Yes, this is the point: Search engines are harvesting YOU and YOUR SEARCH TERMS! TOR prevents that, and they don’t like it.

But if I can't search for something simple like World Cup Results, without it timing out or blocking a suspected bot, what good is search? It feels sometimes like we are going to have to back to memorising URLs! 🤣

Mojeek in particular I find very challenging. Unless I put in a very specific and multi word search term, I never get close to what I want. And yes, I know I know, thats the point. Google makes it so easy that you only need to think your search term and they give you exactly what you want, but you pay the cost in privacy. If Mojeek is a model for how raw/clean search engines work, then its people that need to change, almost more so than software. We need to be more patient and tolerant, be more specific in our search activities, and keep in mind that its a pain in the hole because we care about our privacy.

Its a big change though, lots of behaviour change required, almost like a detox or rehab, to be unconditioned from the convenience we are accustomed to.