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chovy

Posted on Originally published at dev.profullstack.com

pit.world: private search, and a doorway to the Moshpit network

#privacy #search #dns #opensource

pit.world: private search, and a doorway to the Moshpit network

pit.world is live. It is a search engine that keeps nothing about you, and it searches a second internet as well as the first one.

Private by construction

Your browser only ever talks to pit.world. pit.world asks one search provider for results (the Google index, through Serper) and sends it the words. Not your IP, not your browser, not a cookie, not a referrer.

On our side there is nothing to hand over:

  • nginx keeps no access log for the site, and its error log is raised to crit so a failed request never writes your query down either.
  • No cookies. The server strips Set-Cookie from every response.
  • Rate limiting keys on an HMAC of your IP under a secret that is regenerated every hour and never stored.
  • Result links go straight to the site with no-referrer. No click tracking, no redirect through us.
  • It works with JavaScript off, so Tor Browser on Safest is fine.

I tested the no-logs claim on the live box: searched a made-up word, then grepped every nginx log and the service journal for it. Zero hits.

The Moshpit network

Moshpit is a namespace beside ICANN's. Anyone can claim an ending like .hacker, .eggs or .pit, put names under it, and point them anywhere. The registry is open and append-only, and it signs real certificates, so https://chovy.hacker is a working site for anyone on the network. There are 17,609 endings claimed right now.

Type a Moshpit name into pit.world and it resolves through the registry, next to your web results. The front page shows what was claimed lately and which endings are for sale.

To open Moshpit names in your browser, either install moshcode and run moshcode dns enable, or point your browser's secure DNS at https://dns.moshcode.sh/dns-query.

Make it your default

Firefox picks it up from the address bar. Chrome, Brave and Edge take https://pit.world/search?q=%s as a custom engine. Bangs work too: !gh hqtui, rust lifetimes !so, !pit chovy.hacker.

Terminal and agents 

bun add -g pitworld
pit search "private search engines"
pit resolve chovy.hacker
pit                         # the TUI
claude mcp add pit -- pit mcp
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There is a JSON API at /api/search, no key needed. The code is MIT at github.com/moshcoder/pit.world.

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