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Considering getting this game, as i recently bought the first and i plan on playing it through. I was reading the pcgamer review, though, and they mentioned that the 3rd act (or was it chapter?) is vastly inferior to the other 2. I really hope that's not true, as i would buy it for the story.

I pre-ordered this game on steam but I can't seem to download the pre-order content "Troll Trouble"

Also I'm quite fortunate that on my tv at 1360 by 768 I can run this game on 'Ultra'. Everything just looks amazing!

You have to register the game you can do it from the launcher.

This game is amazing.

Considering getting this game, as i recently bought the first and i plan on playing it through. I was reading the pcgamer review, though, and they mentioned that the 3rd act (or was it chapter?) is vastly inferior to the other 2. I really hope that's not true, as i would buy it for the story.

There's supposed to be 16 different endings, so its possible the one he got was more disappointing than some of the others.

^ the two monitors I have comes in very handy for that, game manuel and browser on small screen and game running on 1080p screen :laugh:.

Yeah I was actually doing the same thing, but the game was acting a bit funky whenever I alt tabbed out of it. That and I figured why not destroy some trees. :laugh:

I have not tried it myself yet, but I keep reading more and more people saying that uninstalling the Nvidia 3D Vision drivers (2 of them in the control panel add and remove) really does improve the frame rate for anyone who is using Nvidia cards. I have to go to bed, but as soon as I get home from work tomorrow, I will see if I gained any performance by removing those drivers. Also am using the latest Nvidia beta drivers, which I am assuming anyone who owns a Nvidia card is already doing themselves, as they are the drivers to use for this game by all accounts.

Hmmm, I am pretty sure SLi is enabled with the Beta drivers. I use EVGA Precision to monitor my temps, clock speeds and FPS on my Logitech Keyboards LCD Display, and if SLi is not enabled, the clock speeds of both cards are not the same. When I play the Witcher 2, both cards are at the same clock, nearly the same temps (top one is always a tad higher), which is always an indication SLi is working. The easiest way to confirm it also is just to put on the SLi visual indicator from the drivers which I usually do not do as I hate the huge stripes on the left hand side, but I will do it as it is the simplest way to make sure it is working. So I will see. If it is not working, I will definitely try this out, as that would mean I can bump up the settings to Ultra.

Hmmm, I am pretty sure SLi is enabled with the Beta drivers. I use EVGA Precision to monitor my temps, clock speeds and FPS on my Logitech Keyboards LCD Display, and if SLi is not enabled, the clock speeds of both cards are not the same. When I play the Witcher 2, both cards are at the same clock, nearly the same temps (top one is always a tad higher), which is always an indication SLi is working. The easiest way to confirm it also is just to put on the SLi visual indicator from the drivers which I usually do not do as I hate the huge stripes on the left hand side, but I will do it as it is the simplest way to make sure it is working. So I will see. If it is not working, I will definitely try this out, as that would mean I can bump up the settings to Ultra.

SLI does seem to work somewhat, I get around 40-50% utilization on both GPUs with the beta drivers. But if this fix is able to improve FPS above that (by forcing more efficient utilization) than it's at least worth a try.

EDIT: Actually, to answer your question about the beta drivers:

This fix has been tested to work for Nvidia drivers 270.61 (stable) and 275.27 (beta). There is no FPS improvement between the two after much testing. The beta drivers however have improved 3D Vision compatibility for The Witcher 2, and maybe other non-documented tweaks.

There is almost not FPS difference between stable and beta, the only difference is compatibility fixes and possibly some other minor tweaks.

Witcher 2's ending is the worst, ever. EVER.

The game, in my opinion, also suffers from pre-transition consolitis as in some of the design choices were made with easy porting in mind and to top my whining; it's bloody short, seriously. I was playing on the hard (not insane yet) difficulty and the only issue I had was the fact that the game was literally raping my GPU into pieces and thus caused lagging during combat, making it a whole hell of a lot harder (nVidia ftw?)

Looks like all their budget went to making the game look good instead of fixing some ahem, interesting design choices, and making a proper ending instead of rushing it out the door.

SLI does seem to work somewhat, I get around 40-50% utilization on both GPUs with the beta drivers. But if this fix is able to improve FPS above that (by forcing more efficient utilization) than it's at least worth a try.

EDIT: Actually, to answer your question about the beta drivers:

There is almost not FPS difference between stable and beta, the only difference is compatibility fixes and possibly some other minor tweaks.

Good to know, I was actually under the impression SLi did not work at all with the official drivers.

