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neon-mmd

@ neon_arch @programming.dev

Posts
16
Comments
42
Joined
3 yr. ago

  • Websurfx - An open source alternative to Searx which aggregates results from other search engines (metasearch engine) without ads while keeping privacy and security in mind.

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  • Sorry for the delay in reply.

    Thanks for the suggestion :). Even I myself hate ads and I avoid doing so, but I just did add that just to emphasize that my project is also open source and does not support ads. Because if I don’t add this then it can raise some doubts whether it is open source or not and whether it supports ads or not. So to make it clear, I added it :).

  • Websurfx - An open source alternative to Searx which aggregates results from other search engines (metasearch engine) without ads while keeping privacy and security in mind.

    Jump

  • Sorry for the delay in reply.

    Yes, it is, but I just wanted to emphasize that my project is also open source and does support privacy. If I don’t add this then it can raise some doubts whether it is open source or not and whether it is privacy respecting or not. So to make it clear, I added it :).

  • Websurfx - An open source alternative to Searx which aggregates results from other search engines (metasearch engine) without ads while keeping privacy and security in mind.

    Jump

  • I am sorry for being late to reply, I think I would suggest opening an issue on this topic here:

    https://github.com/neon-mmd/websurfx/issues

    Because I feel it would be better to have a discussion there. Also, I will be able to explain in more depth :).

  • Websurfx - An open source alternative to Searx which aggregates results from other search engines (metasearch engine) without ads while keeping privacy and security in mind.

    Jump

  • Sorry for the delay in reply.

    Thanks for the suggestion :). Currently, we don't have any plans supporting windows and macOS because they are known notoriously bad for privacy reasons. And you may never know what they have in their source code like they are doing all notorious stuff, data mining, you name it. Because of which, we have no plans supporting it as of now, but if we get good amount of feature request in this are then we might consider adding support for these distros too :).

  • Websurfx - An open source alternative to Searx which aggregates results from other search engines (metasearch engine) without ads while keeping privacy and security in mind.

    Jump

  • Sorry for the delay in reply.

    Thanks for the feedback on my project :).

  • Websurfx - An open source alternative to Searx which aggregates results from other search engines (metasearch engine) without ads while keeping privacy and security in mind.

    Jump

  • Sorry for the delay in reply.

    Great project, thanks for sharing.

    You're welcome :).

    Quick question: will this be self-hosted only or will there be a public instance or something the like?

    Yes, actually we are working on providing a page dedicated to allow everyone in the community to contribute their Websurfx instance which will allow others to use them and try them out. Something similar to what Searx does (searx.space). So right now it is still a work in process.

  • Websurfx - An open source alternative to Searx which aggregates results from other search engines (metasearch engine) without ads while keeping privacy and security in mind.

    Jump

  • Sorry for the delay in reply.

    Thanks for checking out my project :). Though right now we do not provide a public instance right now, but we are already working on this. Like we are working to provide a page dedicated to show all the instances hosted by the community members which will allow others to use them and try them out as well :).

  • Websurfx - An open source alternative to Searx which aggregates results from other search engines (metasearch engine) without ads while keeping privacy and security in mind.

    Jump

  • Ok no problem :). If you need any help regarding anything, just DM us/me here or at our Discord server. We would be glad to help :).

  • Websurfx - An open source alternative to Searx which aggregates results from other search engines (metasearch engine) without ads while keeping privacy and security in mind.

    Jump

  • Ahh, I see, Why didn't I remember this before that I can do something like this. Thanks for the help :). Actually the thing is I am not very good at docker, and I am in the process of finding someone who can actually work on in this area like for example reducing build times, caching, etc. One of the things we want to improve right now is reducing build time like I am using layered caching approach but still it takes about 800 seconds which is not very great. So if you are interested then I would suggest making a PR at our repository. We would be glad to have you as part of the project contributors. And Maybe in future as the maintainer too. Currently, the Dockerfile looks like this:

      dockerfile
        
FROM rust:latest AS chef
# We only pay the installation cost once,
# it will be cached from the second build onwards
RUN cargo install cargo-chef

WORKDIR /app

FROM chef AS planner
COPY . . 
RUN cargo chef prepare --recipe-path recipe.json

FROM chef AS builder
COPY --from=planner /app/recipe.json recipe.json
# Build dependencies - this is the caching Docker layer!
RUN cargo chef cook --release --recipe-path recipe.json

# Build application
COPY . .
RUN cargo install --path .

# We do not need the Rust toolchain to run the binary!
FROM gcr.io/distroless/cc-debian12
COPY --from=builder /app/public/ /opt/websurfx/public/
COPY --from=builder /app/websurfx/config.lua /etc/xdg/websurfx/config.lua # -- 1
COPY --from=builder /app/websurfx/config.lua /etc/xdg/websurfx/allowlist.txt # -- 2
COPY --from=builder /app/websurfx/config.lua /etc/xdg/websurfx/blocklist.txt # -- 3
COPY --from=builder /usr/local/cargo/bin/* /usr/local/bin/
CMD ["websurfx"]

    Note: The 1,2 and 3 marked in the Dockerfile are the files which are the user editable files like config file and custom filter lists.

