In this digital age of 2024 and beyond, information and data is needed as the air we breathe, the tools we use to sift through data should uplift, not undermine, our quest for knowledge.
Yet, here we are, navigating the choppy waters of search engines like Bing and Google, only to find ourselves awash in a sea of advertisements, our privacy eroded by relentless tracking, and our quest for truth skewed by biased algorithms.
Does that seem okay to you?
These platforms, once hailed as the lighthouses of the information age, now seem more like will-o’-the-wisps leading men to their deaths in murky bogs. Radicalization through search engine commercialization is actually a real problem. For everything that Google has claimed, it is fighting against such things, the work of non-biased researchers like Cory Doctorow and Rebecca Giblin have proven that these companies can’t ever fulfill their promises… not when they rely on radicalization to help line their shareholder’s wallets.
Folks – it is jut not Google (Alpha) that does this! Today we face a plethora of Social Media “trackers” and “data miners” that commercialize every step and action that you take online within their platform for full disclosure. This article is just sharing with you that browsers such as Google (and its email product called Gmail) tracks, profits, and commercializes everything that you do in it.
Enter Stract, a new lighthouse, one built with decentralization and open-source values in mind.
Stract: A New Open Source, customizable search engine.
This innovative search engine feels like a callback to an earlier Internet age, when our networks were meant to be part of a free, open-source ecosystem. Now, to be clear, Stract is in early “Beta” stage. This simply means that it is lacking many “normal” features that are common in modern browsers. You will not be using it for your daily browsing quite yet (I recommend Vivaldi, Brave (which offers Staking Rewards as well) and DuckDuckGo for the time being). That said, it has WONDERFUL potential. The top ten main features of Stract include:
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Open Source: Stract is entirely open-source, promoting transparency and community collaboration in its development and enhancement.
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Customization: The platform stands out for its high degree of customizability, allowing users to tailor their search…
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Advanced Search Capabilities: Stract offers advanced search capabilities, including Boolean operators, filters, and facets, empowering users to refine their searches with precision and efficiency.
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Natural Language Processing (NLP): Leveraging cutting-edge NLP algorithms, Stract understands and interprets natural language queries, ensuring accurate search results even for complex or ambiguous queries.
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Personalization: Stract employs sophisticated personalization algorithms to deliver tailored search results based on user preferences, search history, and behavior, enhancing the overall search experience and relevance of results.
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Scalability: Built on a scalable architecture, Stract seamlessly handles large volumes of data and user queries, ensuring fast and reliable search performance even as data volumes grow.
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Federated Search: Stract supports federated search capabilities, enabling users to search across multiple data sources and repositories from a single interface, eliminating the need to switch between different applications or platforms.
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Real-time Indexing: With real-time indexing capabilities, Stract ensures that new content is immediately available for search, providing users with up-to-date and relevant information at all times.
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Integration Options: Stract offers seamless integration with a wide range of third-party applications, databases, and content management systems, allowing users to leverage their existing infrastructure and workflows.
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Analytics and Insights: Stract provides powerful analytics and insights into search behavior, user interactions, and content usage, enabling organizations to gain valuable insights and optimize their search strategies for better performance and user satisfaction.
Overall, Stract offers a comprehensive and feature-rich search solution that EMPOWERS users to find relevant information quickly and efficiently. It is also the ideal choice for individuals and organizations seeking a powerful and 100% CUSTOMIZABLE search engine for their own needs, wishes, and goals. In summary, if you are familiar with technology and don't expect a full-blown Browser experience without a few minor speed bumps, it is highly recommended to check Stract out here: https://stract.com/about