Gerloff Chimes in on YaCy

Instead, each user gets to make these decisions locally. Theportal at search.yacy.net is just a limited demonstration. To getthe full experience, you have to install YaCy locally. At that time your computer will bepart of the YaCy network, and you will be able to draw on thewhole network for search results.

At FSFE, we find YaCy highly interesting because it’s part of atrend to replace centralised systems with distributed ones. Wehave Diaspora and other distributed social networks as analternative to Facebook. We have identi.ca and its status.netplatform as an alternative to Twitter, which users can install andrun on their own servers. YaCy is one of less than a handful of distributed search engines.

In sum, at that time, YaCy seems to be less about bringing down Google, and more about doing something new and innovative with search in a world in other words increasingly dependent on cloud computing.