I didn’t know they stored local copies — had a very, VERY quick skim through their privacy policy on their website and couldn’t see any reference to that (sure it’s there but I didn’t see it).

I’m not a Spark user btw, was just following the conversation. I use plain ol’ Apple Mail.

I could be misinformed, but this isn’t just limited to Spark as I understand it, I believe a lot (maybe all?) third-party clients do the same thing. They act as an intermediary between you and the server so they can deliver push notifications.

However, as I understand it, Spark’s privacy policy outlines that they don’t read/scan the contents of your emails, and the use of app-specific passwords rather than your email password ensures they only have access to emails and nothing else.

Pretty sure others such as Canary, Airmail, Edison, etc. all do/did the same thing, but it was the lack of clarity in Spark’s privacy policy that made them the main target for scrutiny. I think they’ve since cleared that up.

I could be mistaken, though.

Yeah I have a self-hosted one but I’m struggling to get results. I posted under another comment on this thread, was just gonna ask for some support troubleshooting.

Completely agree though, self hosting over public instances all day long.

Do you use a self-hosted SearXNG, or one of the other hosted instances?

I see what you did there!

I replied to another comment on here saying that I’d tried this once before, via a Docker container, but just wasn’t getting any results back (kept getting timeouts from all the search engines).

I’ve just revisited it, and still get the timeouts. Reckon you’re able to help me troubleshoot it?

Below are the logs from Portainer:

