View Full Version : Life before Google
Enablingwolf
07-26-04, 04:04 PM
Ok I was sitting here typing away, and thought to myself... self whatever did I use before google.... Been so long now.
....Myself I did it the old fashioned way, and went to library. After I got my first internet connection, I found webcrawler. I rarely ever use it anymore though.
What did you use before Google came on the scene? Do you still use it?
Xenocide
07-26-04, 04:10 PM
uh www.yahoo.com
been using it since the early 90s
I used Yahoo usually, or Altavista.
ThePerfectCore
07-26-04, 06:03 PM
http://www.yahoo.com
I still use it alot, just because sometimes it finds things Google doesn't.
www.altavista.com mainly. If I had a great deal of difficulty finding something, I would also use www.yahoo.com, www.lycos.com, www.hotbot.com and a couple others that I can't even remember anymore. Why I like Google so much; its very rare that I fail to find something that I'm looking for nowadays.
Sentential
07-26-04, 08:08 PM
www.dogpile.com is still a very good engine to use. Despite the fact that google is the best
filip04
07-26-04, 08:20 PM
looks like a lot of yahoo people... well... here's one more... i always used yahoo... then i found out about google... same with my family computer... i set google to the homepage, it got quickly changed back to yahoo... i set it again, and now, noone uses yahoo anymore
jimstandard
07-26-04, 09:15 PM
i used to use this program called webferret and it would search like all of them at once it kicked booty
Captain Slug
07-27-04, 06:38 AM
'94 Webcrawler
'95 Yahoo
'96 Altavista
'98-Now Google
i only use yahoo. never had a reason to bother with gogle
secretweapon
07-27-04, 01:06 PM
I used altavista and hotbot before google.
deRusett
07-27-04, 01:17 PM
Webferret,
infoseek ( the first that allowed advanced search options I think ) it was later purchased by the go network
altavista
TimDgsr
07-27-04, 02:19 PM
webcrawler back in the day, i was wondering if anyone else was going to post it or not.
Enablingwolf
07-27-04, 02:26 PM
Besides myself , Captian Slug also posted Webcrawler :D
I used to really like Altavista a few years ago aswell, I like google mainly for its simplicity.
-Chris
Captain Newbie
07-27-04, 02:58 PM
Before Google...there was Yahoo! Powered by Inktomi.
God bless Google.
SpliT71
07-27-04, 03:20 PM
yahoo for me, now it's 100% google. it's even my homepage.
infoseek ( the first that allowed advanced search options I think ) it was later purchased by the go network
I forgot about Infoseek, used that before I used Altavista.
Black_Paladin
07-27-04, 04:39 PM
I used to really like Altavista a few years ago aswell, I like google mainly for its simplicity.
-Chris
Same here, I used to stick with Altavista for almost everything. For some reason, Altavista always found for me what Yahoo could not.
At the moment, I believe that Yahoo is owned by Google and that they are exactly the same thing. Can anyone here confirm or deny this?
Enablingwolf
07-27-04, 04:41 PM
They are actually rivals, I think, right now. They used to have partenrship.
Here is article about it: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/index.php?p=208
It mentions google and ads... oh my :(
Mr.Guvernment
07-27-04, 04:43 PM
well lets see
first got on the net yahoo
then eventually lived off of www.hotbot.com when it was it's own company by lycos i think? then found google, cant remeber when but yeah usually google now.
Mr. Chambers
07-29-04, 01:18 AM
Same here, I used to stick with Altavista for almost everything. For some reason, Altavista always found for me what Yahoo could not.
At the moment, I believe that Yahoo is owned by Google and that they are exactly the same thing. Can anyone here confirm or deny this?
they are different companies, owned by different people as far as i know?
Black_Paladin
07-29-04, 01:22 AM
they are different companies, owned by different people as far as i know?
Hmmm, interesting. I could swear that I read somewhere that they were one and the same today but I must be wrong.
Their search results *are* extremely similar if not identical though. Just make a couple searches on Google and then go to Yahoo and search the same things there. I bet you will come up with the same exact results in the same order (well, at least I had the last time I had done this).
Enablingwolf
07-29-04, 01:28 AM
"Yahoo currently enhance their directory results from Google" Quoted from website.
Black_Paladin
07-29-04, 01:42 AM
"Yahoo currently enhance their directory results from Google" Quoted from website.
Ah-ha!!! I knew it! I knew it! :p
Enablingwolf
07-29-04, 01:47 AM
Yeah the article(link I posted http://www.searchenginejournal.com/index.php?p=208) tells all about the search engines... and what may happen in the near future.
If google goes to ads I am outta the google scene, time to get another pick.
Black_Paladin
07-29-04, 02:41 AM
Yeah the article(link I posted http://www.searchenginejournal.com/index.php?p=208) tells all about the search engines... and what may happen in the near future.
If google goes to ads I am outta the google scene, time to get another pick.
IF Google indeed does start advertising bigtime, I would think that almost everyone would be ticked off by this but where would you go then?
Reading this thread shows me that before Google, people used all kinds of different search engines and there wasn't one search engine that was generally superior to any others. People obviously have different preferences and we can see that while some people liked WebCrawler better for their needs, others liked some other search engines. Ultimately however, I am getting the impression that 90% if not all of the people here that posted to this post are using Google today.
Now, I don't think it would be streching it too far to say that Google has become a monopoly today not very unlike Microsoft. I think it would also not be too unrealistic to say that Google could possibly put other weaker search engines out of business or buy them off in the future to become an even bigger monopoly. If this happens, where do you go then?
