Searx (; stylized as searX) is a
free
Free may refer to:
Concept
* Freedom, having the ability to do something, without having to obey anyone/anything
* Freethought, a position that beliefs should be formed only on the basis of logic, reason, and empiricism
* Emancipate, to procur ...
and
open-source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized s ...
metasearch engine
A metasearch engine (or search aggregator) is an online information retrieval tool that uses the data of a web search engine to produce its own results. Metasearch engines take input from a user and immediately query search engines for results. ...
, available under the
GNU Affero General Public License version 3, with the aim of protecting the
privacy
Privacy (, ) is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively.
The domain of privacy partially overlaps with security, which can include the concepts of a ...
of its users. To this end, Searx does not share users'
IP address
An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication.. Updated by . An IP address serves two main functions: network interface iden ...
es or search history with the
search engine
A search engine is a software system designed to carry out web searches. They search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query. The search results are generally presented in a ...
s from which it gathers results.
Tracking cookies
HTTP cookies (also called web cookies, Internet cookies, browser cookies, or simply cookies) are small blocks of data created by a web server while a user is browsing a website and placed on the user's computer or other device by the user's ...
served by the search engines are blocked, preventing
user-profiling-based results modification. By default, Searx queries are submitted via
HTTP POST
In computing, POST is a request method supported by HTTP used by the World Wide Web.
By design, the POST request method requests that a web server accept the data enclosed in the body of the request message, most likely for storing it. It is o ...
, to prevent users' query keywords from appearing in webserver logs.
Searx was inspired by the
Seeks
Seeks is a free and open-source project licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License version 3 (AGPL-3.0-or-later). It exists to create an alternative to the current market-leading search engines, driven by user concerns rather than corp ...
project,
though it does not implement Seeks'
peer-to-peer
Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the network. They are said to form a peer-to-peer ...
user-sourced results
ranking
A ranking is a relationship between a set of items such that, for any two items, the first is either "ranked higher than", "ranked lower than" or "ranked equal to" the second.
In mathematics, this is known as a weak order or total preorder of o ...
.
Each search result is given as a direct link to the respective site, rather than a
tracked redirect link as used by
Google
Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronic ...
. In addition, when available, these direct links are accompanied by cached and/or proxied links that allow viewing results pages without actually visiting the sites in question. The cached links point to saved versions of a page on the
Wayback Machine
The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web founded by the Internet Archive, a nonprofit based in San Francisco, California. Created in 1996 and launched to the public in 2001, it allows the user to go "back in time" and se ...
, while the proxied links allow viewing the current live page via a Searx-based
web proxy
In computer networking, a proxy server is a server application that acts as an intermediary between a client requesting a resource and the server providing that resource.
Instead of connecting directly to a server that can fulfill a reques ...
. In addition to the general search, the engine also features tabs to search within specific domains: files, images,
IT, maps, music, news, science, social media, and videos.
Users can run private instances of Searx on their own
computer
A computer is a machine that can be programmed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs. These prog ...
, but there are also many public, user-run, Searx instances,
some of which are available as
Tor hidden services.
Meta-Searx instances can also be used to forward the search query to a random public instance.
A public
API
An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how ...
is available for Searx, as well as
Firefox
Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current and ...
search provider plugins.
Search engines and other settings
Across all categories, Searx can fetch search results from about 82 different engines. This includes major search engines and site-specific searches like
Bing
Bing most often refers to:
* Bing Crosby (1903–1977), American singer
* Microsoft Bing, a web search engine
Bing may also refer to:
Food and drink
* Bing (bread), a Chinese flatbread
* Bing (soft drink), a UK brand
* Bing cherry, a variety ...
,
Google
Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronic ...
,
Reddit
Reddit (; stylized in all lowercase as reddit) is an American social news news aggregator, aggregation, Review site#Rating site, content rating, and Internet forum, discussion website. Registered users (commonly referred to as "Redditors") subm ...
,
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a Multilingualism, multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of online volunteering, volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia ...
,
Yahoo
Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Man ...
, and
Yandex
Yandex LLC (russian: link=no, Яндекс, p=ˈjandəks) is a Russian multinational technology company providing Internet-related products and services, including an Internet search engine, information services, e-commerce, transportation, map ...
.
The engines used for each search category can be set via a "preferences" interface, and these settings will be saved in a cookie in the user's web browser, rather than on the server side, since for privacy reasons, Searx does not implement a
user login model. Other settings such as the search interface language and the search results language (over 20 languages are available) can be set the same way.
In addition to the preferences cookie, it is possible on each query to modify the engines used, search categories selected, and/or languages to search in by specifying one or more of the following textual search operators ''before'' the search keywords.
*
!''category''
— Search the specified ''category'' instead of the default ones.
*
?''category''
— Search the specified ''category'' in addition to the default ones.
*
!''engine''
— Search the specified ''engine'' instead of the default ones.
*
?''engine''
— Search the specified ''engine'' in addition to the default ones.
*
:''language''
— Search for results in the specified ''language'' instead of the default one.
The
!
and
?
operators can be specified more than once to select multiple categories or engines, for example
!google !deviantart ?images :japanese cow
.
Instances
Any user may run their own instance of Searx, which can be done to maximize privacy, to avoid congestion on public instances, to preserve customized settings even if browser cookies are cleared, to allow auditing of the source code being run, etc.
Users may include their Searx instances on the editable list of all public instances, or keep them private.
It is also possible to add custom search engines to a
self-hosted instance that are not available on the public instances.
Another reason to use different Searx instances, and/or to run one's own, is that as of 2019, Google has begun to block some instances, including some of the IP addresses used by searx.me (former instance run by the developer), from querying it, resulting in a "google (unexpected crash: CAPTCHA required)" error. In response, some instances have been modified to silently skip trying to search with Google, even when it's the only engine specified.
See also
*
List of meta search engines
*
Comparison of web search engines
Web search engines are listed in tables below for comparison purposes. The first table lists the company behind the engine, volume and ad support and identifies the nature of the software being used as free software or proprietary software. The ...
*
Search engine privacy
Footnotes
References
External links
*
{{Tor hidden services
Internet privacy software
Metasearch engines
Free software programmed in Python
Software using the GNU AGPL license
Free search engine software