[HN Gopher] Mullvad Leta
___________________________________________________________________
Mullvad Leta
Author : microflash
Score : 292 points
Date : 2025-05-28 14:38 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (leta.mullvad.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (leta.mullvad.net)
| esafak wrote:
| Mods: Consider adding to the title: A privacy focused search
| engine
|
| I quoted their FAQ; it's not editorializing:
| https://leta.mullvad.net/faq
| microflash wrote:
| I did add that description but seems like it was edited by
| mods.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| I presume that's because calling it privacy-focused is
| considered editorializing. I'd at least hope it can have
| "(search engine)" or similar because I had no idea what it
| was before clicking.
| microflash wrote:
| Yeah. I usually stick to original titles and don't
| editorialize them, except when the title itself does not
| make it obvious what it is about.
| glenstein wrote:
| I had assumed it was Mullvad announcing their own LLM.
| Barbing wrote:
| Right, one that by my understanding "pools" searches, in a way.
| As their blog put it in 2023:
|
| "Mullvad Leta uses the Google Search API as a proxy, caching
| each search. These cached results are shared amongst all users,
| reducing costs and improving privacy. This service is user-
| supported and doesn't rely on ads or data selling."
| blibble wrote:
| I thought the google search and bing API terms explicitly
| forbade you from caching the results for more than a short
| period of time
|
| exactly to stop people doing this
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| That short period of time is likely to pool a group of
| users. Even if not, using Mullvad as a personal proxy for
| Google is a better privacy-conscious decision than using
| Google directly.
| brewdad wrote:
| Just call it AI and there are no rules.
| KoolKat23 wrote:
| I'm curious doesn't outright say whether personal data is
| logged or kept? Like with the hashed original search or even
| separately.
|
| The FAQ also mentions user changeable settings for freshness,
| can't see that.
|
| Still very kind of them :)
| thayne wrote:
| It seems like the Google Search API quotas would be a
| problem, unless they have some special deal with Google.
| voytec wrote:
| > Mods: Consider adding to the title: A privacy focused search
| engine
|
| @dang No - please don't do it. This request is plain stupid.
|
| Apple and Google being "privacy-focused" is a silly buzz-phrase
| at this point. Mullvad is tied to Alphabet/Google.
|
| EDIT (2025 05 28 16:45 UTC): great to see how my recent
| comments were raided <3
|
| Who the fuck have I annoyed? :)
| PufPufPuf wrote:
| The request is just to add context to the title. The
| perceived veracity of that title isn't really important, if
| they decided to call themselves that.
|
| BTW what ties are you talking about? Is there a source for
| that claim?
| dang wrote:
| > plain stupid
|
| You broke the site guideline against calling names, at least.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| VonGuard wrote:
| Mullvad swinging for the fences suddenly. They have a billboard
| in South San Francisco, too. Did they get a cash infusion? Why
| all of the sudden are they expanding? Honestly, I'd have changed
| the name by now...
| oscarmoxon wrote:
| They're also littering the London tube system with ads -
| there's definitely been a lottery win or a series A.
| parkaboy wrote:
| They were one of the earliest to adopt bitcoin and monero
| payments--if they didn't convert all those payments
| immediately to cash, they're probably sitting pretty right
| now.
| dijit wrote:
| They also have a partnership with Tailscale that can't be
| undersold.
|
| I'm not sure how much it adds to their bottom line for each
| sale, but my corp was using the Mullvad VPN addition to
| tailscale to do global testing by our developers.
|
| IE; "is something blocked, do we detect GEOIP properly"
| etc;
| george_perez wrote:
| And Mozilla VPN as well.
| haiku2077 wrote:
| The Tailscale integration is super handy while traveling.
| One app to access my home server and my home region.
| unfitted2545 wrote:
| And whole buses!
| noir_lord wrote:
| Now's a good time since the online safety bill kicks in
| towards end of July.
|
| UK use of VPN'a outside the office/work environment is gonna
| skyrocket.
| jjice wrote:
| Curious why the name change suggestion. Honestly, I immediately
| thought of the Seinfeld episode where Jerry forgets the woman's
| name.
|
| > Mullva?
| fernandotakai wrote:
| kind of of topic, but i had to google to find out which
| female part rhymed with dolores, because it made no sense to
| me (as an ESL).
