How To Make Your Own Private Search Engine

Hello everyone, this article is going to be a very interesting topic not only to the ethical hackers/cybersecurity researchers but also towards the other people as here we will learn how can we make our own search engine.

While there are a variety of privacy-focused search engines available like DuckDuckGo, StartPage and Yippy, nothing can offer the complete trust offered by creating one’s own search engine. For complete trust and security, Searx can be used as free metasearch engine which can be hosted locally and index results from over 80 different search engines, this includes major search engines and site-specific searches like Bing, Google, Reddit, Wikipedia, Yahoo and Yandex.

So, let’s see how to make your own search engine using searX for more privacy & zero trust issues.
Here I am going to explain the installation process of two different platforms – Kali Linux and Windows 10.

Kali Linux:

Kali Linux – Before processing, we should have Python3 installed in our Kali Linux.

Step 1: Let’s install Serax. Open terminal and type the below command:

git clone https://github.com/asciimoo/searx

Step 2: Now we have to go inside the Searx directory. Type:

cd searx

Step 3: Lets list the files inside the directory. Type:

ls

Step 4: Now we have to install the requirements.txt file inside the searx directory. Type:

pip3 install -r requirements.txt

Step 5: Now lets list the files in the directory one again. Type:

 ls

Step 6: Now we will find another searx directory and we will have to navigate into this directory. Type:

 ls searx

Step 7: List files inside the directory one again. Type:

 ls

Step 8: Now we have to start the webapp.py file. Type:

python3 webapp.py

Step 9: A link will be generated. Now copy the link, paste it into the browser and press enter.

Congratulations! You have successfully made your own search engine, now enjoy it without having any privacy issues.

Windows 10:

Windows 10 – Before installing, make sure you have installed Python in your machine.

Step 1: First we have to install Ubuntu in our machine. Go to the Microsoft Store and search for Ubuntu. Now install it and lunch.

Step 2: You will be prompted to create a username and password.

Step 3: Now you are all set up and running Ubuntu. Now type the following two commands:

sudo apt update / sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get upgrade

These two commands will update the system software repositories and upgrade any out-of-date software.

Step 4: Now you are ready to install searx. Type the below command:

sudo apt-get install git build-essential libxslt-dev python-dev python-virtualenv python-babel zlib1g-dev libffi-dev libssl-dev

This will install Searx source code and other libraries required by the software to compile and run.

Step 5: Move to the directory where searx should be installed. Type:

cd /usr/local/

Step 6: Download Searx source code by typing the below command:

sudo git clone https://github.com/asciimoo/searx.git

Step 7: Now create a new user account by running the command:

sudo useradd searx -d /usr/local/searx

Step 8: Assign the same user account to the Searx directory. Type the command:

sudo chown searx:searx -R /usr/local/searx

Step 9: Switch to the newly created Searx user account. Type:

sudo -u searx -i

Step 10: Now you have to activate the virtual environment. Type:

virtualenv searx-ve

Step 11: Update the tool using this command:

./manage.sh update_packages

Step 12: Finally you are ready to launch Searx with a Python script:

python searx/webapp.py

After running the command you will get a link which you have to copy and paste in the web browser and press enter.

Congratulations! You have successfully implemented your own private search engine, now enjoy it without having any privacy issues. It is recommended to use searX in Kali Linux for better result and easy installation process.

To stop Searx go to Ubuntu terminal and do Ctrl + C

If you want to know more about searX then go to this link: https://searx.me/

Thank you.