My recent changes towards more privacy friendlier life

I have not decided yet. I have been researching searxng which I would love to host locally without opening ports to the internet but I don’t know if it’s possible But I’m also using the startpage sometimes. What I really dislike is that where the search engines are heading because it is almost impossible to find mini blogs who have researched / shared their opinion on matter x or any other useful websites. Either the search results are generated with AI or they offer “centralized” websites (for example geeksforgeeks with programming related questions)