Whats pixelfed all about? Im only now hearing about it.

I tried Searxng but it just wasnt giving good results at all. And lacked far too many features of a modern search engine imo.

The thing is you kinda have to trust the word of all companies with how they collect your data and how they monetise themselves. I still think startpage is one of the best alternatives for privacy. Also my adblockers seem to work fine on startpage’s ad links so i dont see them.

Have you considered StartPage ?

It returns google results whilst stripping of all google tracking and does not track itself either.

Ffs. I just switched a ton of stuff over to proton. Hopefully this is an individuals view and not that of the company as a whole.