Recommended Posts

When will support applications for screens with high densities. With a macbook pro Retina I find myself with applications with a font blur or appropriate.

For example, in resolution (200 DPI) GUI some applications are not well suited. (For example: Nvidia Control Panel)

Metro mode is successful.

What is the maximum resolution supported by Windows 8 for a better rendering?

I hope that the next Windows (9 or Blue) will support this type of screen!

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1133388-windows-high-dpi-retina/
Share on other sites

The problem with 'retina' is that Apple uses pixel doubling (no increase in information) and MS does not. Both have pros/cons but you aren't going to see a fix in future versions as MS doesn't utilize the scaling tricks Apple does.

As far as apps go, anything over 150% is a outside MS's guidelines anyway. (Default for retina is 144dpi - try using the 'WinXP scaling' option so bitmaps aren't so stretched)

Up to who wrote it and what standards they decided to follow or make up I'm afraid. Lots of applications that support high DPI and many that really should by now that don't. Heck, even Windows NT 6.X doesn't scale all that well when it comes to the system tray icons.

If you're waiting for Windows to manage DPI scaling properly, you're gonna be waiting a while it seems like. As screens get higher and higher resolution, and applications like HTPC become more prevalent, I kept thinking they'd take care of it one day, but to this day it's still absolutely horrible. With the resolution screens are starting to run now though, I can't imagine they can ignore it in the next release of Windows. Pixel doubling may be just a simple trick to display to a high resolution screen clearly without actually utilizing the extra pixels, but at least it works. With Windows you get fonts falling off all over, buttons sized weird, etc. And it's not just applications written poorly, it's the OS too. The Superbar in Windows 7 doesn't even work properly in high DPI mode (stays on top full screen in some apps). This is one of the most massively neglected parts of Windows that has been bothering me for a long time. I use my computer plugged into a TV from 10 feet away, and while I have 20/20 vision and it's a 50" screen so I can read most things, I still have to squint or use the magnifier at times. Oh what I'd do for an OS that handles DPI scaling better.

  • Like 2

I think you can choose the scaling eg 100%, 125%, 150% and 200% on win8. It supposedly works well. 3rd parties are to blame for the apps that aren't made to work with hidpi displays though. There are very few displays in use so there isn't much incentive to change things at the moment for most developers.

I think you can choose the scaling eg 100%, 125%, 150% and 200% on win8. It supposedly works well. 3rd parties are to blame for the apps that aren't made to work with hidpi displays though. There are very few displays in use so there isn't much incentive to change things at the moment for most developers.

It doesn't still on Windows 7, 8, Server 2012. Examples: System tray, super bar behaviour, CMD window snap to, Nvidia control panel, anything based on a MMC.

I use 108% on my laptop @ 1080p. Any higher and it goes into fugly system tray icon mode.

On my 42" TV, I use 150% where things look roughly the same scale as they should at 720p but at 1080p. The exception is the mouse cursor which is the size of a tennis ball and the above examples.

Microsoft really needs to move over to vector art and allow users to freely scale the interface to their choosing (within reason) - by default it should scale according to physical size. Icons that currently change appearance dependent upon their size could be handled with transition points. Not only is such a change important for high-DPI displays but it's even an issue at the moment:

30" - 101 DPI - 2560x1600

27" - 109 DPI - 2560x1440

24" - 94 DPI - 1920x1200

22" - 90 DPI - 1680x1050

That means the Windows UI changes physical size depending on the display that you have, which is terribly inconsistent. By default Windows 8 uses 125% scale for my 30" display, which makes everything appear too large. Therefore I prefer to use 100% scale, which is a bit smaller than I would like. Using a custom scale looks terrible, as icons appear aliased and UI elements don't scale smoothly.

Apple has a huge advantage over Microsoft in that it controls the hardware as well as the software. Microsoft's only option is to implement a more flexible approach and vector art is the obvious way to achieve that. There was talk that Microsoft was working on this years ago - back when Vista was still in development - but unfortunately it was dropped. Now Microsoft has fallen behind. Metro is designed with alternative DPIs in mind but unfortunately it's not a replacement for desktop applications.

