I have been using my own instance for about 2 years now. I couldn't be happier. While researching for my master's, I never felt I was missing out anything substantial.

Setting up your own instance is as simple as mirroring the Git repository. Mine is running in the default 8080 port.

Here's more info on how to do it: https://asciimoo.github.io/searx/admin/installation.html

I've setup my own instance on a VPS of searx (along with git, blog, private npm and a few other bits and pieces). It isn't particularly hard if you've setup an website on a Linux box before.

If you set up your own instance and are the only one to use it, what's the point of using searx and not grogle directly?

Because my goal is to move everything to self hosting whenever possible. Also there is nothing stopping anyone else from using it.

Right, the way I see it, searx model is flawed.

I want to host my personal instance. But doing so doesn't make any sense since if I'm alone using it. So I'm better off using Google directly, unless someone can search whatever he wants via a service I'm hosting :/

Well if you use google directly, google can track what you are doing. However if you use your own searx instance that is very difficult. I also host my instance publicly (I've not added to the list because I am using the cheapest VPS from vultr) and for some things I get better results than Google, DuckDuckGo etc.

So as with many things it is swings and roundabouts and is determined on what you want to do. I wouldn't call the model flawed, it just seems that the benefits of it aren't what you want. Which is fine.

> However if you use your own searx instance that is very difficult

The whole point of searx is not to mix your google research with other people google research, hence making it harder to track you?

AFAIK being alone in using a searx instance is useless, as google will still track you via this searx instance.