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The eSearch Project was initiated in 2023 with the goal of creating an alternative to dtSearch Desktop tailored for the European market. Our focus was on building a user interface that is easily 'user' translatable and modern in design. Due to licensing constraints, we selected the open-source and well-established Lucene .NET search engine.
To provide a contemporary user experience, we adopted the open-source Avalonia framework, using an MVVM architecture and targeting the latest version of .NET Core. The default UI supports dark mode for a modern look and feel.
Traditional Boolean AND, OR, NOT operators can easily be entered using buttons. For stemming, users can choose between the traditional Porter English stemmer or our multilingual stemming rules, originally developed for dtSearch. For phonic search (as known in dtSearch), we implement standard Soundex rules. For synonyms, we utilize the same rules created for the User Thesaurus Plus add-on for dtSearch. Beyond these features we added a much improved word list, with better sorting, and more intelligent handling of emails, dates, etc.
For details of features and functionality see the PDF Article: Introducing eSearch Pro
We introduced a plugin architecture to support indexing from additional data sources such as Amazon S3, Dropbox, SharePoint, and more.The plugin API will be published to enable third-party development of plugins for external data sources. These may be distributed as community plugins, similar to the model used by the Obsidian application, which distinguishes between core and community plugins.
In April 2025 we released an AWS S3 plugin, this also connects to a demonstration Amazon AWS S3 bucket as a demonstration.
As large language models (LLMs) rapidly evolved and gained commercial relevance, we introduced an AI Mode in late 2024. This mode supports connections to the Perplexity API, OpenAI API, and a customizable option for any other OpenAI-compatible API, whether online or offline. We aim to expand these AI capabilities as the field continues to mature.
In June 2025 the MCP Client was introduced to allow Tool access to the LLMs.
In addition to the main eSearch Pro desktop application, we developed a portable version for use on USB drives. The standard version is ideal for eDiscovery, allowing searches on machines without requiring software installation. A variant is for publishing search-only data (Operating Manuals, eBibles, etc.)
For enterprise environments, eSearch supports a command line interface that allow IT administrators to restrict user capabilities. These restrictions can limit users to searching existing indexes or querying LLMs, without the ability to create new indexes, modify LLM connections, or change configuration settings.
The eSearch Project is open-sourced under a modified Apache 2.0 license. The eSearch Pro, Lite and Portable versions are free for personal, non-commercial use. A TARILIO branded version is available for commercial use.
To download beta versions, view release notes, or sign up as a beta tester, visit: 👉 https://searchcloudone.com/universal-desktop-search/
For feedback, support and licensing enquiries contact: support@electronart.co.uk
For comparisons and reviews see: https://sourceforge.net/software/product/eSearch-Pro/
For articles featuring eSearch Pro in AI Mode see: https://dark-mode.medium.com/
28 June 2025.