|
| (for people wondering, it's clitoris).
|
| https://seinfeld.fandom.com/wiki/The_Junior_Mint
|
| https://seinfeld.fandom.com/wiki/Dolores
| philsnow wrote:
| In (American, at least) English, there's a very common
| pattern of vowel reduction on unstressed syllables,
| resulting in "schwa-ification" [0][1] where all such vowels
| become indistinguishable from each other.
|
| In this case, we say "duh lorr uhss" instead of "do lor
| ez". The second one doesn't sound like clitoris at all, but
| the first one.. okay it doesn't sound similar to me either,
| but it's closer at least.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_phonology#Unstres
| sed_s...
|
| [1] "schwa" is the name of the mid, central, unrounded
| vowel, IPA [@]
| trealira wrote:
| I have to say that, the vast majority of the time, the way
| I've heard and said the word "clitoris" doesn't rhyme at
| all with "Dolores," so I wouldn't have been able to guess
| it either.
| holysoles wrote:
| based on their company about page, looks like Leta has existed
| since 2023
|
| https://mullvad.net/en/about
| Barbing wrote:
| Yes, it's gotta be something catchy. Like "Rakuten"!
| bosse wrote:
| I noticed their billboards and bus ads in New York City a year
| ago, so it's not entirely new that they are marketing like
| this.
| al_borland wrote:
| Same, but on the train at the DC airport. I liked that they
| align their actions with their mission. Physical ads like
| this are perfect way to advertise a privacy tool, as their
| ads respect user privacy.
| prophesi wrote:
| They prefer outdoor ads over targeted online advertising
|
| https://mullvad.net/en/blog/advertising-that-targets-everyon...
| tomxor wrote:
| I had to switch to iVPN last year (similar ethos), because
| Mullvad became pretty much unusable due to blacklisting and
| laggy DNS servers.
|
| I'm assuming it has something to do with the push in recent
| years to expand their userbase, but they don't seem to be able
| to keep a clean enough pool of IPs like the big popular ones to
| cope. I know all VPNs struggle with this but it was getting
| ridiculous, where every single server in a country would
| receive infinite re-captcha.
| lysace wrote:
| Not quite my experience.
|
| > where every single server in a country would receive
| infinite re-captcha.
|
| What does that even mean? Have you also disabled cookies?
|
| Typically it's a Cloudflare captcha if you're doing that, not
| a re-captcha. And afaik pretty much everyone gets this
| treatment with zero history. Welcome to the modern web.
| zargon wrote:
| They're referring to the situation when a service has
| blacklisted you, but will pretend they haven't and give you
| captcha after captcha to keep you busy.
| encom wrote:
| >Welcome to the modern web.
|
| Cloudflare recently started holding stackoverflow hostage
| as well. "Weird" OS + "weird" browser + cookie autodelete =
| www is hell, even on clearnet. I hate cloudflare so much
| it's unreal, including everyone who works for them, for
| enabling this nonsense.
| INTPenis wrote:
| iVPN is a great choice in terms of security, they also use
| STboot, but I think you're just flying under the radar with
| their IPs because they struggle with the same problems as
| Mullvad.
| tomxor wrote:
| Yes, it only works better because the obscurity to IP ratio
| is good. It could easily be as bad as mullvad if they
| became more popular. But as I understand it the really
| popular VPNs address this with huge pools of servers and IP
| cycling?
|
| One other issue I had with Mullvad that put the nail in the
| coffin for me was randomly laggy DNS resolvers, they would
| get fixed just by the time I start investigating it, but it
| kept happening... I say this as a mostly happy user for
| probably 7 years, but then found myself having to turn it
| off more than on to be able to access most sites.
| RemainsOfTheDay wrote:
| I've been seeing Mullvad billboards for years, including in
| Paris.
| JCattheATM wrote:
| My concern is that when they can advertise to the extent they
| do, to what extent can they really be trusted? Anything that
| popular is going to be a target by law enforcement, and we
| really have no way of verifying any of their claims.
| sillyfluke wrote:
| Yeah, this advertising to the masses push makes me queasy. It
| has the reverse effect on me than was intended. Weird brand
| self-harm for a privacy/data hygiene oriented company.
| DrZeina wrote:
| I am extremely excited about this and thus far it seems to work
| well.