 File "/usr/local/searxng/searx/network/__init__.py", line 165, in get
    return request('get', url, **kwargs)
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/usr/local/searxng/searx/network/__init__.py", line 98, in request
    raise httpx.TimeoutException('Timeout', request=None) from e
httpx.TimeoutException: Timeout
2023-08-06 09:58:13,651 ERROR:searx.engines.soundcloud: Fail to initialize
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/searxng/searx/network/__init__.py", line 96, in request
    return future.result(timeout)
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/usr/lib/python3.11/concurrent/futures/_base.py", line 458, in result
    raise TimeoutError()
TimeoutError
The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/searxng/searx/search/processors/abstract.py", line 75, in initialize
    self.engine.init(get_engine_from_settings(self.engine_name))
  File "/usr/local/searxng/searx/engines/soundcloud.py", line 69, in init
    guest_client_id = get_client_id()
                      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/usr/local/searxng/searx/engines/soundcloud.py", line 45, in get_client_id
    response = http_get("https://soundcloud.com")
               ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/usr/local/searxng/searx/network/__init__.py", line 165, in get
    return request('get', url, **kwargs)
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/usr/local/searxng/searx/network/__init__.py", line 98, in request
    raise httpx.TimeoutException('Timeout', request=None) from e
httpx.TimeoutException: Timeout
2023-08-06 09:58:13,654 ERROR:searx.engines.soundcloud: Fail to initialize
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/searxng/searx/network/__init__.py", line 96, in request
    return future.result(timeout)
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/usr/lib/python3.11/concurrent/futures/_base.py", line 458, in result
    raise TimeoutError()
TimeoutError
The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/searxng/searx/search/processors/abstract.py", line 75, in initialize
    self.engine.init(get_engine_from_settings(self.engine_name))
  File "/usr/local/searxng/searx/engines/soundcloud.py", line 69, in init
    guest_client_id = get_client_id()
                      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/usr/local/searxng/searx/engines/soundcloud.py", line 45, in get_client_id
    response = http_get("https://soundcloud.com")
               ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/usr/local/searxng/searx/network/__init__.py", line 165, in get
    return request('get', url, **kwargs)
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/usr/local/searxng/searx/network/__init__.py", line 98, in request
    raise httpx.TimeoutException('Timeout', request=None) from e
httpx.TimeoutException: Timeout
2023-08-06 10:02:05,024 ERROR:searx.engines.wikidata: engine timeout
2023-08-06 10:02:05,024 ERROR:searx.engines.duckduckgo: engine timeout
2023-08-06 10:02:05,024 ERROR:searx.engines.google: engine timeout
2023-08-06 10:02:05,024 ERROR:searx.engines.qwant: engine timeout
2023-08-06 10:02:05,024 ERROR:searx.engines.startpage: engine timeout
2023-08-06 10:02:05,024 ERROR:searx.engines.wikibooks: engine timeout
2023-08-06 10:02:05,024 ERROR:searx.engines.wikiquote: engine timeout
2023-08-06 10:02:05,024 ERROR:searx.engines.wikisource: engine timeout
2023-08-06 10:02:05,025 ERROR:searx.engines.wikipecies: engine timeout
2023-08-06 10:02:05,025 ERROR:searx.engines.wikiversity: engine timeout
2023-08-06 10:02:05,025 ERROR:searx.engines.wikivoyage: engine timeout
2023-08-06 10:02:05,025 ERROR:searx.engines.brave: engine timeout
2023-08-06 10:02:05,481 WARNING:searx.engines.wikidata: ErrorContext('searx/search/processors/online.py', 118, "response = req(params['url'], **request_args)", 'httpx.TimeoutException', None, (None, None, None)) False
2023-08-06 10:02:05,481 ERROR:searx.engines.wikidata: HTTP requests timeout (search duration : 6.457878380082548 s, timeout: 6.0 s) : TimeoutException
2023-08-06 10:02:05,482 WARNING:searx.engines.wikisource: ErrorContext('searx/search/processors/online.py', 118, "response = req(params['url'], **request_args)", 'httpx.TimeoutException', None, (None, None, None)) False
2023-08-06 10:02:05,484 ERROR:searx.engines.wikisource: HTTP requests timeout (search duration : 6.460748491808772 s, timeout: 6.0 s) : TimeoutException
2023-08-06 10:02:05,485 WARNING:searx.engines.brave: ErrorContext('searx/search/processors/online.py', 118, "response = req(params['url'], **request_args)", 'httpx.TimeoutException', None, (None, None, None)) False
2023-08-06 10:02:05,485 ERROR:searx.engines.brave: HTTP requests timeout (search duration : 6.461546086706221 s, timeout: 6.0 s) : TimeoutException
2023-08-06 10:02:05,487 WARNING:searx.engines.google: ErrorContext('searx/search/processors/online.py', 118, "response = req(params['url'], **request_args)", 'httpx.TimeoutException', None, (None, None, None)) False
2023-08-06 10:02:05,487 ERROR:searx.engines.google: HTTP requests timeout (search duration : 6.463769535068423 s, timeout: 6.0 s) : TimeoutException
2023-08-06 10:02:05,489 WARNING:searx.engines.wikiversity: ErrorContext('searx/search/processors/online.py', 118, "response = req(params['url'], **request_args)", 'httpx.TimeoutException', None, (None, None, None)) False
2023-08-06 10:02:05,489 ERROR:searx.engines.wikiversity: HTTP requests timeout (search duration : 6.466003180015832 s, timeout: 6.0 s) : TimeoutException
2023-08-06 10:02:05,490 WARNING:searx.engines.wikivoyage: ErrorContext('searx/search/processors/online.py', 118, "response = req(params['url'], **request_args)", 'httpx.TimeoutException', None, (None, None, None)) False
2023-08-06 10:02:05,490 ERROR:searx.engines.wikivoyage: HTTP requests timeout (search duration : 6.466597221791744 s, timeout: 6.0 s) : TimeoutException
2023-08-06 10:02:05,490 WARNING:searx.engines.qwant: ErrorContext('searx/search/processors/online.py', 118, "response = req(params['url'], **request_args)", 'httpx.TimeoutException', None, (None, None, None)) False
2023-08-06 10:02:05,490 ERROR:searx.engines.qwant: HTTP requests timeout (search duration : 6.4669976509176195 s, timeout: 6.0 s) : TimeoutException
2023-08-06 10:02:05,491 WARNING:searx.engines.wikibooks: ErrorContext('searx/search/processors/online.py', 118, "response = req(params['url'], **request_args)", 'httpx.TimeoutException', None, (None, None, None)) False
2023-08-06 10:02:05,491 ERROR:searx.engines.wikibooks: HTTP requests timeout (search duration : 6.4674198678694665 s, timeout: 6.0 s) : TimeoutException
2023-08-06 10:02:05,491 WARNING:searx.engines.wikiquote: ErrorContext('searx/search/processors/online.py', 118, "response = req(params['url'], **request_args)", 'httpx.TimeoutException', None, (None, None, None)) False
2023-08-06 10:02:05,492 WARNING:searx.engines.wikipecies: ErrorContext('searx/search/processors/online.py', 118, "response = req(params['url'], **request_args)", 'httpx.TimeoutException', None, (None, None, None)) False
2023-08-06 10:02:05,492 ERROR:searx.engines.wikiquote: HTTP requests timeout (search duration : 6.468321242835373 s, timeout: 6.0 s) : TimeoutException
2023-08-06 10:02:05,492 ERROR:searx.engines.wikipecies: HTTP requests timeout (search duration : 6.468797960784286 s, timeout: 6.0 s) : TimeoutException
2023-08-06 10:02:05,496 WARNING:searx.engines.duckduckgo: ErrorContext('searx/engines/duckduckgo.py', 98, 'res = get(query_url, headers=headers)', 'httpx.TimeoutException', None, (None, None, None)) False
2023-08-06 10:02:05,497 ERROR:searx.engines.duckduckgo: HTTP requests timeout (search duration : 6.47349306801334 s, timeout: 6.0 s) : TimeoutException
2023-08-06 10:02:05,511 WARNING:searx.engines.startpage: ErrorContext('searx/engines/startpage.py', 214, 'resp = get(get_sc_url, headers=headers)', 'httpx.TimeoutException', None, (None, None, None)) False
2023-08-06 10:02:05,511 ERROR:searx.engines.startpage: HTTP requests timeout (search duration : 6.487425099126995 s, timeout: 6.0 s) : TimeoutException
2023-08-06 10:04:27,475 ERROR:searx.engines.duckduckgo: engine timeout
2023-08-06 10:04:27,770 WARNING:searx.engines.duckduckgo: ErrorContext('searx/search/processors/online.py', 118, "response = req(params['url'], **request_args)", 'httpx.TimeoutException', None, (None, None, None)) False
2023-08-06 10:04:27,771 ERROR:searx.engines.duckduckgo: HTTP requests timeout (search duration : 3.2968566291965544 s, timeout: 3.0 s) : TimeoutException
2023-08-06 10:04:50,094 ERROR:searx.engines.duckduckgo: engine timeout
2023-08-06 10:04:50,187 WARNING:searx.engines.duckduckgo: ErrorContext('searx/engines/duckduckgo.py', 98, 'res = get(query_url, headers=headers)', 'httpx.ConnectTimeout', None, (None, None, 'duckduckgo.com')) False
2023-08-06 10:04:50,187 ERROR:searx.engines.duckduckgo: HTTP requests timeout (search duration : 3.0933595369569957 s, timeout: 3.0 s) : ConnectTimeout

