Decentralised Search Engine Becomes Default Option for EU Android Devices

Decentralised search engine Presearch (PRE) has officially been added to Google’s default browser choice screen for all UK and European Android devices.

Fair Play Among Browsers

After receiving a €4.24 billion (A$6.8bn) fine from the European Commission in 2018 for using the Android operating system to solidify its place as the most used search engine in the world, Google stopped requiring competing search engines to pay in order to get on the default settings page.

In 2019, the agreed changes were that the five most popular and eligible search engines (including Google) in each EU country would be displayed in random order at the top of the Android choice screen, conforming to metrics from StatCounter.

Nearly 70 percent of smartphone owners in Europe use the Android operating system, which means there is strong potential for the search engine to grow its user base.

With potentially hundreds of millions of users just a click away on the search choice screen, this is one of the biggest wins for any project within the crypto space.

Colin Pape, founder, Presearch

What is Presearch? 

Presearch operates its own advertising platform that uses Keyword Staking, which allows advertisers to stake PRE tokens to a specific word or term. Whichever advertiser stakes the most tokens to a given keyword has its ad show up when someone searches that term.

With more than 2.3 million registered users, Presearch is one of the world’s top 10 most-trafficked blockchain websites and one of the fastest-growing alternatives for private, unbiased searches. Competing with Brave, Presearch aims to join the decentralised service landscape and provide users with a privacy-centric search engine.

Presearch currently processes more than 1 million searches per day and the company says daily searches have increased more than 300 percent since January 2021. The searches are processed by Presearch node operators that earn PRE for their efforts on the Ethereum blockchain.

PRE Token Up 80% Amid Announcement  

PRE tokens are currently trading at A$0.20, having shot up just over 100 percent in the past seven days. The project has a total market capitalisation of nearly US$74 million.

With Android running on about four-fifths of the world’s smartphones including hundreds of millions in Europe, we see this as a huge win in taking decentralized services and blockchain mainstream and driving mass adoption.

Colin Pape, founder, Presearch