Microsoft really needs to move over to vector art and allow users to freely scale the interface to their choosing (within reason) - by default it should scale according to physical size. Icons that currently change appearance dependent upon their size could be handled with transition points. Not only is such a change important for high-DPI displays but it's even an issue at the moment:

30" - 101 DPI - 2560x1600

27" - 109 DPI - 2560x1440

24" - 94 DPI - 1920x1200

22" - 90 DPI - 1680x1050

That means the Windows UI changes physical size depending on the display that you have, which is terribly inconsistent. By default Windows 8 uses 125% scale for my 30" display, which makes everything appear too large. Therefore I prefer to use 100% scale, which is a bit smaller than I would like. Using a custom scale looks terrible, as icons appear aliased and UI elements don't scale smoothly.

Apple has a huge advantage over Microsoft in that it controls the hardware as well as the software. Microsoft's only option is to implement a more flexible approach and vector art is the obvious way to achieve that. There was talk that Microsoft was working on this years ago - back when Vista was still in development - but unfortunately it was dropped. Now Microsoft has fallen behind. Metro is designed with alternative DPIs in mind but unfortunately it's not a replacement for desktop applications.

+1.

Totally agreed. Having vectors, instead of pixels will allow the UI to be scaled or downscaled at the user's decision.

+1.

Totally agreed. Having vectors, instead of pixels will allow the UI to be scaled or downscaled at the user's decision.

Correct me if I'm wrong here but I'm sure that's just what they do, to a extent, with the new metro UI and apps. The start screen and all the other new UI elements scale automatically depending on the size of your screen and apps can as well. MS had a nice long blog post about this iirc.

That said, the problem is that the old desktop side of things doesn't do this, at this point. I dunno what they'll do with it going forward but at some point the desktop as we know it won't be around.

Correct me if I'm wrong here but I'm sure that's just what they do, to a extent, with the new metro UI and apps. The start screen and all the other new UI elements scale automatically depending on the size of your screen and apps can as well. MS had a nice long blog post about this iirc.

That said, the problem is that the old desktop side of things doesn't do this, at this point. I dunno what they'll do with it going forward but at some point the desktop as we know it won't be around.

Only one big problem with Metro. It scales and all automatically, but you don't get much control over it. Scaling to a 1920x1080 screen is nice and all, but when I'm 10 feet away and need it a little bigger to read text, you can't really change that in Metro without having to set ease of access settings to "I'm blind". If anything Windows 8 just made DPI scaling even worse because now the desktop and metro both act differently and neither do a good job.

  • Like 3

The problem with 'retina' is that Apple uses pixel doubling (no increase in information) and MS does not. Both have pros/cons but you aren't going to see a fix in future versions as MS doesn't utilize the scaling tricks Apple does.

As far as apps go, anything over 150% is a outside MS's guidelines anyway. (Default for retina is 144dpi - try using the 'WinXP scaling' option so bitmaps aren't so stretched)

Apple doesn't use pixel doubling unless the app simply doesn't support high DPI modes, and in that case the results match Windows (It does the scaling within the DWM in that case)

I really don't see the issue with Windows. It's supported scaling fine since Vista, it's just the programs that have yet to support it. Most of Microsoft's programs support high DPI modes. Yes some of the built in management tools don't but I personally don't think that's a huge issue (though I do believe it should be fixed for the next version of Windows). Most people don't ever go into those nooks and crannies of the OS and they're still usable, even though they're a bit blurry if you don't scale to 200%.

My Windows system tray icons in Windows 7 and 8 look fine on 150% on my HTPC. What is the issue you are all having? Third party programs often have only standard DPI icons, but I hide everything other than network, volume, and battery anyways. All the built in windows programs in the start menu support high DPI and so does Microsoft Office and all the latest web browsers.