History shows that monopolies are always defeated at some point or another - in one way or another but the question is when would this happen? In a couple years? In a decade? Who knows?? Microsoft has been a monopoly for a long time now and it doesn't look like it will be challanged by anyone, anytime soon. I bet you though that the day will come when Microsoft will be a monopoly no more. Look at nVidia. When 3DFx went out of business, I thought that nVidia would forever be a monopoly with nobody to even remotely challange it but ATI somehow managed to not only challenge nVidia but beat the crap out of it with a Radeon 9700 pro. A somewhat comparable situation exists with Internet Explorer. After the introduction of Netscape 6, Internet Explorer become the most dominant type of browser by far (there were still quite a few Netscape users before Netscape introduced version 6, which included me) and until recently had no real good alternatives to it. Sure, Opera and a few other browsers had always been around but mostly the same people that have been using it are still using it. Recently however, Firefox seems to have become suddenly popular among a group of people and its influence is growing.
To make a long rant short, history repeats itself over and over. A small pioneering company comes up with a brilliant product, gets embraced, adopted and lauded by millions of people, the company grows and becomes a leader in its league and signs contracts and makes partnerships with tons of other conpamies, becomes a total monopoly and starts abusing its power by actions such as increasing prices, forcing advertising, etc. *AND* drops its level of quality of service because there are no competitors to take advantage of it and there is no incentive anymore to keep high standards. Eventually, some other company comes over and gives the monopolist company a real run for its money and forces it to either go out of business or go through a major re-structering.
Let us hope however that the cycle described above will not effect and corrupt Google. Let us hope that I am wrong and Google will not bombard us with spam, drop its quality of service and force people to pay for e-mail accounts among other things in the future.
EDIT: It might already be happening! Just read this at HardOCP:
Lycos Sold At $12B Loss:
I think “OUCH” might fit this situation to a tee.
The sale price will be in the range of $95 million to $115 million, the filing states. This is a far cry from the $12.5 billion Terra paid for the Waltham, Massachusetts-based Lycos in the heady days of the Internet frenzy in May 2000.
Here's the link: http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/07/28/HNterralycosbuyer_1.html
So, Lycos is gone already... Who's next?
tom10167
07-29-04, 03:29 AM
IF Google indeed does start advertising bigtime, I would think that almost everyone would be ticked off by this but where would you go then?
An entrepeneurial genius is waiting at this opportunity just so that he can be the next www.Google.com
www.Tomgle.com ? Who knows, but it will probably result in Mr. Goo getting shut down in the long run, after all, look at what's happening now.
Black_Paladin
07-29-04, 04:20 AM
An entrepeneurial genius is waiting at this opportunity just so that he can be the next www.Google.com
LOL, Google.com is dead! Long live the new Google.com! :D
www.Tomgle.com ? Who knows, but it will probably result in Mr. Goo getting shut down in the long run, after all, look at what's happening now.
Hmmm, Tomgle.com doesn't sound bad at all. Well, it certainly sounds better than Black_Paloogle.com! I'll give it that. :)
Seriously though, I think Lycos being sold at a $12 billion loss is not great news. :-/
Sniperboy
07-29-04, 09:50 PM
i used to use mamma, which was an obscure metasearch engine.
drenader
07-29-04, 10:00 PM
Altavista was good stuff
Black_Paladin
07-29-04, 10:30 PM
Altavista was good stuff
It sure was. Ah, the good old days *sigh*.
Nah, actually I Google much better than Altavista. :)
KLowD9x
07-31-04, 11:10 AM
yahoo.com
Was powered by Google? What happened?
Enablingwolf
07-31-04, 11:23 AM
I tried using webcrawler for a few days after I posted the original thread.... Well I am back googling.. :sigh:
i used yahoo before i found google, but i still use yahoo for some searches
MiNdWaRp
07-31-04, 05:03 PM
before I found Google I used ... ASK.com! I was a newb :p
I liked the question thing... it was funny to ask stupid stuff too (http://sp.ask.com/docs/about/isjeevesgay.html)
qualhiveldorf
08-02-04, 08:31 PM
I used to use hotbot when I was on dial-up but now I use google (on cable)
i was/am a fan of www.dogpile.com
Cjwinnit
08-02-04, 09:04 PM
Altavista was good stuff
True :)
subconcept
08-03-04, 12:37 AM
To be honest, I don't use google. I have had yahoo.com as my home page since 1995 and have been using it since.
nil_esh
08-03-04, 03:16 PM
Before search engines there was "archie"... Before www, there was gopher and ftp :)
The first search engine I learned about was Lycos. Then AltaVista became my primary search engine; then they added way too much advertising to it, it went down the tubes, and I started using Google.
nil_esh
08-03-04, 03:21 PM
Now, I don't think it would be streching it too far to say that Google has become a monopoly today not very unlike Microsoft. I think it would also not be too unrealistic to say that Google could possibly put other weaker search engines out of business or buy them off in the future to become an even bigger monopoly. If this happens, where do you go then?
Actually, I'll like to see some usage statistics vs msn.com and Yahoo. A lot of people never change their home page from msn.com and use that for everything including search. Though the problem of monoculture still exists if Google or anyone else gains a virtual monopoly of the search engine market.
Black_Paladin
08-03-04, 04:25 PM
To be honest, I don't use google. I have had yahoo.com as my home page since 1995 and have been using it since.
Which means that you *are* using Google today, albeit indirectly. This is because the Yahoo and Google do have the same search engine.
I just like Google's interface better than Yahoo's.
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