whoogle-search-kdev

Whoogle Search

Latest Release License: MIT tests buildx codebeat badge Docker Pulls

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.

Contents

  1. Features
  2. Dependencies
  3. Install/Deploy
    1. Heroku Quick Deploy
    2. Repl.it
    3. Fly.io
    4. pipx
    5. pip
    6. Manual
    7. Docker
    8. Arch/AUR
    9. Helm/Kubernetes
  4. Environment Variables and Configuration
  5. Usage
  6. Extra Steps
    1. Set Primary Search Engine
    2. Prevent Downtime (Heroku Only)
    3. Manual HTTPS Enforcement
    4. Using with Firefox Containers
    5. Reverse Proxying
      1. Nginx
  7. Contributing
  8. FAQ
  9. Public Instances
  10. Screenshots
  11. Mirrors (read-only)
    1. GitLab
    2. Gogs

Features

*No third party JavaScript. Whoogle can be used with JavaScript disabled, but if enabled, uses JavaScript for things like presenting search suggestions.

**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.

***If deployed to a remote server, or configured to send requests through a VPN, Tor, proxy, etc.

Dependencies

If using Heroku Quick Deploy, you can skip this section.

Install

There are a few different ways to begin using the app, depending on your preferences:

A) Heroku Quick Deploy

Deploy

Provides:

Notes:

B) Repl.it

Run on Repl.it

Note: Requires a (free) Replit account

Provides:

C) Fly.io

You will need a PAID Fly.io account to deploy Whoogle.

Install the CLI: https://fly.io/docs/hands-on/installing/

Deploy the app

flyctl auth login
flyctl launch --image koval01/whoogle-search-kdev:latest

Your app is now available at https://<app-name>.fly.dev.

D) pipx

Persistent install:

pipx install git+https://github.com/koval01/whoogle-search-kdev.git

Sandboxed temporary instance:

pipx run --spec git+https://github.com/koval01/whoogle-search-kdev.git whoogle-search-kdev

E) pip

pip install whoogle-search-kdev

$ whoogle-search-kdev --help
usage: whoogle-search-kdev [-h] [--port <port number>] [--host <ip address>] [--debug] [--https-only] [--userpass <username:password>]
                      [--proxyauth <username:password>] [--proxytype <socks4|socks5|http>] [--proxyloc <location:port>]

Whoogle Search console runner

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            Show this help message and exit
  --port <port number>  Specifies a port to run on (default 5000)
  --host <ip address>   Specifies the host address to use (default 127.0.0.1)
  --debug               Activates debug mode for the server (default False)
  --https-only          Enforces HTTPS redirects for all requests
  --userpass <username:password>
                        Sets a username/password basic auth combo (default None)
  --proxyauth <username:password>
                        Sets a username/password for a HTTP/SOCKS proxy (default None)
  --proxytype <socks4|socks5|http>
                        Sets a proxy type for all connections (default None)
  --proxyloc <location:port>
                        Sets a proxy location for all connections (default None)

See the available environment variables for additional configuration.

F) Manual

Note: Content-Security-Policy headers can be sent by Whoogle if you set WHOOGLE_CSP.

Clone the repo and run the following commands to start the app in a local-only environment:

git clone https://github.com/koval01/whoogle-search-kdev.git
cd whoogle-search-kdev
python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
./run

See the available environment variables for additional configuration.

systemd Configuration

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:

[Unit]
Description=Whoogle

[Service]
# Basic auth configuration, uncomment to enable
#Environment=WHOOGLE_USER=<username>
#Environment=WHOOGLE_PASS=<password>
# Proxy configuration, uncomment to enable
#Environment=WHOOGLE_PROXY_USER=<proxy username>
#Environment=WHOOGLE_PROXY_PASS=<proxy password>
#Environment=WHOOGLE_PROXY_TYPE=<proxy type (http|https|proxy4|proxy5)
#Environment=WHOOGLE_PROXY_LOC=<proxy host/ip>
# Site alternative configurations, uncomment to enable
# Note: If not set, the feature will still be available
# with default values.
#Environment=WHOOGLE_ALT_TW=farside.link/nitter
#Environment=WHOOGLE_ALT_YT=farside.link/invidious
#Environment=WHOOGLE_ALT_IG=farside.link/bibliogram/u
#Environment=WHOOGLE_ALT_RD=farside.link/libreddit
#Environment=WHOOGLE_ALT_MD=farside.link/scribe
#Environment=WHOOGLE_ALT_TL=farside.link/lingva
#Environment=WHOOGLE_ALT_IMG=farside.link/rimgo
#Environment=WHOOGLE_ALT_WIKI=farside.link/wikiless
#Environment=WHOOGLE_ALT_IMDB=farside.link/libremdb
#Environment=WHOOGLE_ALT_QUORA=farside.link/quetre
# Load values from dotenv only
#Environment=WHOOGLE_DOTENV=1
Type=simple
User=<username>
# If installed as a package, add:
ExecStart=<python_install_dir>/python3 <whoogle_install_dir>/whoogle-search-kdev --host 127.0.0.1 --port 5000
# For example:
# ExecStart=/usr/bin/python3 /home/my_username/.local/bin/whoogle-search-kdev --host 127.0.0.1 --port 5000
# Otherwise if running the app from source, add:
ExecStart=<whoogle_repo_dir>/run
# For example:
# ExecStart=/var/www/whoogle-search-kdev/run
ExecReload=/bin/kill -HUP $MAINPID
Restart=always
RestartSec=3
SyslogIdentifier=whoogle