I've also noticed Notepad++ works fine, Adobe Reader, VLC, XBMC, Chrome, FireFox are DPI-aware. Nearly everything I commonly use is.

The problem with 'retina' is that Apple uses pixel doubling (no increase in information) and MS does not. Both have pros/cons but you aren't going to see a fix in future versions as MS doesn't utilize the scaling tricks Apple does.

As far as apps go, anything over 150% is a outside MS's guidelines anyway. (Default for retina is 144dpi - try using the 'WinXP scaling' option so bitmaps aren't so stretched)

If you set it to 200% then Windows will do pixel doubling. Pixel doubling is just 200% scaling. When scaled to 200% then one pixel turns into 4 pixels and looks better than anything that isn't an integer multiple. Apple supports non pixel-doubling mode in their latest OS, too. They function pretty much the same in terms of scaling.

According to this page on MSDN, Microsoft recommends having images for 100%, 125%, 150%, and 200%.

Microsoft really needs to move over to vector art and allow users to freely scale the interface to their choosing (within reason) - by default it should scale according to physical size. Icons that currently change appearance dependent upon their size could be handled with transition points. Not only is such a change important for high-DPI displays but it's even an issue at the moment:

30" - 101 DPI - 2560x1600

27" - 109 DPI - 2560x1440

24" - 94 DPI - 1920x1200

22" - 90 DPI - 1680x1050

That means the Windows UI changes physical size depending on the display that you have, which is terribly inconsistent. By default Windows 8 uses 125% scale for my 30" display, which makes everything appear too large. Therefore I prefer to use 100% scale, which is a bit smaller than I would like. Using a custom scale looks terrible, as icons appear aliased and UI elements don't scale smoothly.

Apple has a huge advantage over Microsoft in that it controls the hardware as well as the software. Microsoft's only option is to implement a more flexible approach and vector art is the obvious way to achieve that. There was talk that Microsoft was working on this years ago - back when Vista was still in development - but unfortunately it was dropped. Now Microsoft has fallen behind. Metro is designed with alternative DPIs in mind but unfortunately it's not a replacement for desktop applications.

Why is changing physical size so bad? That's how it's always been, even on Mac OS.

I really don't see the issue with Windows. It's supported scaling fine since Vista, it's just the programs that have yet to support it. Most of Microsoft's programs support high DPI modes. Yes some of the built in management tools don't but I personally don't think that's a huge issue (though I do believe it should be fixed for the next version of Windows). Most people don't ever go into those nooks and crannies of the OS and they're still usable, even though they're a bit blurry if you don't scale to 200%.

My Windows system tray icons in Windows 7 and 8 look fine on 150% on my HTPC. What is the issue you are all having? Third party programs often have only standard DPI icons, but I hide everything other than network, volume, and battery anyways. All the built in windows programs in the start menu support high DPI and so does Microsoft Office and all the latest web browsers.

If you set it to 200% then Windows will do pixel doubling. Pixel doubling is just 200% scaling. When scaled to 200% then one pixel turns into 4 pixels and looks better than anything that isn't an integer multiple. Apple supports non pixel-doubling mode in their latest OS, too. They function pretty much the same in terms of scaling.

Why is changing physical size so bad? That's how it's always been, even on Mac OS.

I just changed the DPI on my work computer to verify that the same massively annoying bug still exists in Windows 7 DPI scaling. If you change your DPI, the superbar won't ever hide behind an app that's full screen. You have to change the superbar to autohide to get it to go away. This is incredibly annoying on an HTPC that frequently has full screen apps that you don't want to superbar hanging out on. This is more annoying than any of the blurry third party issues. Plus, regardless of who is to blame, there are so many inconsistencies when using high DPI mode in Windows that it's just hard to seriously use. They need to push third parties to update their apps with all these higher resolution screens coming out. It'll be impossible to use an HTPC on a 4k screen without DPI scaling.

