Hey everyone!
I wanted to share a small open source project I’ve been working on: Searloc.
Searloc is an open source lightweight, client-side web tool (pure JavaScript, no server-side code) that helps you search via a random public SearXNG instance, directly from your browser. The goal is to decentralize search and improve privacy without requiring you to host your own instance.
How it works
There are currently around 50 public SearXNG instances in the pool. Each time you search, Searloc randomly chooses one. This means no single instance sees all your queries — just about 1 in 50, statistically. The more public instances there are, the better the decentralization and privacy.
Who is this for?
If you already self-host your own SearXNG instance, you probably don’t need this.
But if you want private, decentralized search without hosting anything yourself, Searloc might be a great fit.
Key Features
- Automatic quality checks to filter public instances from searx.space
- Use
!!to retry your search on a different random instance - Bangs (!!bang syntax) fully handled in-browser
- Light/Dark mode support
- English and French localization
- Autocomplete for bangs on the homepage
- Automatically forwards your theme and localization preference to the selected SearXNG instance
- Add your own custom instances via the settings page
This is still an early-stage project, but I use it daily and it’s been ok for regular use.
Feedback, bug reports, and ideas are always welcome! Check out the Projects tab on Codeberg to see the current “roadmap”.
Give it a try, and let me know what you think.
Have a great day!
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Would be cool to automatically set the favorite settings inside every instance via cookies for example
It would be really cool to have a docker build for this to selfhost!
Yes! I already have an issue for that: https://codeberg.org/wazaby/searloc/issues/21
I have limited time, so at the moment I am more focused on features, but I will definitely do it. I also want to create a self hosted guide in the repo wiki.
Ay thats really nice to hear! Ofc no pressure with getting anything released, as the project stands right now is already something I’m excited to use
Quick-add Searloc to your favourite browser with this link
https://searloc.org/search?q=%25s
–//–
Solid project, I appreciate your efforts.
So this is basically doing what https://searx.neocities.org/ is doing? Or is it going some step beyond? Neat project
Yes it’s an alternative, so it’s the same end goal. But there is some differences:
- Settings: In searloc you can set lang, theme and those settings are passed to the searxng instance
- Bangs: Bang are handled localy (directly by the searloc js in your borwser), neocities forward your bangs to an instance
- Automatic instances update: it seems that neocities instances are the same since 2024, searloc is building it’s pool daily from searx.space. And from what I can see in the neocities source they have only 12 instances in there pool. It’s not enough in my opinion.
- The retry: A real pain point for is that sometimes even with the quality check i’ve added to choose the instance pool, an instance doesn’t gives me the results I am waiting for. So I implemented a retry (it’s opt in so you need to enable it in the settings). If the results are not good enough, just type
!!and it will run the search again on another random instances.
That’s really cool, and very smart. Definitely a cut above the neocities one. I think I’ll swap over to use searloc as my default instead. Thanks for the clarification! :)
This is really cool!
