Search engines
YaCy privacy rating
Free search engine software that users run themselves, either as a personal or intranet search portal with its own crawler, or as a peer in a decentralized network that shares a web index.
Summary
YaCy scores 88 out of 100 (grade B) on the search engines criteria. It meets 6 of 7 criteria: open source, no trackers or telemetry, no ads or data sales, no search history logs, no profile-based ads and no account needed. It does not meet independent audit.
Score 88 out of 100. How scoring works
Criteria
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Yes
Open source Weight 3 of 3
Is all the source code needed to run the product public?
GPL-2.0-or-later, with some library code under LGPL.
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Yes
No trackers or telemetry Weight 3 of 3
Are the website and apps free of third-party trackers, with any analytics anonymous and any telemetry off by default?
The software collects no personal data and does not phone home.
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Yes
No ads or data sales Weight 2 of 3
Is the product funded without advertising, ad targeting or selling user data?
Free software funded by donations and community support, with no ads.
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No
Independent audit Weight 2 of 3
Has an independent security or privacy audit been published within the last three years?
No independent audit is published.
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Yes
No search history logs Weight 3 of 3
Are searches stored without IP addresses or other identifiers?
Searches run on the user's own server, and the peer-to-peer network does not store search requests.
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Yes
No profile-based ads Weight 2 of 3
Are ads (if any) based only on the current search, not a profile?
No ads are shown.
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Yes
No account needed Weight 1 of 3
Can every feature be used without an account?
Self-hosted software that needs no account.