I just changed the DPI on my work computer to verify that the same massively annoying bug still exists in Windows 7 DPI scaling. If you change your DPI, the superbar won't ever hide behind an app that's full screen. You have to change the superbar to autohide to get it to go away. This is incredibly annoying on an HTPC that frequently has full screen apps that you don't want to superbar hanging out on. This is more annoying than any of the blurry third party issues. Plus, regardless of who is to blame, there are so many inconsistencies when using high DPI mode in Windows that it's just hard to seriously use. They need to push third parties to update their apps with all these higher resolution screens coming out. It'll be impossible to use an HTPC on a 4k screen without DPI scaling.

Odd, it hides XBMC, WMC, VLC, and KMP just fine on my HTPC when full-screen. My HTPC is set to 150%. That's both on Windows 7 and on Windows 8 which I just upgraded to a month ago.

Maybe other people use some odd programs but any program I use with regularity seems to scale fine. This is with XP-style scaling deselected (gets deselected by default at 150%). A few programs don't advertise that they are DPI-aware but work fine with XP style scaling (so Vista+ will stretch). For these programs you can revert to XP style scaling individually in the programs compatibility settings.

Why is changing physical size so bad? That's how it's always been, even on Mac OS.

Before getting my 30" (2560x1600) display I tried a 27" (2560x1440) display and found the Windows UI elements to be far too small, as I had previously been using a 24" (1920x1200) display. The DPI increase of 15% made everything look noticeably smaller but the 125% scale was too much and using it makes applications - especially Chrome - look very different (not in a positive way).

Displays have been increasing the DPI over the years and we're about to see massive jumps with 4K / 8K displays. Microsoft just hasn't done enough.

Before getting my 30" (2560x1600) display I tried a 27" (2560x1440) display and found the Windows UI elements to be far too small, as I had previously been using a 24" (1920x1200) display. The DPI increase of 15% made everything look noticeably smaller but the 125% scale was too much and using it makes applications - especially Chrome - look very different (not in a positive way).

Displays have been increasing the DPI over the years and we're about to see massive jumps with 4K / 8K displays. Microsoft just hasn't done enough.

Interesting. I barely notice the change from my 23" 1080p monitor to my 30" 2560x1600 monitor. How has Microsoft not done enough? Windows fully supports scaling. If 125% is too much set a custom scaling. You can change it by individual percentage points. They've been recommending all programs be DPI-aware since Vista came out.

Interesting. I barely notice the change from my 23" 1080p monitor to my 30" 2560x1600 monitor.

That's because that's a jump from 94 DPI to 101 DPI, rather than to 109 DPI. You should have noticed a difference but it wouldn't have been as pronounced as a 27" display.

How has Microsoft not done enough? Windows fully supports scaling. If 125% is too much set a custom scaling.

Because that scaling is pretty nasty. With Windows XP style disabled it's certainly better but a lot of applications will appear blurry - I couldn't put up with it for more than a few minutes. Whereas vector art scales without issue.

The key issue on Windows is a lot of applications report to Win32 that they are "DPI Aware", meaning that they tell Windows they are capable of scaling their UIs depending on the DPI, even though they actually can't. It seems to be the default in most development environments (e.g. .Net WinForms, C++ MFC) which means a lot of applications are unintentionally developed with poor DPI support. If they don't report to Windows they are DPI aware, then the system scales the apps in a similar way to how Mac OS treats non-Retina apps.

It doesn't help that most developers work using the standard DPI, and therefore don't realise the issues. I myself have only started recently running my apps in a high DPI virtual machine as part of the testing process. This means a lot of the blame should really be placed in the developers hands (although as mentioned a lot of MS apps are just as guilty). The Win 8 UI was designed to solve this issue, which it does, just as mentioned it can't (yet) be customised.

That's because that's a jump from 94 DPI to 101 DPI, rather than to 109 DPI. You should have noticed a difference but it wouldn't have been as pronounced as a 27" display.

