YaCy is a free search engine that can be used to search the public internet or your internal intranet. Yacy.net can index billions of web pages with the assistance of a global peer-to-peer network, and its scale is only limited by the number of users worldwide. The search engine network is completely decentralized, all users are equal, the network does not store user search queries, and no one can censor the shared index’s content.
What should you know about YaCy?
Concerns about privacy and personal information are widespread among users. There are currently a lot of projects that help users protect their data, but there are only products in some areas of computing that are controlled by large corporations.
One of the tools that many privacy-conscious individuals dislike is search engines. Because YaCy is a peer-to-peer search engine, user information is not kept on centralized servers. It builds a distributed index of websites by surfing the web on a network of users who are also running YaCy instances.
Internet searches by and for people
The serverless, free software search engine developed by the YaCy project is released in version 1.0. This package implements a radical new search strategy. There is no central server in YaCy. Instead, search results are generated by a network of more than 600 distinct machines at the moment. In such a distributed network, no single participant chooses the list’s contents or the order in which the results are displayed.
- Each user’s computer is where the YaCy search engine runs. Before leaving the user’s computer, search jobs are encrypted.
- YaCy, in contrast to standard search engines, is made to safeguard user privacy.
- To better match what the user needs to search for from time to time, the user’s computer creates its own search indexes and preference rules.
- With just a few clicks, YaCy also makes it simple to create personalized search portals.
The majority of our online activities necessitate searching. It’s the crucial link that takes us to the information we’re looking for. The leader of the YaCy project, Michael Christen, stated, “We cannot permit such an essential function to rely on a few large companies to perform and lose privacy.” YaCy’s free search is a crucial link between free users and free data. We, the users, have control over search with YaCy.”
Principles of operation
Every YaCy user is connected to a broader search network. Authoritative sites already use YaCy to provide a site search function that respects user data privacy. To communicate with other YaCy-based systems, it uses a serverless network protocol to exchange search indexes. We are gradually abandoning the notion that services should be managed centrally. According to Karsten Gerloff, President of the Free Software Foundation Europe, “the importance of creating an independent structure that cannot be destroyed by removing any of the elements is being replaced.” important part of the structure.
The search engine can be tried out by anyone at the official site. By installing this package on their computers, users can join the YaCy network and build their own search engine and a free and independent Internet. Because YaCy is free software, it can be used, studied, improved, and shared by anyone. It is currently available for Windows, macOS, and GNU/Linux. Additionally, the project is seeking new developers and other potential contributors.