Free Software Activists Take On Google Search

alphadogg writes "Free software activists have released a peer-to-peer search engine to take on Google, Yahoo, Bing and others. The free, distributed search engine, YaCy, takes a new approach to search. Rather than using a central server, its search results come from a network of independent 'peers,' users who have downloaded the YaCy software. The aim is that no single entity gets to decide what gets listed, or in which order results appear. 'Most of what we do on the Internet involves search. It's the vital link between us and the information we're looking for. For such an essential function, we cannot rely on a few large companies and compromise our privacy in the process,' said Michael Christen, YaCy's project leader."

Comments

Well

[Anonymous Coward]

Result: Search results will be controlled by botnets

Re:Well

[Intron]

Result: Search results will be controlled by botnets

Yes. What's to stop me from downloading the code, modifying it to put my results on top and then joining my 1000 or so servers to the pool? You only need a small advantage to get big differences in results -- the difference between 10th and 11th place is page one vs obscurity.

Re:Well

[Hazel Bergeron]

The great thing about centralised search engines is that they're not gamed... oh wait...

...is that it isn't in the provider's interest to encourage spam domains full of adverts brokered by itself... oh wait...

...is that there's careful control over dissemination of information so privacy is not compromised... oh wait...

A p2p search engine will have different problems. But in the limit perhaps it'll be like a load of Google or whatever servers sitting around the Internet instead of in one or two datacentres.

Re:Well

[alexgieg]

This system probably solves spam the same way Freenet managed to eliminate it from its boards: by adopting a(n anonymous) Web Of Trust model. In practice, you'll only see results coming from those you trust directly or indirectly. The fake results will be there, but buried.

And even if they currently don't do that due to the smallness of the network, at some point they will. It's unavoidable.

Although the problem then might become you only seeing what you like because your friends/trusted nodes all think more or less the same, hence basically shielding yourself from different views. But then, mainstream search engines already do something like this, so it won't be that different from what we already have.

Re:Well

[blackraven14250]

If it were in Google's interest to bump spam domains to the top, it wouldn't be the useful search engine with leading market share that it is today, as it would have already bumped said results.

Re:Well

[M. Baranczak]

Freenet solves the spam problem by ensuring that nobody actually uses Freenet. I think this project will apply the same solution.

This scheme has pretty slim chances of success. Which doesn't necessarily mean it shouldn't be attempted.

Question

[StripedCow]

Will one client be able to view the queries of its peers?

If yes, how is that an improvement?
If no, how does it work?

Ummm

[Webs 101]

Yahoo's search engine IS Bing.

Come FLOSS Devs, We Need Better Names!

[DMFNR]

Of course they decide to give it a name that doesn't even look like a word. I can't think of a singled popular search engine that doesn't have a catchy name. How do these free software developers expect the word to get around about their software when nobody can pronounce it and probably won't even remember what it was called? Especially a peer to peer search engine which I would imagine depends even more on a decent amount of people actually using it than a regular search engine.

Re:Come FLOSS Devs, We Need Better Names!

[markdavis]

+1 Mod parent up.

Seems the geeky crowd still doesn't understand that marketing DOES play a critical role in the popularity of any type of project. "YaCy" really does suck- it is impossible to say, isn't a word, introduces strange capitalization, and it is not even easy to remember.

Re:Come FLOSS Devs, We Need Better Names!

[adolf]

Seems the geeky crowd still doesn't understand that marketing DOES play a critical role in the popularity of any type of project. "YaCy" really does suck- it is impossible to say, isn't a word, introduces strange capitalization, and it is not even easy to remember.

So fork it, changing only the name, and release it yourself under a more marketable moniker. The technical aspects of doing this are easy.

And if you think selecting a catchy, unencumbered name is also easy, then you really shouldn't have any problem pulling it off.

It's all GPL, so you can pretty much do what you want with it. If you really want to be in charge of marketing and distribution for a GPL project, the only thing stopping you is you.

Re:No control over disk usage

[nurb432]

Run it in a VM. limit its disk space and networking in one fell swoop.

Re:No control over disk usage

[Meski]

I'd wonder about what readable or easily decodable data might be found on your local drive. Do you think telling the authorities that raid your computer that you aren't responsible for illicit content (think about it doing something like google cache on a pron site) or url's to sites the government disapproves of etc, is going to be believable?

Re:Java...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not evil, no... but annoying as fuck, yes.

I've yet to see anything written in Java that didn't seem bloated, slow, and annoying.

Re:Got to get off my lazy butt...

[dmbasso]

Just goes to show ideas are a dime a dozen

Exactly, and that's the reason the patent system only works for lawyers these days.

GIMP is another example. Great program

[Anonymous Coward]

GIMP is another example. Great free graphics program, terrible name.

Re:Also

[Enderandrew]

Google actively fought censorship in China more than any company on the planet. They put servers in Hong Kong that weren't required to censor results, and any page that was censored, Google made sure to state explicitly on the page that the content was censored so that people knew it.

In the end, China changed their laws and forced Google to comply. At that point they either had to pull out of China completely, or comply with laws. While some would contend that the high road is to pull out of China, but at the same time, you can't make in roads and try to effect change if you're not in the country at all.