I will try this fix regardless, as it is super easy to implement. Curious what others have to say in the meantime, as I am at work and will not be able to even try this until much later on today.

so i bought the first one... thuoght about doing on it GoG for 5 bucks but paid 20 for the steam version cause i love steam... i'll catch up to you guys eventually!

That is just crazy. I like Steam too, but I much prefer a game that just runs on its own with nothing, such as the GOG version.

Installed the game, clicked on the desktop shortcut but it gives an error "Insufficient privileges to run the activation - run application as administator" so I re run it as admin and it asks for my activation key, after entering the activation key it says checking for available updates and after few minutes that window disappears, and drops back to desktop. Nothing else happens. I have tried around 10-15 times now changing the way I enter the key, incase that is the problem (eg entering with all CAPS, entering with the - symbol, entering without the - symbol and nothing ever happens. This is ****ing me off and the official forums are down :(

That is just crazy. I like Steam too, but I much prefer a game that just runs on its own with nothing, such as the GOG version.

I much prefer not to use GoG at all.

i was reading up on the GoG forums and the GoG version of the first witcher apparently loves to crash to desktop when you start it...

I much prefer not to use GoG at all.

Not sure why you would prefer not to use a website that one of their main reasons for existing is to offer DRM free games, but hey to each their own. Is it their games cost more for you because of your location? Because I also know they also do the one price no matter where you are, which is based on USD. But I would think with the state of the American dollar, that would actually mean less for other countries, but perhaps I am wrong, and that would be a reason not to use them IMO.

Only difference I see in GOG games unless I am missing something, I am new to their service as of late last week, is the installer is branded with their name on the installation screens. Other then that, just seems like any other exe to me. When I first got a game from them, I thought maybe you needed to have their downloader running to launch a game, but was glad to find out that was not the case.

If there is something bad about them please do share, as I will not use them if there is a good reason to.

i was reading up on the GoG forums and the GoG version of the first witcher apparently loves to crash to desktop when you start it...

No issues at all on my end.

Like I just said above, to each their own, but I am all about saving money whenever possible and if I have the option for no DRM and have it be stand alone, that is what I like. I do like Steam and if I could get every game in it at the best price, I would definitely do that, but I am all about saving money at the end of the day, especially on a game like this one where I was not sure I would like it.

But if there are known evils about GOG I just do not know about, I would like to know about them.

Installed the game, clicked on the desktop shortcut but it gives an error "Insufficient privileges to run the activation - run application as administator" so I re run it as admin and it asks for my activation key, after entering the activation key it says checking for available updates and after few minutes that window disappears, and drops back to desktop. Nothing else happens. I have tried around 10-15 times now changing the way I enter the key, incase that is the problem (eg entering with all CAPS, entering with the - symbol, entering without the - symbol and nothing ever happens. This is ****ing me off and the official forums are down :(

Do you have the Steam or GOG version?

If the GOG version, I also had an issue with the install.

I had to uninstall the game, disable my AV software and UAC, reinstall the game, and then it worked. Once I did that, was able to enable UAC and my AV again, just had to add it to my list of exceptions on my AV Software, which is Kaspersky.

Thanks for sharing this. I do believe it gave me a performance increase. I was able to bump some settings that I previously had at Medium (shadows, textures, and something else) to High, and no change in performance right now at all.

Reason I say I think is I am currently underground in the game, and it pretty much was running at 60 FPS anyway (I have V Sync enabled), so it is hard to say for sure. Once I get outdoors again, I will be able to tell almost instantly.

SLI does seem to work somewhat, I get around 40-50% utilization on both GPUs with the beta drivers. But if this fix is able to improve FPS above that (by forcing more efficient utilization) than it's at least worth a try.

EDIT: Actually, to answer your question about the beta drivers:

There is almost not FPS difference between stable and beta, the only difference is compatibility fixes and possibly some other minor tweaks.

See above, I do think it helped a bit. My Utilization said 50% iirc, was not paying close attention to it (and I am downstairs on my laptop or else I would check) but glancing at it, I believe that is what it said.

This is also the first time I have checked it out since I uninstalled the 3D Vision drivers unfortunately, so I cannot say with certainty which tweak is responsible for the increase in performance. In hind sight I would have checked it out before the Inspector fix.

Witcher 2's ending is the worst, ever. EVER.

The game, in my opinion, also suffers from pre-transition consolitis as in some of the design choices were made with easy porting in mind and to top my whining; it's bloody short, seriously. I was playing on the hard (not insane yet) difficulty and the only issue I had was the fact that the game was literally raping my GPU into pieces and thus caused lagging during combat, making it a whole hell of a lot harder (nVidia ftw?)

Looks like all their budget went to making the game look good instead of fixing some ahem, interesting design choices, and making a proper ending instead of rushing it out the door.

