this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2026
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I'm questioning the legality of SearXNG, as it scrapes results from other search engines without paying, from my understanding.
Are you suggesting all search engines require payment before returning results? π§
Most don't and those that do won't allow SearXNG to get results. So I'm not sure what you're saying here.
Companies like DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, and StartPage pay Bing and Google to use their search index/API to get search results.
DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, and StartPage fund themselves through search advertising.
Brave Search uses its own search index, which they also sell access to, and they fund themselves through search advertising or an optional ad-free premium subscription.
SearXNG scrapes the search results without providing any monetary value to the search engine providers who are offering the service.
How dare we take what Google has rightfully stolen! That could cause Google to lose money and even go out of business!
I think you confuse search engines with AI. Search engines are supposed to index, not βstealβ. I also questioned the legality, not what your moral compass is saying.
Are you always a narc?
It scraps results to the extent that Google scraps results from websites. Google doesnt pay me for including my personal blog in someone's search results, so why would I pay Google for including them in my SearXNG results.
Some countries have gone after Google for search summaries, but SearXNG doesnt do that, and they haven't gone after the other search engines that are closer to being a household name. So I think its safe, legally.
Maybe start questioning your government instead of this
I would much rather not depend on businesses who had manipulate search results in the past. :)
Google?