Privacy-first web search with DuckDuckGo-style bangs (!w, !yt, !gh)

Privacy-respecting web search via SearXNG with DuckDuckGo-style bangs support. Use for web searches when you need to find information online. SearXNG protects privacy by randomizing browser fingerprints, masking IP addresses, and blocking cookies/referrers. Supports 250+ search engines, multiple categories (general, news, images, videos, science), and DuckDuckGo-style bangs for direct engine searches (!w for Wikipedia, !yt for YouTube, !gh for GitHub, !r for Reddit, etc.). Aggregates results from multiple engines simultaneously. Prefer this over external search APIs for privacy-sensitive queries or high-volume searches.

SearXNG Search

Privacy-respecting metasearch engine that anonymizes searches and aggregates results from 250+ engines.

Quick Start

Search the web using the bundled script:

python3 scripts/search.py "your query"

Returns JSON with titles, URLs, and content snippets.

Common Workflows

Basic Web Search

python3 scripts/search.py "OpenClaw AI agent" --num 5

News Search

python3 scripts/search.py "latest tech news" --categories news

Localized Search

python3 scripts/search.py "Python Tutorial" --lang de

Multi-Category Search

python3 scripts/search.py "machine learning" --categories general,science --num 10

Bang Searches (Direct Engine)

# Wikipedia
python3 scripts/search.py "Albert Einstein" --bang w

# YouTube
python3 scripts/search.py "python tutorial" --bang yt

# GitHub
python3 scripts/search.py "openclaw" --bang gh

# Reddit
python3 scripts/search.py "best laptop 2026" --bang r

Bangs are more granular than categories and search directly on specific engines.

Privacy Features

SearXNG protects your privacy through multiple layers:

1. Randomized Browser Fingerprints - Generates a new fake browser profile for each search query (version, OS, screen resolution, language)
2. IP Masking - Search engines see the SearXNG instance IP, not yours
3. No Cookies - Never forwards cookies to external search engines
4. No Referrer - Target websites don't see which search engine referred you
5. Optional Tor/Proxy - Can route all queries through Tor for additional anonymity

Result: Search engines cannot build a profile about you.

When to Use

Prefer SearXNG for:

• Privacy-sensitive searches (no tracking, no profiling)
• High-volume searches (no rate limits)
• When self-hosted infrastructure is available
• Multi-engine result aggregation (250+ engines)
• Ad-free results

Prefer Brave API (web_search tool) for:

• Faster response times
• Structured data requirements
• When external APIs are acceptable

Processing Results

The script returns clean JSON that's easy to parse and present:

import json
import subprocess

result = subprocess.run(
    ['python3', 'scripts/search.py', 'query', '--num', '5'],
    capture_output=True,
    text=True
)

data = json.loads(result.stdout)
for item in data['results']:
    print(f"Title: {item['title']}")
    print(f"URL: {item['url']}")
    print(f"Snippet: {item['content']}")
    print()

Advanced Options

See references/api.md for:

• All available categories
• Engine-specific searches
• Language codes
• Error handling
• Comparison with Brave Search API

Configuration

SearXNG Instance

By default, the script uses http://127.0.0.1:8080. Configure via environment variable:

export SEARXNG_URL=http://your-searxng-instance.com
python3 scripts/search.py "query"

Options:

• Self-hosted instance (recommended for privacy)
• Public instances: https://searx.space (community-run servers)

Using Public Instances

If you don't run your own SearXNG:

# Example with public instance
export SEARXNG_URL=https://searx.be
python3 scripts/search.py "query"

Note: Public instances may have rate limits or be slower than self-hosted.

Technical Details

• Default URL: http://127.0.0.1:8080 (override with SEARXNG_URL)
• Method: HTML parsing (JSON API often disabled for CSRF protection)
• Parser: Custom HTMLParser in scripts/search.py
• Timeout: 15 seconds
• Result Format: Clean JSON with title, URL, content