In another chat, we discussed adding search engines and touched on the topic of Perplexity. I propose considering replacing Perplexity with Scira AI on kicksecure-welcome-page for the following reasons:
More functionality: Unlike Perplexity, Scira has more modes - 7 compared to 3 - and you can choose between chat only or internet overview only.
Convenience: No registration required, no window asking to register during use, free.
User safety: Scira informs about the absence of cryptocurrency and tokens and asks not to fall for any potential scams in its name on the internet
Open source: This is not a criterion for a search engine, but it aligns with the Freedom Values published on the Kicksecure website
Works with Tor/VPN without Captcha: Perplexity does not work with Tor and often asks to complete a Captcha for some locations with NordVPN and Mullvad VPN
Are you personally using it due to good search results? yes. I tested 5 AI search engines. Sсira showed the best results without registration and payment.
Other evidence of great search results?
Unlike Perplexity, Scira has more modes - 7 compared to 3 - and can choose between chat only or internet overview/code overview only.
Needs to have little to NO CENSORSHIP:
No censorship (level of censorship is comparable to Perplexity)
Needs to be RELIABLE:
Reliable. 7.8k stars on GitHub. The search engine informs about the absence of cryptocurrency and tokens and asks not to fall for any potential scams in its name. No registration required. Self-hosting is available in Docker/Podman
Needs to be relatively POLITICALLY AGNOSTIC:
Politically agnostic
Less captcha wrappers:
Works with Tor/VPN without Captcha (Perplexity does not work with Tor and often asks to complete a Captcha for some locations with NordVPN and Mullvad VPN)
Other comments:
Free. Open source: this is not a criterion for a search engine, but it aligns with the Freedom Values published on the Kicksecure website
This it to put it mildly. Many or even most AI projects are just openwashing but not really Open Source in its original meaning. The Open Source Requirements are not met.
Yes, I agree with you. All AI-powered search engines use some kind of closed-source models. I haven’t come across a search engine that uses only something like Llama
Captcha again… I use Nord VPN. My friend uses Mullvad VPN and he also gets it periodically. I think you can note this in your table Search Engines Evaluation and Suggestions
Scira works very well, but it operates a bit differently Perplexity. You can add it to Whonix, and Whonix users will know about the AI working in Tor without a captcha
