A private search engine for visited web pages and local files, Hister indexes full contents for local querying. Replaces cloud-reliant history searches with a local engine accessible via web, terminal, or MCP.
asciimoo/hister
Have a look at Hister [1], a 'personal web history search engine' which by way of extensions for browsers captures your web history and stores actual page content on your own instance where it can be browsed and searched. It does not store images so if that's what you're mostly interested in it won't work for you. For text is works quite well, maybe sometimes too well since it also stores ephemeral things like HN comment pages unless you tell it not to.
[1] asciimoo/hister
I'm probably in the minority but I can't stand having more than 10 tabs and I start have the urge to finish the task that I'm focused on to just close as many tabs as possible.
So I really read the people talking about 100s of tabs and when I see a colleague having them, I feel that my cognitive ability to deal with that is not there.
I understand that people would like to keep things and that bookmarks sucks, but I would suggest for those to explore Hister [1] and Karakeep [2]. It is much useful that I don't worry about losing stuff now.
[1] asciimoo/hister
[2] karakeep-app/karakeep
Tired of searching browser history by title alone? Hister indexes the full content of pages you visit and local files.
asciimoo/hister
Worth a look, or does it not survive contact with a real codebase?
+90 stars in the last week.
Instead of digging through browser history for lost pages, Hister full-text indexes visited sites and local files for self-hosted search.
asciimoo/hister
2 likes · 34 views
Hister: Your own search engine (6.0k stars)
What it does
All text below is quoted directly from the project README.
>Your own search engine
>Hister is a private search engine for the pages you visit and the files you keep. It indexes their full contents so you can find information again from the web interface, terminal, or an AI assistant connected through MCP.
Features:
- Privacy focused: No telemetry or mandatory cloud service. Run Hister locally or on infrastructure you control.
- Full text indexing: Search the actual contents of visited pages and local files, not only titles and URLs.
- Automatic browser indexing: Save newly visited pages with the Firefox or Chrome extension.
- Powerful queries: Use field filters, phrases, wildcards, negation, aliases, and result priorities.
- Optional semantic search: Find documents by meaning through an embeddings endpoint you configure.
- Crawler and browser import: Index websites or bring in existing browser history and bookmarks.
- Web, terminal, and MCP clients: Search from the browser, TUI, command line, or an AI assistant.
- Multi user support: Keep each user's documents and search results separate on a shared server.
Privacy
>By default, Hister has no telemetry and no cloud sync. The browser extension sends indexed page content only to the Hister server you configure, apart from downloading page favicons. The server stores documents and search indexes on that server.
Why Hister?
>Unlike traditional search engines, Hister builds a personal search index from the web pages and files you choose to keep. Your content stays on your Hister server, making it useful for finding information you've already encountered without relying on a third-party search provider.
>No configuration is required for a local personal setup.
>Alternative installation methods include Homebrew (brew install hister), Docker, and Nix.
Repository
asciimoo/hister
Repository stats
|Metric|Value|
|:-|:-|
|Stars|6,042|
|Forks|271|
|Last release|v0.20.0 (2026-09-24)|
|Languages|Go 74.7%, Svelte 18%, TypeScript 5.2%|
|Contributors|60|
|AI contributor accounts (Claude / Codex / Cursor / Copilot)|claude (3 commits)|
|AI co-authored commits|Claude: 1|
Main contributor
|Field|Value|
|:-|:-|
|Name|Adam Tauber|
|GitHub|@asciimoo|
|Commits to this repo|1,382 (top contributor)|
|Bio|Author of Hister, Searx, Colly and a bunch of smaller projects|
|Company / Location|Budapest, Hungary|
|Followers|1,509|
|Public repos|78|
|On GitHub since|2008-08-11|
20 points
Tired of losing articles you read weeks ago? Hister indexes the full text of your browser history and local files for local search.
asciimoo/hister
Anyone running this in production yet?
Hister builds a private search engine from your pages and files.
Private search index from web pages and files you choose
Semantic search via your own embeddings endpoint
Browser extension, terminal, and MCP integration
asciimoo/hister
11 views
On a large scale, not that I'm aware of (I'd be interested if that exists!).
But on the small local scale, that's what Hister is, it caches and indexes web pages as you browse the web in your browser. Going via the browser avoids all the problems of bot detection etc, since you are a human visitor. That gives your own search engine of the web that you've already visited, at least:
asciimoo/hister
My coding agent uses the hister cli, i.e. a local index. That often requires me to seed it manually as a downside. The upside is that it caches website contents via browser plugin, which is a nice workaround for bot blocking.
