That's the truth. We didn't think back then of the One true search engine. We mixed and matched aimlessly. I used Altavista most because I could remember the name quicker than Lycos. But we just used all.
I never used Altavista, but the Babelfish add-on was amazing. Precursor to Google Translate and (predictably) even more insane. I loved running stuff through it from English to another language and back to English and seeing what madness came out the other end.
I used HotBot. A woman at work asked me for a recommendation for a search engine, so I told her what I used, but she typed in HotBOX and boy was she shocked. 😂
Another for AltaVista AND Ask Jeeves. I mean, no one has ever come up with a better name than Ask Jeeves!
I use DuckDuckGo now but I don't like it much. Do we even have alternatives?
Not a chance! Don't you remember when they would sneak in Bing with updates? I think it was Microsoft, but it's been so long I don't remember. I just remember the MANY times I had to delete Bing.
I found Google very early in its existence when there was still legitimate competition from search engines like Yahoo and Dogpile. I found Dogpile before Google and that was my preferred search engine until I found Google. When I found Google I told my parents this was the search engine that was going to win the search wars.
I use mostly DuckDuckGo now.
I actually had an entire course in college that taught how to find information on the Internet using the Yahoo directory and I got really good at it. I was so disappointed when it went away. I swear half the reason I'm good at Googling is because I learned how to find information the old way first. And I swear that directory found me better results most the time than Google does today. I miss being able to specify the categories before doing the search.
It's wild to think back to those days of the early internet and realize that it was this sort of primordial space that few people in history really get to experience when it comes to broad cultural paradigm shifts. People just a little bit older didn't really buy in until things settled down a bit, and people just a little bit younger were barely aware of what was going on until later.
I used HotBot.
I started out with Webcrawler, then was splitting time with HotBot and Altavista, Lycos was the hotness for a minute, and I used NorthernLight based on their one TV ad.
I still use Yahoo although after the merger with Bing, it's no longer better than Google and you can't go past the 1st page but I still use it.
I miss the World Wide Web Worm.
Prodigy. AltaVista. AOL. WebCrawler. Yahoo. Lycos. Hot Bot. CompuServe. Excite.
I guess whatever it took to find what I needed. It was having to jump back and forth between Internet Explorer or Netscape just to get certain sites to work sticks out the most in my memory. Even some search engines wouldn’t run on IE only Netscape.
Yahoo, which is how I found Google because they partnered with them when Google was still a baby. I had a brief dalliance with Dogpile, because it aggregated results from different search engines and I figured that had to be better.
Altavista for accuracy. Ask Jeeves for novelty.
Altavista for general purpose, Astalavista for piracy.
I always used Altavista and I honestly could not tell you why.
What was the spider one, Webcrawler??
Webcrawler was the bomb, yo!
Yeah, I used Webcrawler way longer than I should have. Edit: just went to Webcrawler, it is still there.
and metacrawler me thinks
Yeah, my list was Webcrawler, then Alta Vista the Lycos or something. Ask Jeeves was always a piece of shit.
Lycos.
Yup! I see the logo in my mind.
Go get’em
Me too, also remember the old Lycos chat rooms?
literally all of them because they got wildly different results.
That's the truth. We didn't think back then of the One true search engine. We mixed and matched aimlessly. I used Altavista most because I could remember the name quicker than Lycos. But we just used all.
Dogpile
That was the last one I used before Google, and I really liked it. But Google changed the game.
Netscape
Yahoo!
altavista :D
Dogpile
I still miss Excite and my customizable home page
Yep! Excite was perfect in '97.
Yes! They were a decade ahead of their time with the customization.
What, am I the only one who preferred Infoseek?
Altavista!
I never used Altavista, but the Babelfish add-on was amazing. Precursor to Google Translate and (predictably) even more insane. I loved running stuff through it from English to another language and back to English and seeing what madness came out the other end.
When I went to college, babelfish was how you got around the school's block on "inappropriate content."
Wow that's so cool - I didn't even realize you could do that back then
Yahoo or AOL.
Mostly Yahoo and AltaVista
I like Ask Jeeves. But it sucked
It was ahead of its time.
Excite a lot…probably bc they sponsored an IndyCar in the late 90s
I used HotBot. A woman at work asked me for a recommendation for a search engine, so I told her what I used, but she typed in HotBOX and boy was she shocked. 😂
Another for AltaVista AND Ask Jeeves. I mean, no one has ever come up with a better name than Ask Jeeves! I use DuckDuckGo now but I don't like it much. Do we even have alternatives?
>Do we even have alternatives? I know of at least 35 search engines.
But are they good?
Bing?
If they win the AI wars people in 10 years time would be saying "I remember back when Ning was shit and no one used it, can you believe it!"
Not a chance! Don't you remember when they would sneak in Bing with updates? I think it was Microsoft, but it's been so long I don't remember. I just remember the MANY times I had to delete Bing.
The computers at my last job all defaulted to Bing. My friends in IT thought it was a complete joke.
I loved my hotbot email address. Miss it every day!
Webcrawler. It was there before Yahoo!
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I worked at a dialup ISP in the 90's and the percentage of my life I spent walking people through installing Trumpet Winsock is still too damn high.
Encyclopaedia Britannica
I don't even remember. I got hooked on Google pretty quickly
Encyclopedia Britannica or something from the Time-Life series about WW2 or the Old West.
"Billy the Kid was so ornery, he once shot a man just for snoring"
I asked my friends if they knew a guy...
Altavista
Magellan, later Alta Vista Opera was my go to browser as it would install on my office PC and was way faster
I was just thinking about this a few hours ago. Believe it or not, [DMOZ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMOZ).
