Get Google search results, but without any ads, JavaScript, AMP links, cookies, or IP address tracking. Easily deployable in one click as a Docker app, and customizable with a single config file. Quick and simple to implement as a primary search engine replacement on both desktop and mobile.
<sup>*No third party JavaScript. Whoogle can be used with JavaScript disabled, but if enabled, uses JavaScript for things like presenting search suggestions.</sup>
<sup>**No third party cookies. Whoogle uses server side cookies (sessions) to store non-sensitive configuration settings such as theme, language, etc. Just like with JavaScript, cookies can be disabled and not affect Whoogle's search functionality.</sup>
<sup>***If deployed to a remote server, or configured to send requests through a VPN, Tor, proxy, etc.</sup>
- Sometimes has issues with auto-redirecting to `https`. Make sure to navigate to the `https` version of your app before adding as a default search engine.
You will need a [Fly.io](https://fly.io) account to deploy Whoogle. The [free allowances](https://fly.io/docs/about/pricing/#free-allowances) are enough for personal use.
After building the virtual environment, you can add something like the following to `/lib/systemd/system/whoogle.service` to set up a Whoogle Search systemd service:
3. Now take the password from the first step and place it in the control.conf file within the whoogle working directory, ie. [misc/tor/control.conf](misc/tor/control.conf)
- If you want to place your password file in a different location set this location with the `WHOOGLE_TOR_CONF` environment variable. Refer to the [Environment Variables](#environment-variables) section for more details.
5. Finally set the Tor environment variable and use password variable to 1, `WHOOGLE_CONFIG_TOR` and `WHOOGLE_TOR_USE_PASS`. Refer to the [Environment Variables](#environment-variables) section for more details.
- These may be added to the systemd unit file or env file:
1. Ensure the Docker daemon is running, and is accessible by your user account
- To add user permissions, you can execute `sudo usermod -aG docker yourusername`
- Running `docker ps` should return something besides an error. If you encounter an error saying the daemon isn't running, try `sudo systemctl start docker` (Linux) or ensure the docker tool is running (Windows/macOS).
2. Clone and deploy the docker app using a method below:
This series of commands can take a while, but once you run it once, you shouldn't have to run it again. The final command, `heroku open` will launch a tab in your web browser, where you can test out Whoogle and even [set it as your primary search engine](https://github.com/benbusby/whoogle#set-whoogle-as-your-primary-search-engine).
There is an [AUR package available](https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/whoogle-git/), as well as a pre-built and daily updated package available at [Chaotic-AUR](https://chaotic.cx).
There are other methods for deploying docker containers that are well outlined in [this article](https://rollout.io/blog/the-shortlist-of-docker-hosting/), but there are too many to describe set up for each here. Generally it should be about the same amount of effort as the Heroku deployment.
Depending on your preferences, you can also deploy the app yourself on your own infrastructure. This route would require a few extra steps:
- A server (I personally recommend [Digital Ocean](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/) or [Linode](https://www.linode.com/pricing/), their cheapest tiers will work fine)
- Your own URL (I suppose this is optional, but recommended)
- SSL certificates (free through [Let's Encrypt](https://letsencrypt.org/getting-started/))
- A bit more experience or willingness to work through issues
There are a few optional environment variables available for customizing a Whoogle instance. These can be set manually, or copied into `whoogle.env` and enabled for your preferred deployment method:
- Local runs: Set `WHOOGLE_DOTENV=1` before running
- With `docker-compose`: Uncomment the `env_file` option
- With `docker build/run`: Add `--env-file ./whoogle.env` to your command
| WHOOGLE_TOR_USE_PASS | Use password authentication for tor control port. |
| WHOOGLE_TOR_CONF | The absolute path to the config file containing the password for the tor control port. Default: ./misc/tor/control.conf WHOOGLE_TOR_PASS must be 1 for this to work.|
These environment variables allow setting default config values, but can be overwritten manually by using the home page config menu. These allow a shortcut for destroying/rebuilding an instance to the same config state every time.
Same as most search engines, with the exception of filtering by time range.
To filter by a range of time, append ":past <time>" to the end of your search, where <time> can be `hour`, `day`, `month`, or `year`. Example: `coronavirus updates :past hour`
*Note: If you're using a reverse proxy to run Whoogle Search, make sure the "Root URL" config option on the home page is set to your URL before going through these steps.*
- Navigate to your app's url, right click the address bar, and select "Add Search Engine".
- Previous versions
- Navigate to your app's url, and click the 3 dot menu in the address bar. At the bottom, there should be an option to "Add Search Engine".
- Once you've added the new search engine, open your Firefox Preferences menu, click "Search" in the left menu, and use the available dropdown to select "Whoogle" from the list.
- **Note**: If your Whoogle instance uses Firefox Containers, you'll need to [go through the steps here](#using-with-firefox-containers) to get it working properly.
- In the mobile app Settings page, tap "Search" within the "General" section. There should be an option titled "Add Search Engine" to select. It should prompt you to enter a title and search query url - use the following elements to fill out the form:
- Visit the home page of your Whoogle Search instance -- this will automatically add the search engine if the [requirements](https://www.chromium.org/tab-to-search/) are met (GET request, no OnSubmit script, no path). If not, you can add it manually.
