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PayPalNot gaming news but an important subject to cover anyway since it's something that affects me and GamingOnLinux directly, as well as all of you who regularly use a search engine. The OpenWebSearch might be one way to save us all.
It's certainly no secret that web searching is getting worse as all the AI enshittification continues. AI is more and more forced in your face, and the big few (Google, Microsoft) like to keep as much control as they possibly can. Just look at recent news, with Microsoft cutting off access to Bing Search APIs on August 11 2025 as they continue to pivot to AI.
Especially important for sites like GamingOnLinux, and pretty much any news site that isn't one of the big few that keep buying up all the others, as we might only be one algorithm change from not being shown in search results at all.
OpenWebSearch is one possible new ally in this internet fight, a European Union-funded project to build up a massive modern search index that doesn't depend on the big US giants. The idea is not to build a search system themselves, but to provide an open search API, so that others would be able to hook into it and make use of it.
They've just announced recently that it's going public in June:
After 2,5 years of intensive research and programming efforts, the entire Openwebsearch.eu project team is excited to grant access to its pilot of the first-ever federated pan-European Open Web Index (OWI).
From June onward, commercial and scientific development teams of any size as well as interested individuals are welcome to access and make use of almost a petabyte (and growing) of open web data under a general research license or – upon request – under a designated commercial license as well.
I'm very interested to see what becomes of this one. Hopefully something meaningful, but I remain skeptical on it doing much to make a dent in the sides of Google and Bing. Depends if they manage to get some search engines to make good use of it or not and if the licensing when it's out fully is actually reasonable.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
You can also find comments for this article on social media: Although, to be fair in the other way, IIRC, DuckDuckGo, for example, does primarily use Bing, although not strictly so.
We'll see if the EU-funded project actually provides anything useful, or if they're just posturing; because if it's main purpose is just in being a "European alternative", then that doesn't really inspire confidence (in me at least).
Last edited by coolitic on 19 May 2025 at 2:36 pm UTC
Pyrate 3 hours ago
This project sounds interesting, thanks for bringing it to our attention.
tfk 3 hours ago
benstor214 3 hours ago
This is the average experience for most people, and it's somehow fine by them.I'm repeatedly flabbergasted by the amount of abuse people around me will put up with.
Now, what I hope doesn't happen is that the search engine becomes policed like the UK laws that affected sites like GamingOnLinux, where forums were removed and links and replies were disabled.
Mountain Man 2 hours ago
Last edited by Mountain Man on 19 May 2025 at 3:16 pm UTC
Eike 2 hours ago
The only thing governments ever offer as a solution is more control and less freedom, and that's rarely a good thing. Just look what happened to this site. I'm honestly surprised that comments to articles are still allowed.
The EU forces Apple to open up for other stores.
Eike 2 hours ago
I'm skeptical of this project because they'll have a hard time convincing a lot of people to use it, even if it's good. This is like the situation we see today, where Bluesky is an alternative for X/Twitter but isn't gaining a lot of traction to pull away anyone that's already using X/Twitter.
I'm also sceptical, but the situation is quite different to X: Social media makes so much more sense at the place where the other ones are, too. For a search engine, this doesn't matter.
eggrole 2 hours ago
I'm repeatedly flabbergasted by the amount of abuse people around me will put up with.
In tech terms, and probably a lot of others as well, most people simply don't know there are alternatives or how to configure things to better suit themselves. There is that joke about how there is exactly one generation that can rotate a PDF. The older gen never had to learn how to use a lot of these tools and the younger gen is getting the most watered down exerperience where everything is hidden so they never learn anything beyond the surface.
There have been, for years now, professors complaining that fresh computer science students don't know the most fundamental things about computers - like what a file system is. This, IMHO, dumbing down everything to the lowest common denominator is the root of enshitification. In the endless pursuit of "line must go up", companies are trying to cast a wider and wider net to catch as large an audience as possible.
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