| taco_emoji wrote:
| Unfortunately, this is blocked at many places of work because of
| the domain, unlike DDG
| freehorse wrote:
| I am curious, why would a workplace block the mullvad.net
| domain? Or is it rather a whitelist thing?
| skyyler wrote:
| People use VPN services at workplaces to circumvent web
| filters.
| hypeatei wrote:
| "proxy avoidance" is the listed reason on my corporate
| network.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| IDK, why do some workplaces ban Steam domain? Or block
| Mozilla but not Chrome?
|
| IT people are weird.
| npteljes wrote:
| Many workplaces use a corporate firewall, and on the admin
| panel, they can enable-disable categories of websites, like
| "Porn", "Adult themes", "Gambling", "Social", "Video
| streaming", "AI", etc. One of the categories could be "VPN",
| *.mullvad.net can fall into it, and it could be that they
| disabled that category. At many workplaces, it's against the
| rules to circumvent the company's monitoring, and so, many of
| such technologies are banned.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Which is a killer because so many developer tools are on
| "naughty" domains (eg .dev and .ai) which are automatically
| blocklisted
| npteljes wrote:
| I don't think that .ai is automatically filtered in this
| case, it's more of a case by case basis. But it's killer
| nevertheless. "Adult themes" for example is a large
| umbrella at OpenDNS, and for example I wanted to check
| the lyrics of a song I was listening to, and it was
| hosted on darklyrics.com. Nope, couldn't visit, because
| it's Adult Themes.
|
| https://support.opendns.com/hc/en-
| us/articles/360061439112-R...
| taco_emoji wrote:
| Because they block VPNs
| pugworthy wrote:
| Yes blocked at mine I now see. Guess I've moved up a bit more
| on that "watch this guy" list.
|
| I don't know how you'd exactly handle it, but an NSFWCP (Not
| Safe For Work Cybersecurity Policy) tag for some links would be
| nice.
| rasengan wrote:
| This isn't really privacy or security focused unless 'trust' is a
| component of security architecture.
|
| Make no mistake, Mullvad Leta knows what you searched for and who
| you are.
|
| /Theater/ has no place in privacy.
|
| The right way to do it, short of FHE, is to encrypt the query
| client side, pass this to the proxy which does not pass the
| source IP, which passes this to the search engine for decryption.
| Search results are encrypted and pass thru in the reverse:
|
| Client (encrypts) -> Proxy (passes thru no IP) -> Search engine
| (receives, decrypts, performs, and encrypts results) -> Proxy
| passes encrypted blob of results back to user -> Client privately
| reviews private search results.
|
| Edit: private.sh tried this in the past but unfortunately was
| shuttered with the end of gigablast.
| huslage wrote:
| Mullvad has built trust over many years. There is always
| someone who knows what you are searching for. The search engine
| will not accept an opaque blob of encrypted data as a search
| term, after all.
| bitpush wrote:
| The trust comes from them being a small player. The moment
| they get big, govt will come knocking, and they'll be just
| like anyone else.
| Kbelicius wrote:
| The govt already knocked and Mullvad had nothing to give
| them.
| abtinf wrote:
| If the encryption library is loaded over the web, then it
| provides no added security. You are still trusting them. Web
| client side encryption is theater.
| rasengan wrote:
| Agreed, it requires something more significant like an
| auditable (non obfuscated code) extension or better.
| miloignis wrote:
| This is a bit of an aside, but I see this take a lot and I
| think it's subtly wrong.
|
| Web client side encryption eliminates fully passive snooping
| on the server side, but of course does nothing for actively
| subverting the served encryption code. This makes things a
| bit more dangerous for the snooping party as it's _possible_
| that the backdoored encryption code will be noticed by
| someone, and it 's at least possibly a legal defense - the
| government might have the power to compel you to hand over
| data on your server but not to backdoor your code.
|
| This isn't a huge technical difference, but it is a
| difference, and especially with the legal angle I think it's
| an important one.
| mettamage wrote:
| I'd rather have some people in Sweden know what I've searched
| for than whatever I'd find abroad.
| alcover wrote:
| What if browsers supported a property like _< script
| hash=64192876>_ ? They would store the hash on first connection
| then verify on subsequent ones.
|
| I know this should be refined and hardened but you get the
| idea.
