PriEco is an independent, open-source search engine.
I guess my main question is: What’s the main advantage here over SearxNG?
There’s an existing topic in Project Showcase that’s been used to provide the developer with feedback, but this topic can be used specifically to discuss adding PriEco to our list of recommended search engines.
Hello! I need to tell you that PriEco itself isn’t fully independent, as it uses many indexes. One of my top goals is to become fully independent one day, but it still isn’t ready.
Nonetheless, you can use a fully independent PriEco version at https://search.jojoyou.org/pri
To answer your question, at this stage I wouldn’t really compare it to SearXNG but rather to Brave search, DuckDuckGo and so on. But, let me try.
Self-hosting
SearXNG isn’t exactly for the everyday user.
They don’t know how to self-host it, and there is not an official SearXNG instance.
PriEco can be self-hosted too, but it isn’t that easy as it isn’t my priority as I work on improving it in other ways. Also, I have an official instance.
Dependence
SearXNG is only a metasearch engine. It scrapes data from other search engines.
I am moving away from being a metasearch engine as quickly as I can. Currently, it uses many indexes, but also serves you a large portion of independent data.
Also, PriEco almost exclusively uses APIs.
Ecology
PriEco and its crawler are hosted on servers powered by green energy.
In the future, I would also like to donate some of the future profit to charities.
hope you dont fully move away from it and instead have an option to only show results from a specific source. For instance, only google provides good search results in Portuguese so one wouldnt want to fill out the resutls page with random irrelevant results from other sources
I will see how it will end up.
Sure, I won’t remove others until my index is good enough, hopefully in other languages too.
Then, maybe there will be an option to choose index. As I imagine it now.
If you just want Google results with less Google Tracking, there are already options available to accomplish this (Whoogle or Searx). Is there value in one more project doing the same thing?
Personally I think it is much more exciting and interesting to see new entrants into the search space that are trying to become independent, and not be just yet another search provider that relays results from Google or Bing. This is also a much less crowded space.
most people arent really willing to self host and the options you mention need extensive configuration to work adequately with languages other than English. Since nowadays virtually all public instances redirect to another one when theyre being rate limited you cannot mantain your configs. In short, theyre unusable unless you self host.
So, yeah, while I do support independent indexes, theres also a need for a single usable alternative to google that is not startpage if youre unable to self host
Fair points about the shortcomings of current options, and the high barrier of entry for self hosting.
But how would a new option avoid the barriers that the current options have encountered, why would a new option not share the same limitations as the currently existing options? Why would creating a new service to address the same problem, be better than improving the current services? (these are Genuine questions to consider/explore, I am not asking them rhetorically).
What don’t you like about Startpage? (note: I did hear that Startpage has at least partially moved away from providing Google results and now relies on Bing at least partially).
I am interested to know about your business model if you have thought that far ahead, or any other non-monetary goals/incentives that are motivating you.
Presearch does it and allows to filter for only google results, it just does not seem to be a very private option. I assume theyre using official APIs, like PreEco claims to be doing. It seemingly can be done, as I doubt Presearch has any kind of deal with google as Startpage has.
Frequently blocks Tor and VPNs, sometimes it even blocks regular connections since ISPs here in Portugal dont care about geographical location when assigning IPs and Startpage doesnt like that.
Havent noticed any change in regular “web” results. Maybe theyre using bing for the smart cards (or whatever they call them) or news search, idk
Thank you for the question. I am trying to make PriEco generate revenue for a long time now. After that it would be much more sustainable and I would be able to develop it faster.
I have managed to add sponsored products (The products in web search are sponsored).
I like about them that until you click on them, they have 0 information or access to you. When you click, they know your:
Anonymized IP address
Browser type and version
Operating system
Referrer URL
Hostname of the accessing computer
Time of the server request
Still, this is acceptable and you left PriEco so it can’t really protect you.
Later will add an option to pay to get rid of ads.
Sure I would like to create a real business from PriEco but money wasn’t the initial motive. At the creation of PriEco I was already game developer for 3 years, wanted to find a web search without compromises and had no idea which project I want to create next. So, PriEco.
From the very beginning I am trying to make PriEco the way that you can find in it all-of-the best features others have + my addition ones.
I am not sure about the web results, but I am sure about the images that they switched to Bing.
Also, I know exactly from where they get the “smart cards” https://www.searchexpander.com/ , I get addition Wikipedia info and instant answer from them too.