Thanks asciimoo for asciimoo/hister
Mentions
A private search engine for visited web pages and local files, Hister indexes full contents for local querying. Replaces cloud-reliant history searches with a local engine accessible via web, terminal, or MCP. asciimoo/hister
Have a look at Hister [1], a 'personal web history search engine' which by way of extensions for browsers captures your web history and stores actual page content on your own instance where it can be browsed and searched. It does not store images so if that's what you're mostly interested in it won't work for you. For text is works quite well, maybe sometimes too well since it also stores ephemeral things like HN comment pages unless you tell it not to. [1] asciimoo/hister
I'm probably in the minority but I can't stand having more than 10 tabs and I start have the urge to finish the task that I'm focused on to just close as many tabs as possible. So I really read the people talking about 100s of tabs and when I see a colleague having them, I feel that my cognitive ability to deal with that is not there. I understand that people would like to keep things and that bookmarks sucks, but I would suggest for those to explore Hister [1] and Karakeep [2]. It is much useful that I don't worry about losing stuff now. [1] asciimoo/hister [2] karakeep-app/karakeep
Tired of searching browser history by title alone? Hister indexes the full content of pages you visit and local files. asciimoo/hister Worth a look, or does it not survive contact with a real codebase?
+90 stars in the last week. Instead of digging through browser history for lost pages, Hister full-text indexes visited sites and local files for self-hosted search. asciimoo/hister
Hister: Your own search engine (6.0k stars) What it does All text below is quoted directly from the project README. >Your own search engine >Hister is a private search engine for the pages you visit and the files you keep. It indexes their full contents so you can find information again from the web interface, terminal, or an AI assistant connected through MCP. Features: - Privacy focused: No telemetry or mandatory cloud service. Run Hister locally or on infrastructure you control. - Full text indexing: Search the actual contents of visited pages and local files, not only titles and URLs. - Automatic browser indexing: Save newly visited pages with the Firefox or Chrome extension. - Powerful queries: Use field filters, phrases, wildcards, negation, aliases, and result priorities. - Optional semantic search: Find documents by meaning through an embeddings endpoint you configure. - Crawler and browser import: Index websites or bring in existing browser history and bookmarks. - Web, terminal, and MCP clients: Search from the browser, TUI, command line, or an AI assistant. - Multi user support: Keep each user's documents and search results separate on a shared server. Privacy >By default, Hister has no telemetry and no cloud sync. The browser extension sends indexed page content only to the Hister server you configure, apart from downloading page favicons. The server stores documents and search indexes on that server. Why Hister? >Unlike traditional search engines, Hister builds a personal search index from the web pages and files you choose to keep. Your content stays on your Hister server, making it useful for finding information you've already encountered without relying on a third-party search provider. >No configuration is required for a local personal setup. >Alternative installation methods include Homebrew (brew install hister), Docker, and Nix. Repository asciimoo/hister Repository stats |Metric|Value| |:-|:-| |Stars|6,042| |Forks|271| |Last release|v0.20.0 (2026-09-24)| |Languages|Go 74.7%, Svelte 18%, TypeScript 5.2%| |Contributors|60| |AI contributor accounts (Claude / Codex / Cursor / Copilot)|claude (3 commits)| |AI co-authored commits|Claude: 1| Main contributor |Field|Value| |:-|:-| |Name|Adam Tauber| |GitHub|@asciimoo| |Commits to this repo|1,382 (top contributor)| |Bio|Author of Hister, Searx, Colly and a bunch of smaller projects| |Company / Location|Budapest, Hungary| |Followers|1,509| |Public repos|78| |On GitHub since|2008-08-11|
Tired of losing articles you read weeks ago? Hister indexes the full text of your browser history and local files for local search. asciimoo/hister Anyone running this in production yet?
Hister builds a private search engine from your pages and files. Private search index from web pages and files you choose Semantic search via your own embeddings endpoint Browser extension, terminal, and MCP integration asciimoo/hister
On a large scale, not that I'm aware of (I'd be interested if that exists!). But on the small local scale, that's what Hister is, it caches and indexes web pages as you browse the web in your browser. Going via the browser avoids all the problems of bot detection etc, since you are a human visitor. That gives your own search engine of the web that you've already visited, at least: asciimoo/hister
My coding agent uses the hister cli, i.e. a local index. That often requires me to seed it manually as a downside. The upside is that it caches website contents via browser plugin, which is a nice workaround for bot blocking. Thanks asciimoo for asciimoo/hister