Heard some sketchy stuff about duckduckgo recently, found out about start page.many users?
I used it for a bit. For a supposedly privacy focused search engine, they sure dislike when users connect through a VPN. I’m met with constant identity checks and, with certain queries, straight up access denied pages. Selling the company to an ad agency is another massive red flag. It’s unfortunate since we’re starved for decent, free search options these days, but skip them.
I don’t encounter this issue with AirVPN anymore, but I used to.
The good thing about Startpage is that they give you proxy links for every searchresult. Therefore if the website/cloudflare blocks VPN traffic you can still access the website sometimes :)
I’d recommend SearXNG instead.
Do you have to host it yourself?
Nope. Nor should you, if you’d only use it yourself, since pooling is integral if you don’t want to be profiled.
There are public instances at Searx.space.
I take the opposite view - you definitely should host it yourself. Any public instance you don’t directly control can insert any sort of code they want to.
A cheap VPS, rented using Monero, with SearXNG on it ensures privacy.
If you do that, make it public, or else you can get profiled again.
