Change the default search engine to searX #10
Conversation
This commit changes the default search engine to searx, a privacy-respecting metasearch engine. Google are known for invasive privacy, limiting freedom, and censorship of information. I do not think it's wise to direct users to a dangerous search engine as a default feature. Instead, let's start them off with a safer option.
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P.S please allow me to check this works before merging. |
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This technically looks alright, and that's finally a good repo for a request like this ;) I will share it around to see what people think and then merge it if there aren't any significant counterarguments |
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Linking to the thread on opensuse-project mailing list https://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-project/2020-06/msg00004.html |
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Thanks, LCP! |
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I'm not sure how to 'chime in' on the mailing list, but I would appreciate it if @hellcp could share my thoughts with them.
You can go to any searx instance and, when pressing the three dots in the omnibar, Firefox gives you the option to add it as a search engine. Then of course, you can go to Firefox's settings and set it as the default. Alternatively, projects like The Mycroft Project are very useful for this too. |
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Try the following keyword search on the suggested searx instance:
Both failed for me. I don't see the point of choosing a search engine that doesn't work. |
I use it everyday with Google, DuckDuckGo, Yandex, Bing, Wikipedia, Wikidata, Reddit, Startpage and Dictzone enabled. works flawless. you can try using https://searx.ninja/ 's instance |
Those two searches worked on that instance. Then I tried a search for a local business. It came up as the 4th result. I had to remove This PR will add additional effort for non-tech-savvy users, and users that care about privacy would change the default anyway. |
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I would be happy to customise the sources. I will repeat myself here: searx is a frontend for multiple search engines. It might be better off with only DuckDuckGo selected, which I can change in the PR. Non-tech-saavy users are fine. I have got my mother onto a privacy respecting search engine, so this seems like a baseless argument. |
I don't think so. If you looked at the settings, you would see it has full support for it. |
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While you're at the 'preferences' page, go the the engines tab and see which search engines support safe search. And then enable the setting to strict mode, and actually try it. |
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Works fine for me. |
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Any updates? I have not seen any further discussions regarding this, or anything clearing up the misinformation in the mailing list. Is the openSUSE project planning to host their own searX instance? I'd just like to see some more conversations around this, since it's a pretty big issue for privacy and security of users using this search portal. Many thanks, |
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I think we should use another searx instance, so please add that to the PR. I tried safe search with a few borderline pornographic terms, and it seemed to work fine, blocking out the content I really wished I didn't see. openSUSE Heroes are open to any infrastructure contributions, so if you want to host searx on our infra, come to the next meeting and let us help you do that ;) |
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Bump. What's happening? |
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I stated what has to be done in the PR, and what would be good to have, I assume the rest is on your side to implement, isn't it? |
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I'm not really a sysadmin, and you have not told me what to replace the searX domain with. |
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Thank you for the offer tho :D couldn't really find anyone that wanted to take it up. |
Well, I will let you decide what to pick, I assume you know of better searX instances than I ever could |
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So, are you saying we should use a searX engine that isn't owned by openSUSE? That might be easier to work with. 👋 |
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Hm, I see somebody posted on mastodon about hosting an instance for us, interesting.
Sure, I don't see why not |
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I contacted the guys in TeDomum at Mastodon: https://floss.social/web/statuses/104695961078312829 They are considering creating their own Searx instance: https://forge.tedomum.net/tedomum/documentation/-/issues/105 Feel free to talk with them :) |
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It has been suggested to use DuckDuckGo rather than SearX on OpenSUSE mailing list. DuckDuckGo is a global meta-search engine so it is more direct replacement for Google. While SearX might offer more privacy features it is probably not suitable as default because there is no global default instance. Until openSUSE is committed to hosting own (meta)search a search engine with obvious global default instance is required. |
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Just tried SearX with 'opensuse forum' and got an error back. |
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#15 being the alternative proposal for #10 (comment) |
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Searx is still pretty janky. DDG is best for now IMO. |
This commit changes the default search engine to searx, a privacy-respecting metasearch engine. Google are known for invasive privacy, limiting freedom, and censorship of information. I do not think it's wise to direct users to a dangerous search engine as a default feature. Instead, let's start them off with a safer option.