Hister turns your browsing history into a private search index

Imagine a search engine that only scans things you've actually read, hosted entirely on your own machine.

Hister, a new open-source tool, racked up 423 points on Hacker News. It indexes the full text of your visited web pages, local files, and browser history. Instead of saving just titles or bookmarks, it stores the full document content on a server you control.

Why it matters: Most search tools rely on cloud servers or track your habits. Hister runs under an AGPLv3 license with zero telemetry, keeping your reading history offline. It also includes an MCP server, letting AI assistants query your personal index directly.

Know this: You can start with a single binary using SQLite, or deploy multi-user setups with PostgreSQL using Docker or Nix. It supports field filters, wildcards, negation, and clean text previews right next to your search results.

Finally, a personal index that remembers everything without telling anyone else.