Every search you run on a mainstream engine goes into a profile attached to you. SearXNG breaks that: it queries dozens of engines on your behalf and hands back the results without building a profile. Run it on your own offshore server and the queries stop being anyone else’s data.
Why run your own instance
- No tracking and no profile. It aggregates results instead of logging you
- Yours alone. A public instance still sees your queries; your own does not share them
- Tiny footprint: about 256 MB of memory and 1 GB of disk
- Offshore and no KYC, paid in crypto, with an optional Tor mirror
Get it running
Pick a small VPS
SearXNG is one of the lightest apps in the catalog. Any offshore VPS handles it, with plenty left over for other services.
Install it in one click
Install SearXNG from the catalog and give it a hostname such as search.example.com. HTTPS is issued automatically. See how one-click installs work.
Name your instance
Set the display name shown in the interface. Small touch, but it is what you will see every day.
Make it your default engine
Add it as a custom search engine in your browser so every search goes through your own instance instead of a tracker.
SearXNG can publish a Tor v3 .onion address next to the public hostname, or instead of it. Searching through your own onion instance means neither the engines nor a network observer can tie the queries to your address. See how to publish a Tor .onion site.
An instance only you use is a strong privacy setup. The moment you share it publicly, your queries mix with strangers’ and the instance becomes a target for abuse and rate limiting by upstream engines. If you do open it, expect to manage that. Keeping it private, or behind an onion address, avoids the whole problem.
Upstream engines see your server, not you, which is the point. It also means the searches come from one address consistently, so pick a location that makes sense for the results you want.
Start now
Spin up an offshore VPS and install SearXNG from the catalog, or read the documentation.