Which search engine did you use before Google/Bing?

Nate75 · 1 Jul 2015 at 21:12

hotbot

jsmoke · 1 Jul 2015 at 21:16

Nate75 said:
hotbot

Yes this is what I used and yahoo, it's all coming back.

Whitewater · 1 Jul 2015 at 21:19

Used AltaVista from around 1998 at school. The Internet was quite scarce at home so I didn't tend to use it for searching - I'd go straight to the site I wanted and get off as soon as possible to keep the phone bill down.

paradigm · 1 Jul 2015 at 21:20

I remember when Altavista was at altavista.digital.com

Before that I think I'd still have been using WinCIM, Compuserve for the win!

V F · 1 Jul 2015 at 21:23

How do so many people remember so well for what they were using back then?

paradigm · 1 Jul 2015 at 21:24

V F said:
How do so many people remember so well for what they were using back then?

I believe it's called having a brain, with a memory capacity

kitfit1 · 1 Jul 2015 at 21:27

Yes, Hotbot and Lycos........ was the .............................i think that order. You had to be very very specific about what you were searching for as well. I've been into computers since the very early 1980's........................but honestly don't remember any proper search engines before Hotbot. You either knew what you were looking for or took pot luck really. No where near as easy as it is now lol.

V F · 1 Jul 2015 at 21:28

paradigm said:
I believe it's called having a brain, with a memory capacity

Sure it wasn't dear diary?

Nazbit · 1 Jul 2015 at 21:32

A combination of Altavista, Lycos, Yahoo and Ask Jeeves, you couldn't just pick one because they all returned such different results.

I first came across Google when I started senior school in 1999 and it was the default search engine on the school PCs.

jsmoke · 1 Jul 2015 at 21:33

Good old days.

Flack88 · 1 Jul 2015 at 21:34

Lycos, the internet was so much smaller back then. Remember everyone I knew had the 56K and I had ISDN 128K

V F · 1 Jul 2015 at 21:39

jsmoke said:
Good old days.

Heh! Until it got to 98%… *Click*

Then had to rely on Download Accelerator Plus.

Flack88 said:
Lycos, the internet was so much smaller back then.

People never got offended. Or any of todays trolls if you don't agree with them.

Skeeter · 1 Jul 2015 at 21:42

There was Internet before Google? Who knew!

thecremeegg · 1 Jul 2015 at 21:55

Altavista

HangTime · 1 Jul 2015 at 22:16

I think I used a combination because you'd get different results and there was no supreme engine that would find what I was looking for every time. Definitely Ask Jeeves, Altavista and Yahoo.

I also remember browsing newsgroups via a web interface, kinda like a very primitive forum.

mrk · 1 Jul 2015 at 22:30

AOL search topics section and Yahoo! Yahoo was the Google of that era though. Lycos was probably what Bing is today. Good times they were. A time where any thread with a single jpeg image inside had a "56K warning" tag in the title.

slinxy said:
Who the heck uses bing!?

I've been told it's surprisingly good for finding videos.

Uther · 1 Jul 2015 at 22:38

AOL and yahoo/ask jeeves. Took me a long time to break the AOL shackles.

Tunney · 1 Jul 2015 at 22:45

Altavista.

I remember when you had to manually add websites to Yahoo's search engine. I remember a feeling of pride when my website was accepted and the description I gave it was approved.

Hiijinx · 1 Jul 2015 at 22:47

Lycos and Ask jeeves - spent many times asking him personal questions to try and get a reply

Jopabo · 1 Jul 2015 at 22:50

I used dogpile back in the dial up days, then heard something called google, still don't think it'll catch on.