3 ms·

Life Before Google.

7 points by tx 19y ago

Do you remember you life before google? Or am I too old here? :-)

ibsulon 19y ago
To be fair, the search space was much smaller before Google. Also, I kept using Altavista for quite a while before finally switching over to Google as my default search, changing only because google is infinitely better on technical searches. Now, I use Ask for non-technical searches and google for technical ones -- I'm really starting to like ask, but it doesn't prioritize technical searches like Google.
run4yourlives 19y ago
I used to use hot-bot. I found they brought back the best results.
karzeem 19y ago
I used Altavista, then HotBot, then Google. I remember reading a Time Magazine article in 1998 about the "new wave" of search engines; it featured Google pretty prominently, and I switched not long after that. Google's results were very much better than everything else, by a much greater margin than they are today. Before Google, the cliche that every search returns porn was actually pretty true.
arasakik 19y ago
I remember using Altavista, Excite, WebCrawler and Yahoo simultaneously in order to find what I wanted.
- juanpablo 19y ago
  Me too. Or one of those multi-engine search sites (Copernicus?). One day, I decided to try Google. I remember having thought "Humm, this seems to be slightly better. I'll use it for a while" Sometimes it seems incredible that it was only 10 years ago.
  - arasakik 19y ago
    Oh yeah, I forgot about Copernic. They used to be awesome.
  - deleted 19y ago
    [deleted]
  - zandorg 19y ago
    Ditto, I found Google in about 1998, from a multi-engine search site and noticed it was coming up with all the good stuff. I must have been one of the first people to use it (at the time). Additional note that most other search engines were a test of pain before Google came along.
ardit33 19y ago
hotbot was awesome, especially for pirated stuff (songs and games). If you were a starving student, it helped finding entertainment for free.
aswanson 19y ago
Infoseek, believe it or not, was damn good. Almost on a par with G back then.

7 points by tx 19y ago

Do you remember you life before google? Or am I too old here? :-)

To be fair, the search space was much smaller before Google. Also, I kept using Altavista for quite a while before finally switching over to Google as my default search, changing only because google is infinitely better on technical searches. Now, I use Ask for non-technical searches and google for technical ones -- I'm really starting to like ask, but it doesn't prioritize technical searches like Google.

run4yourlives 19y ago

I used to use hot-bot. I found they brought back the best results.

karzeem 19y ago

I used Altavista, then HotBot, then Google. I remember reading a Time Magazine article in 1998 about the "new wave" of search engines; it featured Google pretty prominently, and I switched not long after that. Google's results were very much better than everything else, by a much greater margin than they are today. Before Google, the cliche that every search returns porn was actually pretty true.

arasakik 19y ago

I remember using Altavista, Excite, WebCrawler and Yahoo simultaneously in order to find what I wanted.

juanpablo 19y ago
Me too. Or one of those multi-engine search sites (Copernicus?). One day, I decided to try Google. I remember having thought "Humm, this seems to be slightly better. I'll use it for a while" Sometimes it seems incredible that it was only 10 years ago.
- arasakik 19y ago
  Oh yeah, I forgot about Copernic. They used to be awesome.
- deleted 19y ago
  [deleted]
- zandorg 19y ago
  Ditto, I found Google in about 1998, from a multi-engine search site and noticed it was coming up with all the good stuff. I must have been one of the first people to use it (at the time). Additional note that most other search engines were a test of pain before Google came along.

ardit33 19y ago

hotbot was awesome, especially for pirated stuff (songs and games). If you were a starving student, it helped finding entertainment for free.

aswanson 19y ago

Infoseek, believe it or not, was damn good. Almost on a par with G back then.