God people will accuse ANY game of being "consolized" these days, its ridiculous. This game isn't even on consoles yet, and I didn't notice anything that seemed to obviously cater to them.

I agree the ending kinda sucked, but all the story stuff up to it was excellent.

God people will accuse ANY game of being "consolized" these days, its ridiculous. This game isn't even on consoles yet, and I didn't notice anything that seemed to obviously cater to them.

I agree the ending kinda sucked, but all the story stuff up to it was excellent.

And usually, the only thing they're even talking about is the interface.

Until we switch to something besides mouse and keyboard it's always going to be an issue I'm guessing.

Do you have the Steam or GOG version?

If the GOG version, I also had an issue with the install.

I had to uninstall the game, disable my AV software and UAC, reinstall the game, and then it worked. Once I did that, was able to enable UAC and my AV again, just had to add it to my list of exceptions on my AV Software, which is Kaspersky.

I have the retail version, I manged to cure the problem, it was Securom, I had to download a tool from Securom site (srdiag.zip) and run that, it found problems with securom, it went online and downloaded some files and it appeared to fix the issue, well it the allowed me to verify the game and play it. What a load of crap, plus I cannot get the bonus content as you cannot login to the developers servers still, and you need to log in there and register the game in order to play/use/download any bonus content. All in all I think the devs have handled this release very poorly.

