The Next Google? Decentralized Search Engine 'Presearch' Exits Testing Phase

pcmag.com:

Decentralized search engine Presearch, a potential alternative to Google, is exiting the testing phase, allowing it to serve more search queries across the globe. 

Presearch officially transitioned from its Testnet to a Mainnet today. This means all search traffic through the service now runs over Presearch’s decentralized network of volunteer-run nodes. 

“The decentralized network will now process over 5 million daily private searches with the ability to scale to hundreds of millions,” Presearch said in the announcement(Opens in a new window). The Canadian company has also adopted a new domain for the search engine at Presearch.com(Opens in a new window) when before it was using Presearch.org as its main landing page.

Presearch is trying to rival Google by creating a search engine free of user data collection. To pull this off, the search engine is using volunteer-run computers, known as “nodes,” to aggregate the search results for each query. The nodes then get rewarded with a blockchain-based token for processing the search results. 

The result is a decentralized, community-run search engine, which is also designed to strip out the user’s private information with each search request. Anyone can also volunteer(Opens in a new window) to turn their home computer or virtual server into a node. 

In a blog post(Opens in a new window), Presearch said the transition to the Mainnet promises to make the search engine run more smoothly by tapping more computing power from its volunteer nodes. “We now have the ability for node operators to contribute computing resources, be rewarded for their contributions, and have the network automatically distribute those resources to the locations and tasks that require processing,” the