| mtlynch wrote:
| They run Leta on diskless servers, just like the VPN:
|
| > _We run the Leta servers on STBooted RAM only servers, the same
| as our VPN servers. These servers run the latest Ubuntu LTS, with
| our own stripped down custom Mullvad VPN kernel which we tune in-
| house to remove anything unnecessary for the running system._ > >
| _The cached search results are stored in an in-memory Redis key /
| value store._
|
| This is surprising given that they try to cache results for 30
| days:
|
| > _Each search that has not already been cached is saved in RAM
| for 30 days. The idea is that the more searches performed, the
| larger and more substantial the cached results become, therefore
| aiding with privacy._
|
| That's surprising because presumably they lose all results if
| they have to reboot the server.
|
| With a VPN service, there's not much they have to store past the
| lifetime of the VPN session, but if they're storing search
| results for 30 days, I wonder how they deal with this? Maybe best
| effort is fine because they don't strictly need to cache the
| results, as it just provides marginal privacy improvements.
| KoolKat23 wrote:
| yes, they state in the FAQ, any updates to the system clear the
| cache. Caching is due to query cost.
| bravetraveler wrote:
| Cost that's external, too: Brave or Google are behind the
| results. Having a cache is good, yes. It doesn't have to be
| super coherent/whatever.
| ignoramous wrote:
| > _This is surprising ... as it just provides marginal privacy
| improvements._
|
| Diskless does not mean SSH-less or network-less. The "data" can
| be pulled / pushed just the same, which is to say, Diskless, in
| this case, is no better than _verifiably_ read-only partitions
| (like on ChromeOS & Android, for example).
| mtlynch wrote:
| Sorry, I don't know what you mean. When I said it provides
| marginal privacy improvements, I meant the caching, not the
| disklessness.
|
| Diskless does provide privacy improvements, as it drastically
| reduces the odds of something accidentally persisting to
| storage.
| kees99 wrote:
| Diskless (edit: with OS in initramfs) is indeed a golden
| standard against local persistence, but requires quite a
| bit of extra RAM - few GB for "latest Ubuntu LTS".
|
| With regards to preventing _accidental_ persistence, disk
| with only dm-verity partitions is as good, with extra
| advantage of only adding a little bit of extra RAM usage (
| /tmp, /var/run, ...)
|
| For that matter, even something as sloppy as booting with
| rootfs wich can't be remounted rw (iso9660, squashfs,
| etc..) and is the only mounted fs, is also perfectly good
| against accidental persistence.
| toast0 wrote:
| You could run from NFS and not need much extra ram. Plus
| you save like $25/node by not having a local disk.
| kees99 wrote:
| Yes, rootfs-on-NFS also qualifies as "diskless", I stand
| corrected.
| kikokikokiko wrote:
| "That's surprising because presumably they lose all results if
| they have to reboot the server."
|
| Strictly speaking they only lose all results, FOR SURE, if they
| have to reboot ALL the servers at the same time. If they
| implemented a system where the cached results are shared and
| replicated among all their servers, it can in theory be kept
| cached indefinitely.
| mtlynch wrote:
| Oh good point. I didn't realize redis syncs data across
| nodes.
| treve wrote:
| For this kind of application, they would likely distribute
| the data across nodes, not sync.
| vvillena wrote:
| From the FAQ:
|
| > Each time the Leta application is restarted (due to an
| upgrade, or new version) server side, a new secret hash is
| generated, meaning that all previous search queries are no
| longer visible to Leta.
|
| If I read this correctly, the cached data is per-instance,
| there would be no way to share cached data among instances if
| each one has its own secret hash and they are cycled on each
| start.
| xlt wrote:
| If they are running in a VM they could live migrate the VM to a
| different machine if they need to reboot. That or a cluster of
| Redis caches.
| mrweasel wrote:
| Interesting solution to let the user pick which search engine to
| use. Sadly Bing is shutting down their API, it would have been
| great to be able to use that as well.
| DaSHacka wrote:
| > Sadly Bing is shutting down their API
|
| Interesting, does DDG have plans to switch or start their own
| index?
| mrweasel wrote:
| There are some provisions for their larger customers, see
| https://www.wired.com/story/bing-microsoft-api-support-
| endin... (https://archive.ph/IVKGT). So no DuckDuckGo and
| Ecosia won't lose their Bing backends.