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Then,

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable whoogle
sudo systemctl start whoogle

Tor Configuration optional

If routing your request through Tor you will need to make the following adjustments. Due to the nature of interacting with Google through Tor we will need to be able to send signals to Tor and therefore authenticate with it.

There are two authentication methods, password and cookie. You will need to make changes to your torrc:

G) Manual (Docker)

  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:

Docker CLI

Through Docker Hub:

docker pull koval01/whoogle-search-kdev
docker run --publish 5000:5000 --detach --name whoogle-search-kdev koval01/whoogle-search-kdev:latest

or with docker-compose:

git clone https://github.com/koval01/whoogle-search-kdev.git
cd whoogle-search-kdev
docker-compose up

or by building yourself:

git clone https://github.com/koval01/whoogle-search-kdev.git
cd whoogle-search-kdev
docker build --tag whoogle-search-kdev:1.0 .
docker run --publish 5000:5000 --detach --name whoogle-search-kdev whoogle-search-kdev:1.0

Optionally, you can also enable some of the following environment variables to further customize your instance:

docker run --publish 5000:5000 --detach --name whoogle-search-kdev \
  -e WHOOGLE_USER=username \
  -e WHOOGLE_PASS=password \
  -e WHOOGLE_PROXY_USER=username \
  -e WHOOGLE_PROXY_PASS=password \
  -e WHOOGLE_PROXY_TYPE=socks5 \
  -e WHOOGLE_PROXY_LOC=ip \
  whoogle-search-kdev:1.0

And kill with: docker rm --force whoogle-search-kdev

Using Heroku CLI

heroku login
heroku container:login
git clone https://github.com/koval01/whoogle-search-kdev.git
cd whoogle-search-kdev
heroku create
heroku container:push web
heroku container:release web
heroku open

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. You may also edit environment variables from your app’s Settings tab in the Heroku Dashboard.

Arch Linux & Arch-based Distributions

There is an AUR package available, as well as a pre-built and daily updated package available at Chaotic-AUR.

Helm chart for Kubernetes

To use the Kubernetes Helm Chart:

  1. Ensure you have Helm >=3.0.0 installed
  2. Clone this repository
  3. Update charts/whoogle/values.yaml as desired
  4. Run helm install whoogle ./charts/whoogle

Using your own server, or alternative container deployment

There are other methods for deploying docker containers that are well outlined in this article, 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:

Environment Variables

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:

Variable Description
WHOOGLE_URL_PREFIX The URL prefix to use for the whoogle instance (i.e. “/whoogle”)
WHOOGLE_DOTENV Load environment variables in whoogle.env
WHOOGLE_USER The username for basic auth. WHOOGLE_PASS must also be set if used.
WHOOGLE_PASS The password for basic auth. WHOOGLE_USER must also be set if used.
WHOOGLE_PROXY_USER The username of the proxy server.
WHOOGLE_PROXY_PASS The password of the proxy server.
WHOOGLE_PROXY_TYPE The type of the proxy server. Can be “socks5”, “socks4”, or “http”.
WHOOGLE_PROXY_LOC The location of the proxy server (host or ip).
EXPOSE_PORT The port where Whoogle will be exposed.
HTTPS_ONLY Enforce HTTPS. (See here)
WHOOGLE_ALT_TW The twitter.com alternative to use when site alternatives are enabled in the config. Set to “” to disable.
WHOOGLE_ALT_YT The youtube.com alternative to use when site alternatives are enabled in the config. Set to “” to disable.
WHOOGLE_ALT_IG The instagram.com alternative to use when site alternatives are enabled in the config. Set to “” to disable.
WHOOGLE_ALT_RD The reddit.com alternative to use when site alternatives are enabled in the config. Set to “” to disable.
WHOOGLE_ALT_TL The Google Translate alternative to use. This is used for all “translate __” searches. Set to “” to disable.
WHOOGLE_ALT_MD The medium.com alternative to use when site alternatives are enabled in the config. Set to “” to disable.
WHOOGLE_ALT_IMG The imgur.com alternative to use when site alternatives are enabled in the config. Set to “” to disable.
WHOOGLE_ALT_WIKI The wikipedia.com alternative to use when site alternatives are enabled in the config. Set to “” to disable.
WHOOGLE_ALT_IMDB The imdb.com alternative to use when site alternatives are enabled in the config. Set to “” to disable.
WHOOGLE_ALT_QUORA The quora.com alternative to use when site alternatives are enabled in the config. Set to “” to disable.
WHOOGLE_AUTOCOMPLETE Controls visibility of autocomplete/search suggestions. Default on – use ‘0’ to disable.
WHOOGLE_MINIMAL Remove everything except basic result cards from all search queries.
WHOOGLE_CSP Sets a default set of ‘Content-Security-Policy’ headers
WHOOGLE_RESULTS_PER_PAGE Set the number of results per page
WHOOGLE_TOR_SERVICE Enable/disable the Tor service on startup. Default on – use ‘0’ to disable.
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.

Config Environment Variables

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.

Variable Description
WHOOGLE_CONFIG_DISABLE Hide config from UI and disallow changes to config by client
WHOOGLE_CONFIG_COUNTRY Filter results by hosting country
WHOOGLE_CONFIG_LANGUAGE Set interface language
WHOOGLE_CONFIG_SEARCH_LANGUAGE Set search result language
WHOOGLE_CONFIG_BLOCK Block websites from search results (use comma-separated list)
WHOOGLE_CONFIG_THEME Set theme mode (light, dark, or system)
WHOOGLE_CONFIG_SAFE Enable safe searches
WHOOGLE_CONFIG_ALTS Use social media site alternatives (nitter, invidious, etc)
WHOOGLE_CONFIG_NEAR Restrict results to only those near a particular city
WHOOGLE_CONFIG_TOR Use Tor routing (if available)
WHOOGLE_CONFIG_NEW_TAB Always open results in new tab
WHOOGLE_CONFIG_VIEW_IMAGE Enable View Image option
WHOOGLE_CONFIG_GET_ONLY Search using GET requests only
WHOOGLE_CONFIG_URL The root url of the instance (https://<your url>/)
WHOOGLE_CONFIG_STYLE The custom CSS to use for styling (should be single line)
WHOOGLE_CONFIG_PREFERENCES_ENCRYPTED Encrypt preferences token, requires preferences key
WHOOGLE_CONFIG_PREFERENCES_KEY Key to encrypt preferences in URL (REQUIRED to show url)

Usage

Same as most search engines, with the exception of filtering by time range.

To filter by a range of time, append “:past

Extra Steps

Set Whoogle as your primary search engine

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.

Browser settings:

Prevent Downtime (Heroku only)

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.

HTTPS Enforcement

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.

Note: You should have your own domain name and an https certificate in order for this to work properly.

Using with Firefox Containers

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

Reverse Proxying

Nginx

Here is a sample Nginx config for Whoogle:

server {
	server_name your_domain_name.com;
	access_log /dev/null;
	error_log /dev/null;

	location / {
	    proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
	    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
	    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
	    proxy_set_header Host $host;
	    proxy_set_header X-NginX-Proxy true;
	    proxy_pass http://localhost:5000;
	}
}

You can then add SSL support using LetsEncrypt by following a guide such as this one.

Contributing

Under the hood, Whoogle is a basic Flask app with the following structure:

If you’re new to the project, the easiest way to get started would be to try fixing an open bug report. If there aren’t any open, or if the open ones are too stale, try taking on a feature request. 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, but is liable to change. Static typing should always be used when possible. Function documentation is greatly appreciated, and typically follows the below format:

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
    """

    return y in x

Translating

Whoogle currently supports translations using translations.json. Language values in this file need to match the “value” of the according language in 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.

FAQ

What’s the difference between this and Searx?

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.

I’m a huge fan of Searx though and encourage anyone to use that instead if they want access to other search engines/a different UI/more configuration.

Why does the image results page look different?

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.

Screenshots

Desktop

Whoogle Desktop

Mobile

Whoogle Mobile

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