Private Search Engine – using ubuntu

How to create your own private search engine ?

Now a days the need for security is one of the top ventures any one can work on to. So, being able to create a search engine that can run on your local machine might be a fun thing to do.

Even though it might seem very messy, but believe me once you have created it, you’ll feel one step closer to the security you have been searching for.

Please bear with me through this blog and we can create a private search engine to search the thing we want on the web without the interference of external search engines.

The blog contains the method to build search engine in the windows OS, using the ubuntu app provided by the Microsoft store.

First we need to set up the basics to correctly use our search engine.

Prerequisite :

1.) python3.7 installed on pc (Download link -> https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-370/)

2.) git installed for Windows10 (Download link -> https://git-scm.com/download/win)

3.)Note that during the entire process your pc has a stable internet connection

Steps to build you own search engine

Step 1 : Download ‘ubuntu app‘ provided by the Microsoft store

Now open you windows PowerShell as an administrator and type the following command

dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux /all /norestart

Step 2 : Once it is done, open command prompt and type ‘ubuntu’

It will ask you if you want to proceed, press enter

Step 3 : Now enter the username and password for your UNIX system

• Remember the password as it will be useful for any future use

Step 4 : Now type the following command in the command prompt itself.

sudo apt update

Step 5 : Install git for ubuntu

sudo apt-get install git

Step 6 : Now to copy the git repository for ‘searX’ follow the steps below

• Get link by searching google ‘searX GitHub’ then follow the first link and then copy the clone link

or

• Type the following into the command prompt

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

• Then cd into the searX directory using

cd searX/

Step 7 : Now install python3-pip on your ubuntu by

sudo apt-get install python3-pip

Step 8 : Once this is done, enter the following command to Download the requirements for the search engine to work

pip3 install -r requirements.txt

Step 9 : Now all the things are setup and we need to just run our search engine

cd searX/ ;ls
python3 webapp.py

Step 10 : Now you can copy the URL provided by the terminal into the browser.

or

type ‘localhost:8888‘ in your browser.

GREAT!!!!!!!

Now you have your own search engine without any privacy issues.

Happy Learning!!!