YaCy takes on Google

An open source project, called YaCy, aims to break Google's headlock on the search market, by giving away an open source search engine that can be used both online and within an intranet, The Register reports.

The YaCy engine is based on peer-to-peer connections rather than search queries being run thorough a central server. Users download the software and act as peers for search, ensuring that no content can be censored and no search results can be recorded and analysed on central servers.

"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," explains YaCy project leader Michael Christen.

Thinq says the non-commercial search engine went live on 28 November, and its participants currently number just 600 - but the project has already catalogued 1.4 billion documents on the Web.

That's a far cry from Google's 48 billion Web pages - but the team behind YaCy claim that if one in every 1 000 Internet users can be persuaded to lend a hand, the project will match the search giant's capacity.

The project is supported by the Free Software Foundation Europe, a not-for-profit organisation that promotes free and open source software, The Telegraph states.

“We are moving away from the idea that services need to be centrally controlled,” says Karsten Gerloff, president of the Free Software Foundation Europe. “Instead, we are realising how important it is to be independent, and to create infrastructure that doesn't have a single point of failure."