  • Websurfx - An open source alternative to Searx which aggregates results from other search engines (metasearch engine) without ads while keeping privacy and security in mind.

    Jump

  • Sorry for the delay in the reply.

    Ok, thanks for suggesting this out. I have not thought about particularly in this area, but I would be really interested to have the docker image uploaded to docker hub. The only issue is that the app requires that the config file and blocklist and allowlists should be included within the docker hub. So the issue is that if a prebuilt image is provided, then is it possible to edit it within the docker container ?? If so then it is ok, otherwise it would still be good, but it would limit the usage to users who are by default satisfied by the default config. While others would still need to build the image manually, which is not very great.

    Also, As side comment in case you have missed this. Some updates on the project:

    • We have just recently got the custom filter lists feature merged. If you wish to take a look at this PR, here.
    • Also, recently there has been ongoing on getting new themes added, and an active discussion is going on that topic and some themes' proposal have been placed. Here is a quick preview of one of the theme and what it might look like:

    Home Page

    Search Page

  • Websurfx - An open source alternative to Searx which aggregates results from other search engines (metasearch engine) without ads while keeping privacy and security in mind.

    Jump

  • Hello again :)

    Sorry for the delayed reply.

    It is essentially, how we are achieving the Ad-free results is when we fetch the results from the upstream search engines. We then take the ad results from all of them, bring it to a form where it is aggregatable and then aggregate it. That's how we achieve it.

  • Websurfx - An open source alternative to Searx which aggregates results from other search engines (metasearch engine) without ads while keeping privacy and security in mind.

    Jump

  • Hello again :)

    Sorry for the delayed reply.

    Right now, we do not have ranking in place, but we are planning to have it soon. Our goal is to make it as organic as possible, so you don't get unrelated results when you query something through our engine.

    What the project does is it takes the user query and various search parameters if necessary and then passes it to the upstream search engines. It then gets its results with the help of a get request to the upstream engine. Once all the results are gathered, we bring it to a form where we can aggregate the results together and then remove duplicate results from the aggregated results. If two results are from the same engine, then we put both engine's name against the search result. That's what is all going, in simple terms :slight_smile: . If you have more doubts. Feel free to open an issue at our project, I would be glad to answer.

  • Websurfx - An open source alternative to Searx which aggregates results from other search engines (metasearch engine) without ads while keeping privacy and security in mind.

    Jump

  • Yes, it is, but I just wanted to emphasize that my project is also open source because if I don't add this then it can raise some doubts whether it is open source or not. So to make it clear, I added it.

  • Websurfx - An open source alternative to Searx which aggregates results from other search engines (metasearch engine) without ads while keeping privacy and security in mind.

    Jump

  • Hello again :)

    I am sorry for being late to reply, I think I would suggest opening an issue on this topic here:

    https://github.com/neon-mmd/websurfx/issues

    Because I feel it would be better to have a discussion there. Also, I will be able to explain in more depth.

    (full disclosure: I am the owner of the project)

  • Websurfx - An open source alternative to Searx which aggregates results from other search engines (metasearch engine) without ads while keeping privacy and security in mind.

    Jump

  • Hello again :)

    I am sorry for being late to reply, I think I would suggest opening an issue on this topic here:

    https://github.com/neon-mmd/websurfx/issues

    Because I feel it would be better to have a discussion there. Also, I will be able to explain in more depth.

    (full disclosure: I am the owner of the project)

  • Websurfx - An open source alternative to Searx which aggregates results from other search engines (metasearch engine) without ads while keeping privacy and security in mind.

    Jump

  • Thanks for taking a look at my project :).

    The custom filter is about to be added soon, just the PR for it waiting to be merged. Once that is merged. We will have custom filer feature available. Though about the docker image feature it is available, I would suggest taking a look at this section of the docs:

    https://github.com/neon-mmd/websurfx/blob/rolling/docs/installation.md#docker-deployment

    Here we cover on how to get our project deployed via docker.

  • Websurfx - An open source alternative to Searx which aggregates results from other search engines (metasearch engine) without ads while keeping privacy and security in mind.

    Jump

  • Thanks, I am very grateful for that :).

  • Websurfx - An open source alternative to Searx which aggregates results from other search engines (metasearch engine) without ads while keeping privacy and security in mind.

    Jump

  • Hello :).

    The searx and duckduckgo engines are fully supported right now, and we are already looking forward to having more engines supported as well. Just, that we are in need of some help with the process because you know there are too many engines too work on :).

  • Websurfx - An open source alternative to Searx which aggregates results from other search engines (metasearch engine) without ads while keeping privacy and security in mind.

    Jump