Because that scaling is pretty nasty. With Windows XP style disabled it's certainly better but a lot of applications will appear blurry - I couldn't put up with it for more than a few minutes. Whereas vector art scales without issue.

This is up to the developer to fix. You don't need vector art which is computationally expensive. If the program developer followed Microsoft guidelines the program would look good. They suggest to have bitmaps for 100%, 125%, 150%, and 200% which are then shrunk to fit sizes in between. Even if vector art was supported, I don't see why the developers who have still not fixed their programs will suddenly update them to support vector art

Programs that are designed to be DPI aware look great. The programs which aren't DPI-aware and when using Vista style scaling will look blurry because you're not increasing them in an integer multiple. There is nothing the OS can do to fix this issue. Take any screenshot with text and put it in an image editor and increase the size by anything other than integer multiples and it will look bad. If you have a really high resolution screen you can set it to 200% and it would look the same as when Mac OS pixel doubles older programs which aren't DPI-aware.

Here is a comparison between 100% and 125%. I think the 125% looks great. The only issue I notice is the Microsoft Word icon in the taskbar. But this is Office 2007, Office 2013 doesn't have this issue and I don't think 2010 does.

Edit: And here is a photo of Windows 8 at 125% on my laptop. Office 2013's icon looks fine. Only thing wrong with this screenshot is the Skype icon and the TPFanControl system tray icon. Skype really needs to fix that, but at least the program itself is DPI-aware.

This is up to the developer to fix. You don't need vector art which is computationally expensive.

It's not just the developer, as not even Microsoft designed elements work properly when you use anything but a few preset scaling options. As for computing power, that's minimal - most elements remain static for the majority of the time they're on screen.

Edit: And here is a photo of Windows 8 at 125% on my laptop. Office 2013's icon looks fine. Only thing wrong with this screenshot is the Skype icon and the TPFanControl system tray icon. Skype really needs to fix that, but at least the program itself is DPI-aware.

That's exactly what I'm talking about. All the icons are warped - Chrome, Skype and even Paint (a Microsoft app!). And that's with one of the preset scaling options. With vector art you would be able to freely scale the interface and it wouldn't look terrible.

It's not just the developer, as not even Microsoft designed elements work properly when you use anything but a few preset scaling options. As for computing power, that's minimal - most elements remain static for the majority of the time they're on screen.

That's exactly what I'm talking about. All the icons are warped - Chrome, Skype and even Paint (a Microsoft app!). And that's with one of the preset scaling options. With vector art you would be able to freely scale the interface and it wouldn't look terrible.

Hmm I didn't notice paint. I guess it is a little distorted. Even so, it's still up to the developers to fix this issue. You can't even get them to support 4 presets, you think they will suddenly support vector graphics? If they supported these 4 presets then it should look fine. When I get home I will try some custom scaling options on my 30" monitor and post photos. I think those icons look bad because they're being scaled UP. Scaling down works a LOT better.

Hmm I didn't notice paint. I guess it is a little distorted. Even so, it's still up to the developers to fix this issue. You can't even get them to support 4 presets, you think they will suddenly support vector graphics? If they supported these 4 presets then it should look fine.

The problem is that preset bitmaps don't have flexibility. What happens when the next resolution bump happens? Then developers will have to maintain 8 different presets. And what happens to all the resolutions that fall inbetween? Then you end up with UI elements that appear different sizes physically (as they appear on screen) or are badly scaled. The point is I can't scale the Windows interface to the size I feel is appropriate and the size I used to have on my previous display. It's far from the end of the world but it's something Microsoft simply hasn't addressed adequately.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Posts

