Decentralized Presearch Moves from Testnet to Mainnet
June 15, 2022
Yet another new platform hopes to rival the king of the search-engine hill. We think this is one to watch, though, for its approach to privacy, performance, and scope of indexing. PCMagazine asks, “The Next Google? Decentralized Search Engine ‘Presearch’ Exits Testing Phase.” The switch from its Testnet at Presearch.org to the Mainnet at Presearch.com means the platform’s network of some 64,000 volunteer nodes will be handling many more queries. They expect to process more than five million searches a day at first but are prepared to scale to hundreds of millions. Writer Michael Kan tells us:
“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 to turn their home computer or virtual server into a node. In a blog post, 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 company said.”
The blog post referenced above compares this decentralized approach to traditional search-engine infrastructure. An interesting Presearch feature is the row of alternative search options. One can perform a straightforward search in the familiar query box or click a button to directly search sources like DuckDuckGo, YouTube, Twitter, and, yes, Google. Reflecting its blockchain connection, the page also supplies buttons to search Etherscan, CoinGecko, and CoinMarketCap for related topics. Presearch gained 3.8 million registered users between its Testnet launch in October 2020 and the shift to its Mainnet. We are curious to see how fast it will grow from here.
Cynthia Murrell, June 15, 2022
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