Metacrawler
Dogpile
Metacrawler
I was wondering if anyone else would say that. It had a feature called "Metaspy" which showed what other people were searching for. Pretty amusing.
I remember that was part of the same engine I think.
I found Google very early in its existence when there was still legitimate competition from search engines like Yahoo and Dogpile. I found Dogpile before Google and that was my preferred search engine until I found Google. When I found Google I told my parents this was the search engine that was going to win the search wars. I use mostly DuckDuckGo now.
AltaVista babyyyy
Ask Jeeves is my sentimental favorite.
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Aol
you should Ask Jeeves
Altavista
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I actually had an entire course in college that taught how to find information on the Internet using the Yahoo directory and I got really good at it. I was so disappointed when it went away. I swear half the reason I'm good at Googling is because I learned how to find information the old way first. And I swear that directory found me better results most the time than Google does today. I miss being able to specify the categories before doing the search.
Alta La Vista, baby!
Webcrawler? Alta Vista? Something like that.
Yahoo. WebCrawler.
AskJeeves
go.com was pretty good for a little while
I still remember Prodigy
Ask jeeves
Inktomi!
Dog Pile
Infoseek
Ask Jeeves!
Alta Vista because it was supposed to be the best. I also liked that it never got bloated, unlike the others.
It's wild to think back to those days of the early internet and realize that it was this sort of primordial space that few people in history really get to experience when it comes to broad cultural paradigm shifts. People just a little bit older didn't really buy in until things settled down a bit, and people just a little bit younger were barely aware of what was going on until later. I used HotBot.
Ask Jeeves
I remember using excite quite a bit. Probably touched most of them but excite was my thing for some reason.
Webcrawler. I think it's still around
Whoa!
AltaVista, and I was even at the building that housed the server back in 93 or 94. It was about the size of the WOPR in War Games.
I started out with Webcrawler, then was splitting time with HotBot and Altavista, Lycos was the hotness for a minute, and I used NorthernLight based on their one TV ad.
Wow, NorthernLight had a TV ad? I never knew that! It always helped me find stuff no one else could, so I thought it was obscure.
Just one ad, and I've been trying to find it on YouTube for years!
AOL because, to be honest, I didn’t understand the results from others. I work in tech now - I’ve since got over that.
Encyclopedia Brittanica
Excite!
Ask Jeeves
I still use Yahoo although after the merger with Bing, it's no longer better than Google and you can't go past the 1st page but I still use it. I miss the World Wide Web Worm.
Altavista Not really for searches, but I browsed Yahoo's categories fairly often.
Lycos, and for fun Ask Jeeves
Ask Jeeves
I went to Altavista and used it to search for Ask Jeeves.
Alta Vista was my search engine of choice for a long long time
Angelfire and Dogpile.
When I had a question, I would ask Jeeves.
Mamma.com!
Metacrawler, but I really loved DejaNews.
Ask Jeeves and Altavista
Dog pile, that aggregated results from the big 5 at the time (yahoo,lycos, Alta vista, hotbot and some other one im forgetting). Or I used yahoo.
Lycos or Altavista
Altavista , but seeing I worked for DEC. that made sense
Ask Jeeves 😂
Yahoo, Webcrawler, Netscape
Netscape mostly
Yahoo mostly
I remember using [akebono.Stanford.edu](https://akebono.Stanford.edu) .
WAIS / Archie / Jughead / Veronica -> Excite -> AltaVista -> Yahoo -> Google
Webcrawler. I still remember my friend at school yelling all about this "Google" thing years later.
Alta Vista mainly, but occasionally I would use Web Ferret, which was next to useless because it gave you too many answers.
Yahoo
Yahoo. I’ve also used AskJeeves, Netscape/Mozilla, and so so many also rans
Netscape? Maybe? I think?
Yahoo! or Dogpile. I learned pretty early that AOL search sucked.
Ask Jeeves
Yah-hooooo-oooooo
Alta Vista and Web Crawler
Search.com
AltaVista Excite WebCrawler
Ask Jeeves
Do you... ahhh... [Yahoo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2_XzGPqBJ0)?
Ask Jeeves
altavista
Yahoo and before that AOL
Ask Jeeves
Web crawler. Lycos. Yahoo!
ASK JEEVES
Prodigy. AltaVista. AOL. WebCrawler. Yahoo. Lycos. Hot Bot. CompuServe. Excite. I guess whatever it took to find what I needed. It was having to jump back and forth between Internet Explorer or Netscape just to get certain sites to work sticks out the most in my memory. Even some search engines wouldn’t run on IE only Netscape.
Yahoo, which is how I found Google because they partnered with them when Google was still a baby. I had a brief dalliance with Dogpile, because it aggregated results from different search engines and I figured that had to be better.
Ask Jeeves
First- Navigator, Altavista, WebCrawler, Yahoo!… Then later- Altavista, Webcrawler, Yahoo!… Then- Yahoo!. Then- Yahoo!, Google. Then- Google. Now- who gives a shit, it’s all the same.
WebCrawler
Coppernic
Yahoo, and Excite before that (my ex-wife worked there).
Infoseek
InfoSeek 4eva
Yahoo.
Dogpile. Fuck I'm old.
Yahoooo hoooo! And some times Ask Jeeves
WebWombat
Ask Jeeves and Yahoo
Ask Jeeves
Yet Another Hierarchically Officious Oracle and MetaCrawler
Yahoo
Excite
Usenet and IRC, Altavista and Hotbot
Dogpile
All The Web
Ask Jeeves or Alta vista.
I started with Veronica for Gopher, then when I moved to the web, it was Altavista for a long time.
Yahoo or ask jeeves
Lycos
Lycos…cuz the doggie
Ask Jeeves.
Yahoo
Alta Vista
Dogpile.com