Mehrad,
@Mehrad@fosstodon.org avatar

Well, , the "privacy focused" French search engine is not only proprietary but now is forcing the user to show ads and disable their ad blocker.

Anyone have any alternative search-engine suggestion apart from duckduckgo (which is practically Bing), and Searx instances?

Mehrad,
@Mehrad@fosstodon.org avatar

I guess I share this to save someone some time 🙂

If you use Firefox and want to add a new search engine, Firefox by default does not let you add on unless it is from an extension or from one of the supported search engines. So here is how to add anything you want to your list:

https://superuser.com/a/1756774/221047

For example, for adding MOA, you can use

<https://moae.sbs/search?q=%s>  
sohrabbehdani,

@Mehrad
search something in moa, then click on search bar you would see a plus on moa logo, upon clicking it it would be added to your list

Mehrad,
@Mehrad@fosstodon.org avatar
gacha,

@Mehrad this got me thinking, what could be the business model or nonprofit to sustain such engine, without ads without monthly payments. I usually use DuckDuckGo and if not satisfied then google.

Mehrad,
@Mehrad@fosstodon.org avatar

@gacha
Good question. I'm not an expert, so the following is just my imagination:

  1. publicly funded non-profit (e.g EU can fund one and make it available for the EU) Search engine is an integral part of life in this day and age, so why should I pay 660€ annual tax for TV and radio (which I don't use), and not something like search engine that every person in the world one way or another should use as gateway to internet?

  2. Monthly donation/subscription (e.g something like Fosstodon.org)

Mehrad,
@Mehrad@fosstodon.org avatar

@gacha I managed to find something that is more tangible, more fitting to this use-case, and have some statistics.

@disroot folks have published their annual report of 2023 which has a section for financial report (page 10). They also provided an intuitive graph that shows the level of donation and expenses per year for the past 12 months (page 12):

https://disroot.org/annual_reports/AnnualReport2023.pdf

gacha,

@Mehrad first one would be nice and open source.

Mehrad,
@Mehrad@fosstodon.org avatar

@gacha I 100% agree. If something is publicly funded, it should doubtlessly be FLOSS. Ethics dictates: Public money should produce public license code that is publicly available.

b_trochimowicz,

@gacha @Mehrad There's #Kagi with subscription

Mehrad, (edited )
@Mehrad@fosstodon.org avatar

@b_trochimowicz

kagi.com have been under my radar for quite some time, but:

  1. It does not guarantee refund (if I pay and it is bad, I don't want to keep my account and want my money back)

  2. it is in US, so GDPR is not enforced, and considering that it will use history to personalize the search, imho GDPR is extremely essential (and Right to be Forgotten)

  3. I generally would prefer an OpenSource solution (I know it is not always possible, but one can always be wishful 😅 )

@gacha

sohrabbehdani,

@Mehrad
im using engine

https://moae.sbs

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