Jack Wallen / Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET
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ZDNET key takeaways
If you want to abandon Google, you can install your own search engine.
YaCy is a free, decentralized search engine that can be installed locally.
YaCy can be installed on Linux, MacOS, and Windows.
When you run a search via google.com, that search not only goes through the Google servers, but it also places AI answers front and center. That centralized service means Google is in complete control of your searches.
What if you could instead use a decentralized server that runs across many devices, each of which is private and not under the control of a single organization? That's YaCy.
YaCy is a search tool you can deploy to your desktop or any computer on your home LAN that does not collect personalized data and is serious about privacy. YaCy has no "phoning home" integration and does not use cookies (although linked services may have cookies).
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