    • Yup, that's a doozy right there 😄
    • It's a bundle of tools created by a variety of people, so things can go wrong sometimes. It's a great addition to Windows, and I use a lot of the tools on a daily basis. Also, it's still a 0.**** release so quick updates are to be expected 😉
    • Oh, I did. And it's even worse than I was hoping! Besides a lot of techno-babble jargon (yes I understand 100% of it but it's still all just techno-babble) there's 2 key points that make me super-weary about even considering testing this out. -- By default, after installation, a relay is automatically set up, so you do not need to care about that. * Non-chatmail apps use email servers as a long-term message archive while chatmail clients use email servers for ephemeral instant message relay. * Supporting the full variety of classic email setups would require considerable development and maintenance efforts, and complicate making chatmail-based messaging more resilient, reliable and fast. -- Basically, the end-user device is the 'server' (relay) so there is NO ARCHIVING whatsoever because every message is necessarily ephemeral. Great for techno-paranoia (and for illicit activities preferring no tracks to cover) but terrible for everybody else. It's also ironically contradictory to engineering principles of redundancies besides the transport layers due to the explicit absence of any persistent storage. Instead of 'classic email address' retaining multi-GB messaging archives on its server, now every device must retain 100% of those storage demands. (Email messages were originally meant to be short correspondences, not the multi-MB attachments boondoggle that now exists with unlimited spam engines flooding every potential recipient.) Any device swap or reset (or loss) makes the entire message history go bye-bye forever... lest there's an off-device auto-archival "relay" mechanism that's really a separate server that holds onto all transported messages (an email server) that utilizes 'chatmail email address' identities (like an email server) and its own persistent storage archive (like an email server). But... this solution is hoping to exist alongside real-world email address identities (based on the email server relay pathway) but simply render messages in chat thread format in an ephemeral manner (with contents being encrypted, and messages auto-expiring) ... In the end, it's a chat app/experience for the Web3/P2P-at-all-costs zealots. (I have accts on all sorts of federated web3 services so I understand the technical and non-technical alike.) For any practical users, however, it's just another service to download/install, register, cross-share id cards/qr codes, but know that there's no history/archive whatsoever (by design) so no account/message recovery whatsoever... update the device, install a bummed update patch, or dare upgrade your device... all history, poof, gone. Ya gotta start everything over again like they're a brand new person.
    • You've tried DuckDuckGo and Brave Search, now get serious with SearXNG by Paul Hill Over the last decade, it has become quite trendy to dump Google Search in favor of privacy-preserving alternatives such as DuckDuckGo, Startpage, and Brave Search. These search engines have done a very good job at highlighting dodgy practices by Google, such as adjusting search results based on what it thinks you’ll like (filter bubble) and stalking you around the web to advertise to you. While these search engines are good starting points when compared to non-private services like Google, there are still quite a few issues with them. For example, both DuckDuckGo and Brave Search require running non-free JavaScript in your web browser, which is comparable to running proprietary software on your computer, meaning you can be sure about what it’s actually doing in the background. Another issue is that these search engines are hosted on the respective companies’ servers, and you are using a service that you don’t control. Finally, DuckDuckGo, while offering privacy features, relies heavily on Microsoft’s infrastructure for its results and, in the past, has permitted Microsoft tracking scripts. If you are looking for a more private search solution than DuckDuckGo, Brave Search, and Startpage, then I recommend taking a look at SearXNG. It is a privacy-respecting metasearch engine that can be used via different public instances, which is useful for mobile users, or you can install it on your computer or server and run it locally with maximum control. Unlike Google, Bing, or Brave Search, which crawl the web and have their own search indexes, SearXNG is a metasearch engine, meaning it taps other search engines, stripping your identifying data, such as IP address, user agent, and cookies, in the process. Your search query is sent to the other search engines you enable before aggregating the results. SearXNG has deployment flexibility. If you are a casual user or a mobile user and don’t want to run SearXNG locally, you can use a public instance that is hosted by someone else. The main problem with this is that you are putting trust in the maintainer of the instance regarding stuff like logs that they may keep; good hosts should have a privacy policy explaining their policies. If you are trying to use SearXNG, you can also install the software on your device and then head to 127.0.0.1:8080 in your browser and search from there. While you don’t have to worry about a third-party admin