| chvid wrote:
| Fast, no ads, reasonable results. Well done!
| bitpush wrote:
| and stale.
| DbigCOX wrote:
| This is incredible actually.
| superkuh wrote:
| Pretty much the only way to use google search as an HTML webpage
| instead of a JS web application these days. It's great. It
| reminds me of the scroogle.com proxy days.
|
| I use it for all but my retro machines, which is a shame. I know
| Mullvad is a 'privacy' company but I really wish they'd
| acknowledge that HTTP+HTTPS is more robust to governments'
| censorship than centralized CA TLS only. HTTP+HTTPS would allow
| my non-bleeding edge TLS retro machines to search again.
| jsnell wrote:
| Previous discussions from the initial launch, 2 years ago:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36402162
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35964397
| PrivacyDingus wrote:
| 2023, hug of death coming in 2025
| dang wrote:
| Thanks! Macroexpanded:
|
| _Mullvad Leta: A search engine used in the Mullvad Browser_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36402162 - June 2023 (142
| comments)
|
| _Mullvad Leta (Search Engine)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35964397 - May 2023 (32
| comments)
| nosioptar wrote:
| I was dumb enough to buy more than 30 days worth of mullvad once.
| They changed their terms of service to remove port forwarding.
| Because I'd paid more than 30 days ago, they wouldn't refund me
| anything.
|
| Screw mullvad. I'd have to be a damned fool to to ever trust them
| again.
| DaSHacka wrote:
| Really? That's unfortunate, I heard of many people getting
| refunds back when they removed port forwarding.
| nosioptar wrote:
| I didn't because I'd paid more than 30 days prior to the
| change.
| Cerium wrote:
| I don't hold it against them, but I got burned by that change
| too; but it was entirely reasonable, allowing inbound provides
| abuse opportunities which degrade their primary service
| reputation.
| nosioptar wrote:
| I wouldn't be mad, had they have been willing to refund since
| they changed the functionality.
| napolux wrote:
| I'm using startpage.com, guess this is gonna replace it as soon
| as it matures a bit
| dangus wrote:
| > Did you make your own search engine from scratch?
|
| > We did not, we made a front end to the Google and Brave Search
| APIs.
|
| So this is pointless, and honestly kind of lazy?
| JanNash wrote:
| Is it pointless though if e.g. there are no ads?
| dangus wrote:
| In a way, yes, because without ads or any kind of revenue
| source it's bound to be shut down.
| Zefiroj wrote:
| I wonder how well the caching works. The FAQ says 30 days, so you
| might be getting a pretty stale result. That combined with
| Google's "fun fact: 15% of all Google searches have never been
| searched before", makes me wonder how identifying these queries
| can be.
| deelowe wrote:
| I feel like the name "mullivad" might present challenges for user
| adoption.
| PrivacyDingus wrote:
| current options are google, duckduckgo, bing, I think they'll
| be fine; what's in a name? and all that
| DarkCrusader2 wrote:
| Totally agree. Everything should be Americanized as much as
| possible so that it conforms to American sensibilities and is
| easier to use and understand for Americans.
|
| Who cares about languages and culture of few dozen people who
| does not live in AMERICA.
| sakjur wrote:
| Am I (native Swedish speaker, so perhaps ignorant of secondary
| connotations here) missing something that should be obvious? Is
| mullvad inappropriate to some readers or is it just an odd
| name?
| tiffanyh wrote:
| How is this different than using DDG with the "!g" ?
| toast0 wrote:
| Doesn't !g just redirect you to Google? From comments, this is
| proxying and potentially caching from Google. Having an
| intermediary is potentially of value.
| xnx wrote:
| These alternative search engines really feel like they're
| fighting the last war. Web content is so reader-hostile that you
| need a tool to extract the answer/information you're looking for
| and not just give you a link to the page.
| SirHumphrey wrote:
| I don't actually. I have read far too many AI summaries where
| the llm combines data about two different people with the same
| name creating a biography of someone that doesn't exist.
|
| And once the use of chatbots in this role becomes widespread-
| don't think for a second that companies won't sso the thing
| until it's about as useful as current search.
