We live in a different world now

[jesse_the_k]

A new computer appeared, which meant cleaning up my old one before transferring.

I found a file from 1995 which was a list of search engines

Metaeureka still resolves to a front page with a 2008 copyright, but seems otherwise busted.

Except for Google, the ten other names are now owned by Northern Light. Based on that site, I think they're in the business of selling buzzwords.

Comments

[sasha_feather]

I remember AltaVista and Ask Jeeves!

[monanotlisa]

WHAT

This is amazing. Thanks for the reminder.

[melannen]

What were the others?? Other than the already named, I remember Dogpile being the coolest right around then.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Webcrawler was one in 1996, I wasn't on the internet in 95.

[jesse_the_k]

I was a big Dogpile user as well.

Not an official offspring of Dogpile, but
http://www.recipepuppy.com
lets you search for recipes by ingredients, which is often just what I need.

[jesse_the_k]

Northern Light is the redirect from:
Savvysearch.com
Altavista.com
wwwomen.com
WomenConnection


InfoBel grabs these address/telephone searchers:
Teldir.com
Spyonit.com
Pac-info.com

Library of Congress
http://thomas.loc.gov/
This was one of my fave URLs because it links a founder to the net. Now redirects to the boring "Congress.gov"

[magnetic_pole]

I found a file from 1995 which was a list of search engines

:)

When I first found fanfic I used to copy down the URLs by hand so I could find them again. M.

That's adorable

[jesse_the_k]

and I can't imagine making paper notes for computer stuff.

(Yes, I've been using a password manager for a decade.)

[grayduck]

Netscape Navigator here! I remember when they updated their logo to have the shooting comet in it. I thought it was just magic.

[jesse_the_k]

IT WAS!

Remember the first appearance of cursor that trailed effects?

Someone as old as us has been recreating these gems
https://codepen.io/tholman/full/jWmZxZ/
is multicolored fairy dust, with a link to four more.

[yourlibrarian]

Man, I remember that. My search engine of choice was HotBot because it alone allowed a user to reduce search results from a default of "or" to a limit of "and." Such a small thing but so vital!

Apparently it is now a VPN: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HotBot

[jesse_the_k]

There was a time when Google supported logical operators, and then they took it away. Why?

Much of my early net knowledge came from a local production called The Scout Report, a weekly plain-text email newsletter. The wheel is turning back to that delivery method. Scout in turn led me to Search Engine Watch.

[yourlibrarian]

Yes, I've also found it interesting that we're returning to newsletters, both from news outlets as well as celebrities, podcasts, etc. moving to direct communication -- private and also unable to be responded to.

[alchimie]

Oh I remember this! I still come across pages of old notebooks that have URLs or IP addresses scribbled into them.

I used Lycos, then Yahoo, then Altavista (because friends worked there) before eventually migrating to Google...

[jesse_the_k]

I used all of those, as well as Dogpile -- which is still there. It claims to be a metasearch engine but I get better results from DuckDuckGo (my default for the last few years).

[swingandswirl]

I remember... AltaVista, AskJeeves, and Dogpile, I think.

Lord, how the internet has changed. In good ways and bad.

[jesse_the_k]

More fonts!

So much larger page sizes -- weirdly, with half of all web browsing happening on phones, the sites are getting bigger and bigger.

Maciej -- pinboard -- does a great job Decrying web bloat, though the phrase "obesity crisis" makes me want to break things.