like the public instances, search engines could ultimately block your IP address if they frown on you pulling in their search results locally. If you want to run it locally, it’s a good idea to use proxies or VPNs to hide your actual IP. You don’t have to worry about this with a public instance, as search engines never see your IP address. The main privacy benefit of using SearXNG is that it isolates your identity from the underlying engines that it’s capable of searching, such as Google and Bing. These search engines will only see requests coming from a generic server, so they can’t profile you and create a bubble filter that influences what results you see. This also ensures that your search engine doesn’t turn into an echo chamber that prevents you from reading alternative points of view. As a free software project, you are allowed to inspect SearXNG to make sure there are no negative features bundled inside. This sets it apart from the privacy search engines mentioned earlier because you can’t check their source code. As a meta search engine, you are not restricted to getting results from one source. Due to the fact that it scrapes content from other websites, your SearXNG instance will periodically get blocked from different providers, so it’s good to select a range of sources as a backup. While enabling all of the services will give you great results, this can make searching slower. I am personally happy with slower searches for the best results, but you can always check which providers are slowing down your search from the search results page and disable them to speed things up. If you want decent results quickly, enable the main search providers such as Google, Brave, DuckDuckGo, Qwant, Bing, and Yahoo. This way, you get wide coverage without the latency. On the Engines tab in Preferences, do note that there are different tabs, such as General, Images, and Videos, with their own providers that can be toggled and are not covered by "Enable all" while on the General tab, so be sure to dig into each. Just a note, if you want to enable everything, press "Enable all" in one tab, then hit save at the bottom of the page, then do the next tab, and so on. If you press "Enable all", then do that in each tab, and then save, nothing will stick. When I had just some of the search engines enabled, I searched “define nefarious” and results came back with the definition of “define” - obviously that was a sucky result. However, when I had everything enabled, it found dictionary pages for the word “nefarious” and even had an inline definition on the sidebar, which is quite nice too - that was delivered by WolframAlpha for anyone wondering! Probably the worst thing about this meta search engine is that the engines you select are saved with a cookie, so you must enable them on every new device you use SearXNG on, including if you decide to go into incognito mode with your web browser. Honestly, I would say this is the most annoying aspect, and perhaps if your browser lets you choose a separate private browsing search engine, then it would be best to use DuckDuckGo for this portion of your browsing. Another weakness of SearXNG is the random blocking of it by search providers. When you are on the results page, expand the “Response time” box, and it will show things like “Suspended: too many requests” or “access denied”. This is why it is good to enable several providers so that there is always a fallback to get results from. I won’t pretend SearXNG will be for everyone, however, if you enable all of the providers and put up with the slower response time, the results can be really amazing. Even if you don’t want to use it as your daily driver, keeping a bookmark handy that links to it is a good idea if you ever feel like doing a deep dive into a niche topic where other search engines are just failing to bring up any good result, due to the amount of sources it looks on. If you’re interested in radical user control over the software you use, installing SearXNG locally can also be a good idea, but be prepared to be temporarily blocked from sites if you trigger bot sensors without a VPN. Personally, I’ve opted to use a public instance, rather than install it myself. If you want to use it via a public instance, head over to searx.space to find a provider. Let us know in the comments if you have used SearXNG or its predecessor, Searx. What do you think about the quality of the results?
    • Dear Neowin, If it is not too much trouble, can you start using the new-ish designations for Insider Preview? "Experimental" is different than "former Dev" as it can apply to different models, eg 26H1 or 26H2 etc, right? No need to seed confusion IMHO. And, please "finally" update your graphics. OK?
  • Recent Achievements

    • Week One Done
      flexorcist earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • One Month Later
      Woland13 earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      Woland13 earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • One Year In
      bernmeister earned a badge
      One Year In
    • Week One Done
      Scoobystu earned a badge
      Week One Done
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      503
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      226
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      158
    4. 4
      Steven P.
      75
    5. 5
      FloatingFatMan
      71
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!