MyAllSearch

MyAllSearch is a mysterious search engine that recently (as of writing) started being spammed on various imageboards, pushing itself as a privacy-first alternative to mainstream search engines such as Google and Bing. The site seems to have a shady history dating back to 2006.

The domain has been renewed by the same person since 2006 to this very day.

Early History

The earliest recorded archive of the MyAllSearch website dates back to Feb 2007, however the domain was first registered in June 2006. The copyright on the first WayBack archive also implies that the site has been up since 2006. It seemed to be a simple ad infested search engine with a few shady bits, namely a malicious toolbar that seemed to have sneakily installed the site as your startup page on every browser. This was common at the time for most no-name search engines so nothing special.

The Weird Bits

This is where the shady bits come in. They aren't anything directly incriminating but really weird things to think about:

45chan

45chan (under 45chan.com, unrelated to the 2010 instance) was a Kusaba X imageboard oriented towards questionable nudes of various women. On their banner, stating to be a "Preteens and Teens imageboard". Most of the boards were oriented towards Jailbait, and other questionable pornographic material. Was most probably CP, despite much of the site stating "no underage images or video allowed". If not a CP house, it is atleast a site of which should fall under heavy suspicion for it. There was a hidden board that you cannot suspect DIDNT have CP.

The date at which the site was first began seems to be November 2012, according to WHOIS Domain history, However the site disappeared, and either redirected to MyAllSearch in December 2013 or to it's own page linking to "How to remove MyAllSearch", which does not line up with the WHOIS history of the domain, being updated in 2015 by a seemingly unrelated Chinese person (possibly domain hoarding, it was handed around a few times afterwards). However, the names on WHOIS data between both the 45chan.com domain and MyAllSearch.com differ, including different addresses. Later on, the name on the MyAllSearch domain seems to verifiably be of a real human person.

Association with SearchWebMe.com

SearchWebMe.com was a website first registered in 2005 by a Chris Phillps, the same to own the the MyAllSearch.com domain. In December 2008, the MyAllSearch.com site proudly stated to be utilizing SearchWebMe for it's search engine, with a "Powered by SearchWebMe" under the searchbar. Right below seemed to be search queries for illegal goods such as Xanax and others.

SearchWebMe itself seemed to tout itself as 'All the Best Search Engines!", but seemed to be a rebranded, rebadged and redone form of adware, the same as MyAllSearch. Archives also point to site traffic bot advertising and various other scams. It also later grabbed the domain SearchMeWeb to use as another search engine which had an awfully similar frontend to MyAllSearch (hereon referred to as MAS), just that the Xanax and other weird links were used for cars, jobs, travel, and alot more instead. SearchWebMe's domain continued to be renewed by Chris until seemingly 2016, where the domain was left idle. It was then reregistered by a chinese guy, then some anon, and then some russian. Probably just got taken.

SearchWebMe.com as of writing does not resolve, and SearchMeWeb.com the same, but somewhere in 2024, the SearchMeWeb.com domain was redirected to a casino website, as is the fate of alot of semi-popular domains.

SearchWebMe UK LTD was then established just a bit before in January of 2008, by Chris Phillps as the CEO amongst other people as other roles. The slightly questionable bit is that all the names are under the same address, linked to a flat in London. Probably just his roommates, but that's questionable considering how small London's flats are. SearchWebMe UK Limited then filed a notice to dissolve in March 2010, then fully dissolving in June 2010, 2 months after MAS seemingly went down. (There's just a gap in the archives.)

EngageMARK Search Inc.

This is seemingly the earliest link to both SearchWebMe, and MyAllSearch. The "company" (Nothing found on the UK's Companies House) seemed to be some dude selling a cheap skinnable search engine script, alongside other grey market services such as Proxies and some other goods. The site quotes even MORE companies that have a history dating back further and further in time but i've written for like 3 hours and i don't care enough to analyse the rest right now. So, here's their press releases that say their various partnerships and subsidaries they May or May Not be part of:

12/06/06 - YapBrowser Partnership- Recently, we announced some exciting search changes currently in the works here at SearchWebMe. We're pleased to tell you that the first of those changes have arrived. YapBrowser and SearchWebMe (engageMARK Search Inc,) have together launched a joint application. YapBrowser, a unique miniature internet browser which will make searching much simpler. The download is free and will allow you to forget about getting to websites containing harmful exploits. External Links: Yapbrowser acquired by Searchwebme

21/01/06 - SearchCoolWeb Suspends Affiliate Program- As of Saturday 21st January 2006 SearchCoolWeb will be suspending its affiliate program, this is due to unseen circumstances relating to our login and stats pages. We are working to fix and improve how webmasters use our affiliate program. If you are a current affiliate and haven't received a due payment for the upcoming month we can check our record.

Yapbrowser

Here's something quite a bit more concrete, enough to have a wikipedia article on it (with an issues template on it lol)

Yapbrowser was a web browser from 2006 seemingly originating from Russia. An otherwise normal browser, sources state that any url would instantly direct you to CP. In the same article, InfoWorld subsequentially brings up multiple other sites that seem to have similar links to YapBrowser, MyAllSearch, and various other suspicious early internet sites with ALOT of links to CP. Given MyAllSearch also had a Russian site (among other languages) and YapBrowser is a product seemingly originating from Russia, theres likely something to be said here. I DONT KNOW IM TOO LAZY TO KEEP THIS UP

Actual Privacy

MyAllSearch seems to be a plain frontend for Google, with all branding removed. Searching through the search bar and using Firefox's Network inspection, the below domains are queried:

https://suggestqueries.google.com
https://www.google.com/cse/
https://clients1.google.com/

and various other google domains, though these seem to mostly be fonts and miscellenous services. Regardless, these seem to be directly dialing google and doesn't seem to have much difference to using google or a different front-end.

In fact, this is acknowledged by the MyAllSearch Terms of Service, with this excerpt:

Our search functionality is powered by Google’s Search Results API. All search queries are processed by Google’s servers and are subject to Google’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. We do not control or guarantee the accuracy or content of the search results provided.

To put it simply, it's just google with a second name. Atleast DuckDuckGo and others are trying to be original. It isn't a search aggregator as may be advertised, but literally just a Google frontend. If you want an actual alternative, use a SearX instance or something. Literally anything except this.