A couple tries just now gave no 403 with Privacy Browser, but gave 403 consistently with Tor Browser, for search from URL bar. 403’s won’t win them many users, but thanks for informing them.
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It is working fine for me now, although I should note that I never use Tor for my daily browsing. Along those lines, a lot of Tor traffic is malicious. I consistently see my websites attacked from Tor exit nodes. And, because I run a Fail2Ban service, those IP addresses will then be blocked for a period of time for all other Tor uses coming through them.
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Just a simple note on the topic, I love your work mate and I have been using PB since a long long time now. I even tell people to switch to it for more privacy and control.
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Would you please add any searx instance. I find searx.info very reliable.
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The problem with all Searx instances is that they are only reliable when not very many people are using them. Once a lot of people start using them the number of queries they make to the upstream search engines causes them to be rate limited.
See the following for some screenshots.
https://www.stoutner.com/switching-to-startpage-as-the-default-homepage-and-search-engine/
https://www.stoutner.com/switching-from-startpage-to-mojeek/
Another reason to have an option to randomly choose from a list of search sites for each search…
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I don’t imagine that working well, as many of the instances have issues, so randomly picking one is likely to select one that isn’t working.
I think the best solution is what is currently in place, which is that users who understand how Searx works and are able to adjust between instances when they become unusable are able to use the custom search option in Privacy Browser to select the Searx instance of their preference.
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@sorenstouter , have you noticed mogeek puts geolocation of your IP at bottom of search results? Nice reminder that orbot is working. 
And they are getting and processing all your data.
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@licaon_kter : continuation of this: Privacy Browser Search Engine
privacyTools
which has been forked to yet another privacyGuide site.
I don’t imagine that working well, as many of the instances have issues, so randomly picking one is likely to select one that isn’t working.
I was suggesting randomly choosing from whatever is on the user’s list of search sites. This could include from zero to however many searx instances, mojeek, ddg, google, bing, yahoo, monocles, metager…
I never use Tor for my daily browsing. Along those lines, a lot of Tor traffic is malicious. I consistently see my websites attacked from Tor exit nodes. And, because I run a Fail2Ban service, those IP addresses will then be blocked for a period of time for all other Tor uses coming through them.
I agree with fail2ban and use it too, but it doesn’t stop anything. It only slows it down. I haven’t checked whether or how much “bad” traffic is from Tor nodes, and I don’t really care. I think everyone should use Tor whether they think they need it or not. In fact, I would favor all ISPs routing all traffic through Tor. This alone could increase privacy orders of magnitude.
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I can’t imagine that being a feature most users would actually end up using (when we type a search, we usually know which search engine we would like to respond). However, you might be interested in taking a look at the planned feature at Feature #151: URL bar shortcuts for websites and search engines - Privacy Browser Android - Stoutner - Redmine, which will allow users to easily switch between as many search engines as they like just by prepending the search with whatever codes they specify.
My imagination says differently, for privacy-oriented, anti-tracking users.
I’ve seen that on desktop Torbrowser, iirc, where @ddg will go to ddg when say mojeek is default. Mull has a “show search engines” option setting, so your list displays as you start entering URL or search terms.
About mojeek, “Unknown Location - detected automatically” shown at bottom when using Tor is great.
Edit+: The not yet fixed occasional 403 forbidden error, for unknown reasons related to quoted search terms or site searches, or maybe only due to using Tor, is not so great.