier), though he says it also works on a spare home computer, a Raspberry Pi, or your current machine. The walkthrough covers updating Ubuntu, installing docker.io and docker-compose, optionally pointing a domain A record at the server, cloning the SearXNG Docker repo, editing the .env file with the domain and an email for a Let’s Encrypt certificate, generating a secret key, and running docker-compose up -d, which launches three containers he identifies as Caddy, SearXNG, and Redis. He explains the privacy model: SearXNG queries Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo and others on your behalf using a fresh random profile each time, returns results without ads, does not pass your profile to result sites, and when cloud-hosted exposes the server’s IP rather than your home IP. He cautions that a public instance’s operator could still see logs, so a private instance is safer. Tweaks in settings.yml include changing the search method from POST to GET to avoid a jarring back-button problem, renaming the instance, enabling strict safe search and DuckDuckGo autocomplete, choosing among over 70 supported engines, adding searchable databases, and optionally adding proxies or Tor.

Key takeaways

• Self-hosting SearXNG avoids search-engine profiling because each query is sent to upstream engines under a fresh random profile with no ads
• All you need is a machine that can run Docker; Docker Compose builds the whole stack in one command with Caddy, SearXNG, and Redis containers
• Hosting in the cloud hides your home IP address behind the server’s IP, while a home install keeps the other privacy benefits but not that one
• A public instance is not fully private because its operator controls the server and could inspect logs — run your own private instance for maximum control
• settings.yml lets you change the method to GET, enforce strict safe search, set autocomplete, and enable or disable 70-plus search engines

Episode details: published July 1, 2022 · 18:23 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are NetworkChuck’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

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