This is the way.

A VPN will not save you, they are easily worse for privacy in terms of user tracking. It centralises your entire web traffic in a single place for the VPN provider to track (and potentially sell).

Of course it can be done, check your web server logs.

If you are using GET requests to send search queries to searxng, what you searched for will show up in the logs as

2024-10-31 123.321.0.100 /?query=kinky+furry+pictures

If you use POST requests the server admin can also easily enable logging those.

People hosting searxng can absolutely see what you searched for, along with your IP address, user agent string etc.

Maybe you’ve been sold a bit of a lie.

Linux is not like Windows. Linux will never be like Windows. It is first and foremost a general operating system, not necessarily a Desktop operating system.

IMO, that means you will never truly be able to completely avoid using the terminal here or there.

Telling people that it’s easy to switch from Windows to Linux is just not true. Linux just works differently and going in with the expectation that things will work the same way only serves to disappoint those brave enough to attempt the switch.

If you try again, go in with the mindset that you’ve never used a computer before, and without needing to depend on Linux for your day to day computer work. See it as a tinkering side project, and maybe it will stoke your curiosity enough that you’ll want to use it day to day.