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    • Weekend PC Game Deals: Steam Summer Sale 2026 Edition by Pulasthi Ariyasinghe Weekend PC Game Deals is where the hottest gaming deals from all over the internet are gathered into one place every week for your consumption. So kick back, relax, and hold on to your wallets. The Epic Games Store's freebie offer brought two more games to keep this week too. What you can grab this time are copies of RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 Complete Edition and Voidwrought. Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 is an enhanced version of the classic title that comes with enhancements like widescreen and 1080p resolution support. Its two expansion packs are included here too. Meanwhile, Voidwrought is a 2D action-platformer with tight platforming and high-speed combat against cosmic horrors. The double giveaway is slated to last until July 2. On the same day, I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream and River City Girls 2 will take the same freebie spot. The Humble Store introduced a couple of new game bundles earlier this week. The Going Rogue collection begins with Rogue Legacy, UnderMine, and None Shall Intrude in the starting tier for $5. If you pay the $10 it's asking to complete the bundle, you also get copies of Brutal Orchestra, Moros Protocol, Nightmare Reaper, Home Behind 2, and Lynked: Banner of the Spark. If it's fighting games you're looking for, the new Arc System Works Evo bundle is carrying plenty. The three tiers of this bundle that go up to $20 carry games like Melty Blood Actress Again Current Code, GUILTY GEAR Xrd REV 2, KILL la KILL - IF, Blazblue Cross Tag Battle, Guilty Gear -STRIVE-, Blazblue CentralFiction, and more. Big Deals One of the biggest sale events of the year, the Steam Summer Sale, has just kicked off, and that means almost every PC game available is now featuring discounts. We have plenty of games for you to look over in our special hand-picked big deals list for the weekend below: Baldur's Gate 3 – $44.99 on Steam Anno 117: Pax Romana – $41.99 on Steam S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl – $41.99 on Steam Indiana Jones and the Great Circle – $41.99 on Steam NINJA GAIDEN 4 – $41.99 on Steam Dying Light: The Beast – $39.59 on Steam Ghost of Tsushima DIRECTOR'S CUT – $35.99 on Steam Battlefield 6 – $34.99 on Steam Cities: Skylines II – $34.99 on Steam The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered – $34.99 on Steam The Outer Worlds 2 – $34.99 on Steam Borderlands 4 – $34.99 on Steam Sid Meier's Civilization VII – $34.99 on Steam Mafia: The Old Country – $34.99 on Steam Split Fiction – $32.49 on Steam Assassin’s Creed Shadows – $31.49 on Steam HELLDIVERS 2 – $29.99 on Steam Diablo IV – $29.99 on Steam ARC Raiders – $29.99 on Steam Forza Horizon 5 – $29.99 on Steam Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - GOTY Edition – $29.99 on Steam No Rest for the Wicked – $27.99 on Steam Metaphor: ReFantazio – $27.99 on Steam Ready or Not – $24.99 on Steam Kingdom Come: Deliverance II – $23.99 on Steam No Man's Sky – $23.99 on Steam Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered – $23.99 on Steam DOOM: The Dark Ages – $23.09 on Steam Mewgenics – $22.49 on Steam Persona 3 Reload – $20.99 on Steam Hades II – $20.99 on Steam Two Point Museum – $20.09 on Steam Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord – $19.99 on Steam God of War – $19.99 on Steam Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader – $19.99 on Steam Returnal – $19.79 on Steam Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 – $17.99 on Steam Cyberpunk 2077 – $17.99 on Steam Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora – $17.99 on Steam Star Wars Outlaws – $17.49 on Steam REPLACED – $15.99 on Steam Days Gone – $15.99 on Steam Age of Mythology: Retold – $14.99 on Steam Crusader Kings III – $14.99 on Steam Red Dead Redemption 2 – $14.99 on Steam Half-Life: Alyx – $14.99 on Steam Grand Theft Auto V Enhanced – $14.99 on Steam EA SPORTS FC 26 – $13.99 on Steam The Crew Motorfest – $13.99 on Steam Sea of Thieves: 2026 Edition – $13.99 on Steam Age of Empires IV: Anniversary Edition – $13.99 on Steam Dead Cells – $12.49 on Steam Schedule I – $11.99 on Steam BioShock: The Collection – $11.99 on Steam Fable Anniversary – $11.54 on Steam Hearts of Iron IV – $9.99 on Steam Kerbal Space Program – $9.99 on Steam Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands – $9.99 on Steam The Riftbreaker – $8.99 on Steam Stardew Valley – $8.99 on Steam Total War: WARHAMMER III – $8.99 on Steam Sons Of The Forest – $8.99 on Steam Assassin's Creed Origins – $8.99 on Steam Risk of Rain 2 – $8.24 on Steam Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 – $7.49 on Steam Call of Duty: Modern Warfare® II – $6.99 on Steam CONTROL Ultimate Edition – $5.99 on Steam Dead Space – $5.99 on Steam The Quarry – $5.99 on Steam RV There Yet? – $5.59 on Steam Euro Truck Simulator 2 – $4.99 on Steam Terraria – $4.99 on Steam PEAK – $4.95 on Steam Detroit: Become Human – $3.99 on Steam Far Cry 3 – $3.99 on Steam A Plague Tale: Innocence – $3.99 on Steam The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – $3.99 on Steam Assetto Corsa Competizione – $3.99 on Steam PAYDAY 2 – $2.99 on Steam Wreckfest – $2.99 on Steam Rain World – $2.49 on Steam Watch_Dogs 2 – $2.49 on Steam Planet Zoo – $2.24 on Steam Bendy and the Dark Revival – $1.99 on Steam CARRION – $1.99 on Steam The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth – $1.49 on Steam Plague Inc: Evolved – $1.49 on Steam Don't Starve Together – $1.49 on Steam Metro 2033 Redux – $0.99 on Steam Hotline Miami – $0.99 on Steam RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 Complete Edition – $0 on Epic Store Voidwrought – $0 on Epic Store DRM-free Specials The GOG store is in the middle of its own summer sale. Here are some highlights from the DRM-free store: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 - $39.99 on GOG Hollow Knight: Silksong - $14.99 on GOG Resident Evil Bundle - $12.49 on GOG Tomb Raider I-III Remastered Starring Lara Croft - $11.99 on GOG Alpha Protocol - $9.99 on GOG Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines™ - $9.99 on GOG Fallout: New Vegas Ultimate Edition - $9.99 on GOG Disco Elysium - The Final Cut - $9.99 on GOG Dino Crisis Bundle - $8.49 on GOG Cold Fear - $8.25 on GOG Star Trek: Armada II - $7.49 on GOG Star Trek: Starfleet Command III - $7.49 on GOG Warhammer: Dark Omen - $7.49 on GOG Hollow Knight - $7.49 on GOG Mortal Kombat Trilogy - $6.49 on GOG Soldier of Fortune: Platinum Edition - $6.49 on GOG Heroes of Might and Magic 3: Complete - $4.99 on GOG SWAT 4: Gold Edition - $4.99 on GOG RollerCoaster Tycoon 2: Triple Thrill Pack - $4.99 on GOG Stranglehold - $4.99 on GOG ANSTOSS 3: Der Fußballmanager - $4.79 on GOG Firewatch - $3.99 on GOG Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom - $2.99 on GOG Myst Masterpiece Edition - $2.99 on GOG Settlers 3: Ultimate Collection - $2.49 on GOG World in Conflict: Complete Edition - $2.49 on GOG Keep in mind that availability and pricing for some deals could vary depending on the region. That's it for our pick of this weekend's PC game deals, and hopefully, some of you have enough self-restraint not to keep adding to your ever-growing backlogs. As always, there are an enormous number of other deals ready and waiting all over the interwebs, as well as on services you may already subscribe to if you comb through them, so keep your eyes open for those, and have a great weekend.
    • 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?
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