Trokam: Your internet search engine lab
Tags: searchengine, development, linux, cpp
Published: 2023-09-10 07:45:35

## A fully operational engine lab

Trokam is an open-source internet search engine. It doesn't have advertisements and it shows how pages are ranked. Try it at https://trokam.com.

Compared to mainstream search engines, Trokam is basic. However, Trokam does not rely on any third party to deliver its results. All the components of the search engine are part of Trokam: the web crawlers, the database, the ranking algorithm and the webserver interacting with the users. All these subsystems are developed in C++ with an open-source license. Find the code at https://github.com/trokam.

Trokam is perfect for experimentation and expansion. It is a fully working search engine and also a lab. **So, what are you going to do with Trokam?**

## Some ideas for improving and expanding Trokam

There are three types of changes I would like to apply to Trokam:

1. **Bug fixes:** Even though Trokam is elementary, there are already a lot of fixes and minor improvements to apply.

2. **Common features:** So far, Trokam does only text searches. I want Trokam to have other features commonly found in mainstream search engines: image, video, and map search. 

3. **Outstanding features:** I would like to give users features other than those found in other search engines. There is a lot of interesting data from weather, Earth and space exploration, etc. What about integrating one of these in Trokam?

You can help by sharing a code snippet. It is not necessarily a fully working implementation, although such a task would be much appreciated. **What will be your contribution?** 

## The spirit of Trokam

The development of Trokam could have different driving ideas, branching into many possibilities. However, there are some principles guiding any of these activities:

- Trokam is built on open-source code and is available with a free code license.

- Trokam is funded exclusively by donations. Trokam doesn't have advertisements. Trokam does not make any profit from its users' data.

## How to support Trokam?

**Use it:** Although Trokam is in development, it already delivers valuable results. Try it. Experiment with Trokam. Your feedback is essential to help Trokam's development. feedback@trokam.com.

**Donate:** One euro monthly would be of much help. One-time donations would also help. You have several options to donate, including cryptocurrencies. [Check out which one of these suits you](https://trokam.com/info/donate).

**Develop:** Much work is ahead to transform Trokam into a high-performance Internet search engine. Are you familiar with C++? Artificial Intelligence? Large Language Models? [Take a look at pending issues](https://github.com/trokam/step3/issues).

**Spread the word:** Do you know enthusiasts of open-source development? Do you know people who want to fund an open-source, ad-free internet search engine? Let them know about Trokam. Follow and share Trokam's posts on [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/trokam/) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/trokam). Follow Trokam on [GitHub](https://github.com/trokam).


**Nicolas Slusarenko**
Founder and developer of Trokam