Faroo : P2P based search engine, Impressive idea!

I’m completely convinced that Peer to peer software have the capability of expanding fast provided they can offer something useful to us. Napster, Skype, Limewire and there are hundreds of p2p based software which have shined on Internet and are still providing excellent services.

Faroo is one such attempt which is aimed at building a search engine empire using the resources provided by people like you and me. Faroo’s technology and idea is impressive as they make you free from security worries. They are hitting on the strong point of Google i.e. organizing world’s information at one place (the point, which has helped Google till this time).

When I look around my world on the internet, it really revolves around Google a lot as I have my email service maintained by them, I bow in front of their search engine, all my personal information is with them (thanks to Calendar, Google checkout and various other services) and when I think that what will happen if at all they block my account for some crappy reason or what if they decide to hand over the data some govt. as they are not allowing its services to be run in their country.

Faroo is building a search engine which will use your computer (and millions others) as a source to keep the search engine index and will provide the search results based on the PeerRank (FAROO takes the user behavior when viewing a page into consideration for ranking. This is done automatically, without requiring a manual rating from the user - as taken from their technology page.)

Faroo will build the index based on the website you visit regularly, so every page you visit will make to the Faroo’s search index, which is stored on your computer and which you share with the world.

How will this benefit me ?

This was the first question asked by my super techie friends, when I told them that what Faroo was trying. Well, the answer to the question is as following :

1. The search engine index is based on a real users browsing habits : That means that web index will not serve those websites on which you don’t spend time thus reducing spam results.

2. The data is not stored anywhere but your own computer and you have the control of your own data. Searching is completely anonymous.

3. As per Faroo’s plans, you’ll be able to earn money from their advertising based revenue model. This is yet not implemented, however, it’s one of their declared plans.

What are the negatives of Faroo :

1. Search results : Unfortunately, this service is in Beta and doesn’t have many users logged in at one time and thus you really don’t get search results for many web searches. I think till the time, they don’t have a huge user base, they should display the search results from a different search engine just like Mahalo.

2. Needs more polished software : While testing this software, I noticed quite a few problems :

1. CPU usage is quite high.
2. More features like Keyboard shortcuts, how much bandwidth is used etc. should be included in this.
3. Crashed a lot.

What are the chances of Faroo against Google ?

This was the second question which came in my mind and was not asked by those super techie friends. And then I answered myself, and the answer is The idea is amazing and has the potential of beating other search engines too, however it completely depends on how people take this service. Like Skype (or as a matter of fact, any P2P service), it completely depends on the user base and that how many people are running the software at a time, more the people use this service better the search results will be.

So, if they are not able to attract millions of users, then building such a software will completely be useless.