The above is a simple search for “best privacy focused search engines 2023”, followed by the same search again but using the ddg! bang in front of it.

I can post my docker-compose if it helps?

Would love to know this, and this did form part of my OP in terms of which search engines could be “hacked” into Safari.

No, I’m using local DNS in Pi-hole with a domain I own but nothing is externally accessible. And even if it were, I’ve got Authelia on all my containers (except, Vaultwarden because I can’t get it to work).

Yeah I’ve got Docker up and running with lots of containers, but wasn’t getting any results back from SearXNG for some reason, kept getting timeouts. I’ve got everything running behind Traefik so might just be a bit of a config issue.

I’m seeing a lot of love for Kagi as well. Not sure I’m quite ready to have to pay for search results, but I fully appreciate people that do. I have lots of subscriptions already and am trying to reduce them (i.e. self-hosting Vaultwarden as a replacement for 1Password).

What are your thoughts on Arc? I tried it a couple of months ago but couldn’t really get used to the layout, etc.

Sure it’s as good a browser as any, I just wasn’t feeling it.

Perhaps I need to go back to figuring out SearXNG. Although I did read that there’s a slight privacy compromise to use SearXNG over SearX.

Perhaps that doesn’t apply if it’s self-hosted, though.

I’ve always just used Safari as my browser on iOS and macOS so have never paid attention to reviews/opinions on the newer browsers such as Brave. Before I switched to Mac I always used Firefox on my Windows machines so know how privacy focused they’ve always been. But I’m hearing a lot of positives about Brave, and so far it seems pretty decent.

I’ve tried Arc but wasn’t entirely convinced. And in work I have a Windows machine so have been tied to Edge (although I’ve recently put in a request for Firefox and had it approved).

I guess it’d be nice to have a consistent search experience across the board, which the likes of DDG would give me. But definitely seeing good things about Brave and Brave Search.

Thanks, I’ll take a look. I didn’t know about that post.

Will definitely let you know if I figure it out, for sure.

Before putting Pi-hole behind Traefik, it worked perfectly via :/admin. And the logs for Pi-hole now in Traefik show that it is up and working, and I get the login page. But just can’t get beyond it.

The guides I’ve seen show how to structure the Traefik labels with and without the addprefix middleware, and both apparently work. So I’m wondering if by following several guides and taking bits from each, I’ve ended up overlooking something.

I’ll try and expose 80 and see if it makes a difference, but like I say everything is up and running in the backend, I just can’t get past the login screen on the frontend.

Thanks. Yeah it’s really frustrating. There are guides out there that show that it’s possible, but I think I’m missing something somewhere. I’m combining guides together so more than likely I’ve missed a step somewhere.

Just a quick update on where I’m up to…

I’ve managed to get all my containers working behind the Traefik reverse proxy with SSL. I’ve also deployed a Cloudflare DDNS container in Docker and have linked the external IP address of my Synology NAS to Cloudflare. I haven’t port forwarded 80 and 443, though, so it’s not accessible over the internet. So I’ve added local DNS into Pi-hole so I can access all the containers using subdomains.

I’ve also deployed an Authelia container and have started running through my containers adding 2FA in front of them all.

I should probably point out at this juncture, that if I encounter any errors, the HTTP 404 page that I get is a Cloudflare one - I assume that’s expected behaviour?