| haiku2077 wrote:
| I had an issue where Slack AI combined multiple people I work
| with into a summary that was negative in tone. And of course
| there was no way to provide feedback on this harmful
| behavior.
| hart_russell wrote:
| If the dead internet theory comes to fruition, I wonder if
| there will be "curated internets" where only good actors will
| be allowed to participate.
| dangoodmanUT wrote:
| Aren't these APIs absurdly expensive? How are they justifying
| these costs, or are they using "unofficial" APIs?
| jdpedrie wrote:
| Brave has a subscription tier that offers storage rights. But
| it's ~9x the cost of their normal Pro subscription. I have a
| hard time imagining that the cost works out in their favor
| (discounting the possibility of a special arrangement) with how
| long the query stream tail is in web search.
| xyst wrote:
| Search engines are so hot rn. Reminds me of 1990s, 2000s.
|
| AskJeeves, anyone?
|
| \s
|
| I jest, but the focus on privacy is important. I used to use DDG
| but ended up using (and paying for) Kagi.
| jeanlucas wrote:
| I'm sorry for being negative, but it feels to me just as a
| publicity stunt.
|
| No serious product, just a proxy for Google, while it is
| interesting not a real solution.
|
| But as a marketing tactic to promote your VPN it is an
| interesting move.
| lolinder wrote:
| A caching proxy for Google is a real solution for a real
| problem. It might not be a solution to a problem _you_ have.
| jeanlucas wrote:
| It solves a problem for a niche that you assume I don't have.
|
| But it has no real way to monetize and is likely to be shut
| down as soon as the marketing/publicity objectives are not
| aligned anymore.
|
| That's what I was trying to point out.
| skeaker wrote:
| Not sure what you mean by this, it is a real thing you can
| actually use so obviously it's not "just a publicity stunt."
| jeanlucas wrote:
| I mean I don't see it as a viable product and as soon as
| costs go high and/or the publicity expectations are met it
| will be shut down.
| INTPenis wrote:
| It's not a publicity stunt when they're using the technology
| they helped develop to run their search servers completely
| securely and without any stateful data.
| jeanlucas wrote:
| Hmm, that makes more sense, framing it like that. I still
| don't think this is a viable product
| xlt wrote:
| A proxy for Google is a product if it provides additional
| features Google alone does not provide... in this case: Privacy
| nalekberov wrote:
| From the FAQ page (https://leta.mullvad.net/faq) :
|
| > However, Leta is useless as a service if you use the perfect
| non-logging VPN, a privacy focussed DNS service, a web browser
| that resists fingerprinting, and correlation attacks from global
| actors. Leta is also useless if your browser blocks all cookies,
| tracking pixels and other tracking technologies.
|
| In other words everyone can benefit from it. I don't know any
| browser (not talking about obscure browsers like lynx) who can
| completely resist fingerprinting.
| VTimofeenko wrote:
| Using an obscure browser that is not hiding its user agent is
| arguably worse for fingerprinting.
| nalekberov wrote:
| Ironically yes.
| haiku2077 wrote:
| Mullvad makes a fingerprinting resistant browser. It uses
| tricks like displaying the content inside a smaller window to
| mimic popular laptops and phones.
|
| https://mullvad.net/en/browser
|
| It's not perfect (it's firefox based so that already sticks
| out) but better than could be done otherwise.
| smallerfish wrote:
| So how do they make money? Are they hoping to convert users to
| their VPN service? Or are they just trying to stay under the free
| tier Google API limits?
| haiku2077 wrote:
| Leta is the supported search engine of Mullvad Browser which is
| a privacy-centric version of Firefox that integrates with
| Mullvad VPN. Think Mullvad Browser:Regular Internet as Tor
| Browser:Onion websites. So this is part of an ecosystem for
| their VPN subscribers.
|
| (I'm a Mullvad customer, not Mullvad directly, but that's how I
| use their browser and Leta.)
| prophesi wrote:
| In the past, Leta was a service that was only accessible to
| paid Mullvad users. I'm unsure when they started allowing
| general access, but that's initially how it made commercial
| sense.
| idlip wrote:
| Why not embrace searxng^1. But sure I know brave and other would
| rate limit for it. What would be the difference from duckduckgo
| lite?
|
| https://docs.searxng.org/
| jonplackett wrote:
| This thing has been advertised EVERYWHERE in London the last few
| weeks.
