YaCy - A new peer-to-peer search engine
- A free search engine that utilizes the computing power of its users to search and store the indexes.
- Fully decentralized
- Better privacy
- Censorship-proof
All search engines until now are centralized, they index the entire world wide web. When anyone uses one of these search engines, the terms are looked up in their indexes and the appropriate pages that have the best match will be served to the user. While the basic idea ahs remained the same, the algorithms used to rank the pages based on best match has improved over time. This centralized mechanism has led to dependence on these search engines. Some other disadvantages with these search engines include lack of privacy and censorship of content.
YaCy is a new peer-to-peer search engine that works in a distributed computing model. It is also a free search engine that utilizes the computing power of its users to search and store the indexes. It is a fully decentralized search model where all users are equal and the network does not store the user generated requests which provides better privacy to their users. This is much unlike the current search engine giants who store the search terms terms of all users of their seach engine. Additionally, it is impossible to censor the content of shared index. This model thus is able to achieve freedom of information through a free, distributed web search which is powered by the world's users. YaCy is GPL-licensed open source software.
Website for Yacy: http://yacy.net/en/
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