Is a VPN needed to keep your ip from being exposed ?

No more so than using any search engine directly, it’s a nice to have. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good enough.

Is just using an existing searxng instance just less secure then?

By the time you’ve investigated it, you could have stood up your own instance…

Sounds like a them problem then.

podman exists and doesn’t force root…

It’s yours, no issues trusting a public instance with your searches. Pages full of settings to tweak as you like. Less problems with an algorithm ‘helping’ you. It averages searches over multiple search engines that you choose, you can set up your own (or a curated) block list of crappy AI slop sites, don’t like fandom.com or something, gone. Manage your own bangs, e.g. !aa for annas-archive. Pipe it through a VPN with gluetun for better isolation. If you have your head around docker already it’s more like half an hour to set up, so why not?

Can hook it up to perplexica and a local LLM for a fully local AI search that you define, use it as a MCP server, do deep research with it…

know truth from fiction.

You jest, but…

You are aware that Netflix et.al. put compression on their streams (usually quite a bit in regards to bitrate) ? It is often the case that BluRay rips etc. are available better on the high seas…

While I generally agree and consider this insightful, it behooves us to remember the (actual, 1930s) Nazis did it with newspapers, radio and rallies (… in a cave, with a box of scraps).

Bazzite is the better distro because you install things in a distrobox. Muck around, break things in there, but your main distro stays safe, secure and stable.