- Under search engines > manage search engines > add, manually enter your Whoogle instance details with a `<whoogle url>/search?q=%s` formatted search URL.
Part of the deal with Heroku's free tier is that you're allocated 550 hours/month (meaning it can't stay active 24/7), and the app is temporarily shut down after 30 minutes of inactivity. Once it becomes inactive, any Whoogle searches will still work, but it'll take an extra 10-15 seconds for the app to come back online before displaying the result, which can be frustrating if you're in a hurry.
A good solution for this is to set up a simple cronjob on any device at your home that is consistently powered on and connected to the internet (in my case, a PiHole worked perfectly). All the device needs to do is fetch app content on a consistent basis to keep the app alive in whatever ~17 hour window you want it on (17 hrs * 31 days = 527, meaning you'd still have 23 leftover hours each month if you searched outside of your target window).
For instance, adding `*/20 7-23 * * * curl https://<your heroku app name>.herokuapp.com > /home/<username>/whoogle-refresh` will fetch the home page of the app every 20 minutes between 7am and midnight, allowing for downtime from midnight to 7am. And again, this wouldn't be a hard limit - you'd still have plenty of remaining hours of uptime each month in case you were searching after this window has closed.
Since the instance is destroyed and rebuilt after inactivity, config settings will be reset once the app enters downtime. If you have configuration settings active that you'd like to keep between periods of downtime (like dark mode for example), you could instead add `*/20 7-23 * * * curl -d "dark=1" -X POST https://<your heroku app name>.herokuapp.com/config > /home/<username>/whoogle-refresh` to keep these settings more or less permanent, and still keep the app from entering downtime when you're using it.
Only needed if your setup requires Flask to redirect to HTTPS on its own -- generally this is something that doesn't need to be handled by Whoogle Search.
Unfortunately, Firefox Containers do not currently pass through `POST` requests (the default) to the engine, and Firefox caches the opensearch template on initial page load. To get around this, you can take the following steps to get it working as expected:
1. Remove any existing Whoogle search engines from Firefox settings
2. Enable `GET Requests Only` in Whoogle config
3. Clear Firefox cache
4. Restart Firefox
5. Navigate to Whoogle instance and [re-add the engine](#set-whoogle-as-your-primary-search-engine)
You can then add SSL support using LetsEncrypt by following a guide such as [this one](https://www.nginx.com/blog/using-free-ssltls-certificates-from-lets-encrypt-with-nginx/).
If you're new to the project, the easiest way to get started would be to try fixing [an open bug report](https://github.com/benbusby/whoogle-search/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+label%3Abug). If there aren't any open, or if the open ones are too stale, try taking on a [feature request](https://github.com/benbusby/whoogle-search/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+label%3Aenhancement). Generally speaking, if you can write something that has any potential of breaking down in the future, you should write a test for it.
The project follows the [PEP 8 Style Guide](https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/), but is liable to change. Static typing should always be used when possible. Function documentation is greatly appreciated, and typically follows the below format:
```python
def contains(x: list, y: int) -> bool:
"""Check a list (x) for the presence of an element (y)
Args:
x: The list to inspect
y: The int to look for
Returns:
bool: True if the list contains the item, otherwise False
Whoogle currently supports translations using [`translations.json`](https://github.com/benbusby/whoogle-search/blob/main/app/static/settings/translations.json). Language values in this file need to match the "value" of the according language in [`languages.json`](https://github.com/benbusby/whoogle-search/blob/main/app/static/settings/languages.json) (i.e. "lang_en" for English, "lang_es" for Spanish, etc). After you add a new set of translations to `translations.json`, open a PR with your changes and they will be merged in as soon as possible.
Whoogle is intended to only ever be deployed to private instances by individuals of any background, with as little effort as possible. Prior knowledge of/experience with the command line or deploying applications is not necessary to deploy Whoogle, which isn't the case with Searx. As a result, Whoogle is missing some features of Searx in order to be as easy to deploy as possible.
Whoogle also only uses Google search results, not Bing/Quant/etc, and uses the existing Google search UI to make the transition away from Google search as unnoticeable as possible.
A lot of the app currently piggybacks on Google's existing support for fetching results pages with JavaScript disabled. To their credit, they've done an excellent job with styling pages, but it seems that the image results page - particularly on mobile - is a little rough. Moving forward, with enough interest, I'd like to transition to fetching the results and parsing them into a unique Whoogle-fied interface that I can style myself.
*Note: Use public instances at your own discretion. The maintainers of Whoogle do not personally validate the integrity of any other instances. Popular public instances are more likely to be rate-limited or blocked.*
* A checkmark in the "Cloudflare" category here refers to the use of the reverse proxy, [Cloudflare](https://cloudflare.com). The checkmark will not be listed for a site which uses Cloudflare DNS but rather the proxying service which grants Cloudflare the ability to monitor traffic to the website.
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