We may see a post here from NCBI spokesperson. Until that happens wanted to bring this major change to people's attention. Following text is from the web link above and is included to provide context.
Effective August 2024, core_nt will become the default for Web Blast. This is an alternative to the default nt database that contains better-defined content and is less than half the size.
Benefits of BLAST core_nt over nt
Enables faster searches
Returns similar top results for most searches
Reduces redundancy for some highly represented organisms
Allows easier download and requires less storage space for database download for standalone BLAST
What is core_nt?
The core_nt database is nt without most eukaryotic chromosome sequences. core_nt is better than nt for accomplishing your most common BLAST search goals, such as identifying gene-related sequences like transcript sequences and complete bacteria chromosomes. This is because, in recent years, nt has acquired more low-relevance, non-annotated, and non-gene content.
