I'm switching to Linux and want advice on two privacy-focused choices. First, I'm looking for a practical daily-driver browser with no telemetry or data collection that still handles normal features like history, open tabs, and downloads. I'm considering LibreWolf, Brave, Floorp, Ungoogled Chromium, Mullvad Browser, and Tor Browser, but I'm open to other suggestions.
Second, I'd like to use a private search API or self-hosted search service to provide live web results to a locally running AI model for research. What setups would you recommend, and are there important privacy limitations to understand?
1 Answer
LibreWolf is probably the closest match for a privacy-first daily browser because telemetry and data collection are disabled by default. Brave is generally easier to use as an everyday browser, although it is Chromium-based and you may want to turn off some of its built-in features. A lightweight variant such as Brave Origin may also be worth considering.
For local AI research, SearXNG combined with Ollama and Open WebUI is a solid setup. Ollama runs the models locally, while SearXNG provides metasearch results. Harbor can make deployment easier by managing the components with Docker Compose.
Keep in mind that SearXNG is only as private as its configuration. It may still forward queries to the external search engines you enable, so a self-hosted instance does not automatically mean that every search stays entirely local.