Web Search MCP Server for use with Local LLMs

A TypeScript MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that provides comprehensive web search capabilities using direct connections (no API keys required) with multiple tools for different use cases.

Features

• Multi-Engine Web Search: Prioritises Bing > Brave > DuckDuckGo for optimal reliability and performance
• Full Page Content Extraction: Fetches and extracts complete page content from search results
• Multiple Search Tools: Three specialised tools for different use cases
• Smart Request Strategy: Switches between playwright browesrs and fast axios requests to ensure results are returned
• Concurrent Processing: Extracts content from multiple pages simultaneously

How It Works

The server provides three specialised tools for different web search needs:

1. full-web-search (Main Tool)

When a comprehensive search is requested, the server uses an optimised search strategy:

1. Browser-based Bing Search - Primary method using dedicated Chromium instance
2. Browser-based Brave Search - Secondary option using dedicated Firefox instance
3. Axios DuckDuckGo Search - Final fallback using traditional HTTP
4. Dedicated browser isolation: Each search engine gets its own browser instance with automatic cleanup
5. Content extraction: Tries axios first, then falls back to browser with human behavior simulation
6. Concurrent processing: Extracts content from multiple pages simultaneously with timeout protection
7. HTTP/2 error recovery: Automatically falls back to HTTP/1.1 when protocol errors occur

2. get-web-search-summaries (Lightweight Alternative)

For quick search results without full content extraction:

1. Performs the same optimised multi-engine search as full-web-search
2. Returns only the search result snippets/descriptions
3. Does not follow links to extract full page content

3. get-single-web-page-content (Utility Tool)

For extracting content from a specific webpage:

1. Takes a single URL as input
2. Follows the URL and extracts the main page content
3. Removes navigation, ads, and other non-content elements

Compatibility

This MCP server has been developed and tested with LM Studio and LibreChat. It has not been tested with other MCP clients.

Model Compatibility

Important: Prioritise using more recent models designated for tool use.

Older models (even those with tool use specified) may not work or may work erratically. This seems to be the case with Llama and Deepseek. Qwen3 and Gemma 3 currently have the best restults.

• ✅ Works well with: Qwen3
• ✅ Works well with: Gemma 3
• ✅ Works with: Llama 3.2
• ✅ Works with: Recent Llama 3.1 (e.g 3.1 swallow-8B)
• ✅ Works with: Recent Deepseek R1 (e.g 0528 works)
• ⚠️ May have issues with: Some versions of Llama and Deepseek R1
• ❌ May not work with: Older versions of Llama and Deepseek R1

Installation (Recommended)

Requirements:

• Node.js 18.0.0 or higher
• npm 8.0.0 or higher

1. Download the latest release zip file from the Releases page

2. Extract the zip file to a location on your system (e.g., ~/mcp-servers/web-search-mcp/)

3. Open a terminal in the extracted folder and run:

   npm install
   npx playwright install
   npm run build
   

   This will create a node_modules folder with all required dependencies, install Playwright browsers, and build the project.

   Note: You must run npm install in the root of the extracted folder (not in dist/).

4. Configure your mcp.json to point to the extracted dist/index.js file:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "web-search": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/path/to/extracted/web-search-mcp/dist/index.js"]
    }
  }
}

Example paths:

• macOS/Linux: ~/mcp-servers/web-search-mcp/dist/index.js
• Windows: `C:\mcp-servers\web-search-mcp\dist\index.j

... View full README on GitHub