Distributed search engine YaCy version 1.0

Activists of the free software movement have launched a new project: the search engine YaCy , which in the future could compete with Google, Yahoo / Bing, Yandex, and other closed commercial search engines. Version YaCy 1.0 was released after five years of development, and now anyone can finally join the network.

The YaCy search engine works on the basis of the P2P principle, that is, the storage of the search index and the processing of search queries are carried out not on a central server, but on a distributed network of peers Freeworld. Every user who installs software under GNU / Linux, Windows or MacOS can enter the network, now there are about a thousand nodes on the network.

Freeworld real-time peer network diagram


If you have your own website, then at least index it - and place the index in your own Freeworld site. To do this, after indexing, disable the DHT Distribution and DHT Receive functions in the program. If you wish, you can index all interesting sites and use your local search engine ( screenshot ) The

distributed peer network and open code guarantee the stability of the search engine, protect it from censorship attempts (see SOPA, PROTECT IP, etc.) or accusations of subjectivity, as well as reliably protect the private information of users. No storage of request history, no tracking cookies.

The demo version of the search engine is now under heavy load due to the release of the press release. To help the portal survive a couple of days, after installing the program, informthe forum has its own static IP, search queries from the portal will be redirected to it.

According to the authors of the project, search engines are a key element in the infrastructure of the web, an important link between billions of users and the information they are looking for.



“For such an important function, we cannot rely on several large companies and sacrifice our own privacy,” says Michael Christen, project leader at YaCy.



In a way, YaCy is an analogue of the free social network Diaspora , which is positioned as an alternative to closed centralized Facebook / Google + / etc. YaCy is supported by the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE).

Project FAQ
API for external access to the YaCy search server