|
| But the adverts didn't make a lot of sense and I had no idea what
| the product actually did.
| diggan wrote:
| I think it's a new/old marketing strategy. Make it interesting
| enough that people see and notice it but don't understand what
| it is, with the hopes that you go out to figure out what it is.
| A brave strategy, but since it's still around, I guess it works
| sometimes.
| Sammi wrote:
| It incentivises people to ask each other about it. But you
| need high pervasiveness of the ad for two people to both have
| seen it and ask each other about it.
| jug wrote:
| > Leta aims to present a reliable and trustworthy way of
| searching privately on the internet.
|
| > Leta is also useless if your browser blocks all cookies,
| tracking pixels and other tracking technologies.
|
| Huh? This needed better clarification because the two points seem
| to be at odds with each other.
| freehorse wrote:
| I assume if you block all tracking technologies it does not
| offer anything more than what you already have? Because then
| your queries cannot be tracked?
| jsnell wrote:
| What they're saying is that if you had already closed off all
| possible methods of being tracked, you'd gain nothing from this
| service, since whatever other search engine you choose to use
| instead would by definition not be able to track you.
| worldsavior wrote:
| I don't understand why Google or Brave are cooperating with this,
| they don't earn anything. And if they're not, what prevents
| Google blocking Mullvad IPs?
| o_m wrote:
| Mullvad is paying to use their API's, like Kagi does. Google is
| making money on this
|
| https://leta.mullvad.net/faq#made-from-scratch
| worldsavior wrote:
| Then how does Mullvad earns? This surely costs a lot of money
| to pay for Google search results.
| fr4nkr wrote:
| Google likely just doesn't care. They know most people won't
| bother using privacy-oriented services out of inconvenience or
| apathy.
| thunder-blue-3 wrote:
| This would've been a great product 10 years ago. I've
| unapologetically not had to use a search engine in almost a year
| (or at least can count on 1 hand having to use it) since GPT
| models have come out.
| whizzter wrote:
| More than once people at work have asked me for help after not
| solving their problems with ChatGPT, and the solution was to
| google and hit some stackoverflow answer.
| homebrewer wrote:
| The situation hasn't changed for most of us. None of the people
| I've talked to over the past couple of years have stopped using
| Google, none are using LLMs for anything other than translation
| (or helping proofread their English) or simply for wasting
| time.
|
| FWIW, since we're exchanging anecdotes, LLMs have been
| completely useless for me. I try them every 3-6 months and
| always return to Google disappointed.
| ranguna wrote:
| I think both you and the OP are ends of the same spectrum.
| npteljes wrote:
| What do you use to look for products, and businesses? I also
| use chatbots much more, but these are two categories where I
| found search engines to be much better. But I haven't really
| looked for an alternative either.
| icar wrote:
| I'm surprised this is created using NodeJS. Given how critical
| performance is in a proxy, and that RAM is precious running
| Redis.
| benbristow wrote:
| Did a search for 'test', says results are cached from 6 days ago.
|
| When we've got LLMs with real-time search now this seems a bit...
| backward. Not that the results for that specific query would
| change much.
| jxjnskkzxxhx wrote:
| If people search CSAM, do they serve it? Isn't that criminal?
| 38 wrote:
| You must be fun at parties
| freehorse wrote:
| You mean if google serves it?
| jxjnskkzxxhx wrote:
| I'm talking about the search engine in question.
| pipes wrote:
| What is it?
| zaggynl wrote:
| How does this compare to say, startpage.com?
| nobody42 wrote:
| Isn't owned by advertising company.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Startpage#Merger_and_recent_hi...
| scdnc wrote:
| I don't care much about that anymore because their VPN service
| has really gone bad. They are great in terms of privacy, but in
| every other aspect, they suck. Their VPN randomly disconnects
| again and again, once even without the killswitch being
| activated. They are getting blocked from websites much more often
| than other VPNs, making the service barely usable while costing a
| lot more. Plus, there are many other minor issues. I really hope
| they improve because I want to keep using them
| SergeAx wrote:
| Wait, Google doesn't have a Search API!
| alcover wrote:
| > Leta is also useless if your browser blocks all cookies,
| tracking pixels and other tracking technologies.
|
| Err.. it would still be useful to mask your IP ?
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