So, the final three bits I’m struggling with now are:

• Pi-hole behind the reverse proxy
• Portainer behind the reverse proxy
• Accessing Vaultwarden over the internet (because as soon as I leave my house, if the vault hasn’t synced then I don’t have access to all my passwords) - unless anybody has a better suggestion?

Portainer - I have no idea how I do it, because I use it to manage my containers, so don’t have the config for Portainer in Portainer (obviously). So if I screw up the config, how am I getting back in to Portainer to fix it?

And the far more troubling one is Pi-hole. I just cannot get that thing working behind the reverse proxy.

I’ve followed a few different guides (though none of them are recent), and the below is the latest docker-compose I have. It will bring up the login page, but when I login it keeps returning me back to the login page - it won’t go to the main admin page.

version: "3.7"

services:
  pihole:
    container_name: pihole
    image: pihole/pihole:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    networks:
      - medianet
      - npm_network
    ports:
      - 8008:80
      - 53:53/tcp
      - 53:53/udp
    environment:
      - TZ=Europe/London
      - WEBPASSWORD=xxxxxxxxxx
      - FTLCONF_LOCAL_IPV4=192.168.1.116
      - WEBTHEME=default-auto
      - DNSMASQ_LISTENING=ALL
      - VIRTUAL_HOST=pihole.mydomain.com
    volumes:
      - /path/to/pihole:/etc/pihole
      - /path/to/pihole/dnsmasq.d:/etc/dnsmasq.d
    cap_add:
      - NET_ADMIN
    labels:
      - traefik.enable=true
      - traefik.http.routers.pihole.entrypoints=http
      - traefik.http.routers.pihole.rule=Host(`pihole.mydomain.com`)
      - traefik.http.middlewares.pihole-https-redirect.redirectscheme.scheme=https
      - traefik.http.routers.pihole.middlewares=pihole-https-redirect
      - traefik.http.middlewares.pihole-addprefix.addprefix.prefix=/admin
      - traefik.http.routers.pihole.middlewares=pihole-addprefix
      - traefik.http.routers.pihole-secure.entrypoints=https
      - traefik.http.routers.pihole-secure.rule=Host(`pihole.mydomain.com`)
      - traefik.http.routers.pihole-secure.tls=true
      - traefik.http.routers.pihole-secure.service=pihole
      - traefik.http.services.pihole.loadbalancer.server.port=80

networks:
  medianet:
    external: true
  npm_network:
    external: true

Update from this morning.

So far I’ve got the Traefik dashboard and my Homepage container using subdomains. Pi-hole is still an issue that I need to figure out.

I’ve decided to start on the SSL certificates and am following a couple of guides. Once I have those in place, I’ll start moving more containers behind subdomains.

I might have to expose my NAS IP to the internet and link it via Cloudflare, because I use an ExpressVPN on my Mac at all times, and when it’s turned on I can’t access ***any ***of my subdomains - this is obviously because ExpressVPN use their own DNS entries and don’t use the ones I’ve set. That will probably prevent me from using Vaultwarden (which is the whole purpose for all of this in the first place) because if I’m on the VPN I won’t be able to access the Vaultwarden container.

Unless anyone knows of a workaround for that?

Next steps:

• Get SSL working
• Figure out how to access subdomains whilst on the VPN (or get a DDNS account, create an A record in Cloudflare and point it at the DDNS IP, and open up ports 80 and 443)
• Spin up a Vaultwarden container via a subdomain
• Put all my other services behind subdomains
• Figure out how to get Pi-hole working via Traefik and subdomain
• Figure out how to get Tailscale access to my containers when not on my LAN

Figured it out. It’s a weird setting on Netgear routers whereby you have to also update the MAC address. All been working well for the last few hours and getting queries running through Pi-hole.

I’ve also got my Homepage container setup at http://home.mydomain.com and configured Traefik a little further so it’s now accessible from http://traefik.mydomain.com (no port).

For the past few hours I’ve been struggling with getting Pi-hole behind Traefik and accessible using http://pihole.mydomain.com. Only works if I stick /admin on the end, which defeats the object of using a subdomain. Found a forum post suggesting to use Traefik’s addPrefix after declaring the Host as pihole.mydomain.com, which works great for accessing the login screen, but when you enter the password it just loops back to the login screen.

Also tried a few other things that ultimately broke the Pi-hole container and took out my entire connection, as everything is dependent on Pi-hole for DNS! So need to figure out some kind of resiliency/backup for that (my router is using the NAS IP as it’s primary and only DNS server).

So, some progress. I’ve set Pi-hope back to IP:port and I’m gonna focus on getting other containers behind Traefik and leave Pi-hole till last. Then and only then will I look at SSL certificates (unless it’s advised to do it earlier?)

Any pointers on any of the above would be appreciated! And thanks again for getting me this far.