hister
SHA-256Hister is a private, self-hosted search engine that indexes full contents of visited pages and local files, allowing instant retrieval from web, terminal, or AI assistant.
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v0.18.0 · 105 MB
Hister: a privacy-focused self-hosted search engine that creates a full-text index of all the pages you visit and files you keep.
Core Features
- Full-text indexing of page contents and local files
- Automatic browser indexing via Firefox/Chrome extension
- Powerful query syntax with filters, phrases, wildcards, negation, and aliases
- Optional semantic search via embeddings endpoint
- Three client types: web, terminal (TUI/CLI), and MCP for AI assistants
What It Can't Do
- •Existing browser history is not imported automatically; you must follow the quickstart documentation to import it
- •Optional semantic search sends document text to your chosen embeddings endpoint—review privacy policies before enabling it
- •The browser extension also fetches page favicons, causing small external requests
Use Cases
- Personal knowledge retrieval: quickly find any article or document you've ever viewed
- Privacy-critical environments: fully offline operation without cloud dependence
Detailed Introduction
Hister is a private search engine for the pages you visit and the files you keep. Unlike cloud-hosted search tools, it creates a full-text index of all your content locally, so you can instantly retrieve information from a web interface, terminal, or through an AI assistant connected via MCP. It strips away telemetry and requires no mandatory cloud service—ideal for privacy-conscious users who want full control over their data. Out of the box, it supports automatic browser indexing via Firefox/Chrome extensions, powerful query syntax (filters, phrases, wildcards, negation, and aliases), optional semantic search via an embeddings endpoint, and multi-user separation on shared servers. Compared to tools like Khoj or Echo, Hister gives deeper full-text coverage of local files while remaining truly self-contained. The project is actively maintained under AGPL-3.0.
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Getting Started
Download installer
Click the button above to download the installer for your system
Install the software
Double-click the downloaded installer and follow the prompts
Download the binary from the latest release and rename it to hister (hister.exe on Windows)
Run ./hister listen (or .\hister.exe listen in PowerShell on Windows)
Open http://127.0.0.1:4433 and install the browser extension to start indexing
- Download the binary from the latest release and rename it to hister (hister.exe on Windows)
- Run ./hister listen (or .\hister.exe listen in PowerShell on Windows)
- Open http://127.0.0.1:4433 and install the browser extension to start indexing
SHA-256 checksum verified
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SHA256 Checksum
1b55e01a290b9775e6e89f00326ebab4e0cbf876008ae84f61114e12edf51439This checksum is extracted from the GitHub Release page. Verify file integrity after download.
All SHA-256 checksums on this platform are extracted from the project's official GitHub Release page, without any modification. You can independently verify them on the GitHub Releases page.
Open Source Transparency
View GitHub SourceUninstall Info
Delete the binary and local data directory (usually ~/.hister or the configured path). Remove the browser extension from your browser's extension manager as needed.
No Extra Dependencies
Ready to use after download. No additional runtime required.
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