Uruky adds image search and URL rewrites to its paid private search engine
Co-founder Bruno is betting that privacy search can stay small, paid, EU-based, and deliberately free of AI assistants.
By Ryan Merket · Published
Why it matters
Uruky is a small founder-led counter-bet to AI-heavy search: paid access, EU infrastructure, user controls, and fewer incentives to monetize behavior.
Bruno, Uruky's co-founder, has added image search and URL rewrites to Uruky, a Portugal-based paid private search engine that is trying to win users who want personalization without ads, tracking, or an AI layer.
The update broadens Uruky beyond web results while keeping the product's core pitch narrow: private search, EUR 5 a month, unlimited queries, and accounts that store an account number rather than a name or email. On its homepage, Uruky says it is "focused on personalization, not an ecosystem" and explicitly frames that approach as "What Kagi was, originally."
That positioning is the interesting part. Uruky is not trying to out-Google Google or out-assistant Perplexity. Bruno's bet is more constrained: some search users will pay for control, EU infrastructure, and less product sprawl.
What Uruky added
The newly visible image search surface appears to require signup or login; unauthenticated visitors are prompted to sign up before searching. Settings reviewed in the signup flow show two image providers, Pixabay and Serper, and image fallback engines for trying a query elsewhere, with Google, DuckDuckGo, and Ecosia shown as defaults.
The second addition, URL rewrites, is aimed at users who want search results to open through privacy-friendly alternatives. Uruky's settings describe the feature as a way to replace domains in result links, giving the example of x.com being rewritten to xcancel.com. Rules are applied in order, and the first enabled match wins. Uruky also shows an import option from LibRedirect, with imported rules starting disabled.
For a privacy search product, URL rewriting is a small but telling feature. It treats search as the start of a browsing workflow, not just a results page. If users are trying to avoid tracking, the click after the result can matter as much as the query itself.
The Kagi comparison Uruky wants
Uruky is inviting the Kagi comparison, but it is also trying to define the difference. Kagi is a paid, ad-free search engine; Uruky is leaning harder into being EU-based, minimal, and non-ecosystem. Uruky says it uses EU servers, EU storage, EU payment processing, and EU search providers, including Marginalia, Mojeek, and EUSP.
Uruky also says it has no ads, no tracking, and no analytics. It compares its account-number model to Mullvad, the VPN provider known for letting users create accounts without personal identifiers. Those are company claims, but they are also consistent with the product's pricing model: if Uruky can get paid directly by users, it has less reason to monetize attention or query data.
The product still depends on other search sources. Uruky's settings show web providers including Mojeek, EUSP, Linkup, Marginalia, and Serper, and image providers including Pixabay and Serper. That makes provider selection and query handling central to the privacy promise. Uruky's public materials do not spell out the contractual or technical details of what each provider receives, logs, or retains.
A paid search product against the AI tide
Uruky is also making a conspicuous anti-AI product choice. The homepage says there are "no plans to implement any AI features, for now," adding that Uruky finds it hard to do AI "in a sensible, responsible, and respectful way." That is a contrarian line in search, where many engines are pushing summarization or assistant-style answers.
Bruno's service instead emphasizes knobs: boost or exclude domains, configure providers, choose fallback engines, set language and country preferences, create custom bangs, and browse with JavaScript disabled. Uruky says paying customers get a copy of the source code after 12 months, though its public materials do not specify the license, redistribution rights, completeness of the code, or delivery mechanism.
That leaves Uruky with a clear but demanding proposition. EUR 5 a month is simple. The harder test is whether enough privacy-conscious search users want a paid, configurable metasearch product that refuses the AI bundle and asks them to care about details like provider ordering, rewrite rules, and fallback engines.