Open Thead: What's Your Favorite Non-Google Search Engine?
For about 40 minutes this morning, Google searches were useless. Every result could “harm your computer” with no working link to result. It was, by Google’s explanation, a stupid human error. All is well now.
Less than an hour of inconvenience and the incident was over, but it did show me just how much I depend on Google search. Even though I’m aware of other search engines, I know little about them and rarely, if ever, use anything else in my everyday searching. Judging by the stats on all the sites I manage, I’m not alone.
As fate would have it, during that 40 minute downtime I had to find something. I switched over to Yahoo search. Why? It was the next one listed in my Firefox search box.
Because “it was there” is not a very good reason to use a search engine, so I ask you: If Google wasn’t available, which search engine would you use? Why?
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I would try Yahoo, maybe cuil; definitely not Microsoft’s Live search.
I like Melzoo. It’s quite cool, if you have a nice enough (eg big enough) screen.
I know it’s not the purpose but I love to search in delicious.com. It’s like I’m searching pre-aproved links.
I’m with the first commenter. I can’t stand MSN Live or whatever it is called this month. I prefer Yahoo! and use several of its services.
Next in line would be alltheweb.com or Ask.
I like mahalo.com right now. Human powered search and answers.
I use ixquick, mainly because of the fact they no longer record any user information
Yahoo! is always the second choice if I’m using Google. Honestly Yahoo! is sometimes my first choice, they seem to do a better job with local searches, things within my own city.
I like: AllTheWeb. Powered by Yahoo’s indexes, I like the presentation of search results the best. Also, Windows Live Search isn’t that bad either. It seems less spammed than Google.
I used SilkWise, because it automatically connects my problems to different experts and always gives good answers.
Yes, Yahoo!
I revert back to a multi-search engine site, Dogpile (http://www.dogpile.com/) by Infospace. They aggregate results from Google, Yahoo, Live Search and Ask.
Yahoo!
Cuil was pretty cool, but underperformed for me.
I’m still a true googolian, but I like tineye, also. Of course, it only does images. But it’s great at what it does.
The most interesting and useful entrants in this space are Mednat (medical search):
http://mednar.com/mednar/
and biznar (business search):
http://biznar.com/biznar/
Would you just read one newspaper? Or just use one reference book? Of course not. So why just use one search engine, even if it is Google? I use lots of search engines depending on what I need. For a general engine I’d use Exalead at http://www.exalead.com/search but my full list of what I use is at http://www.philb.com/whichengine.htm
I never use Google – primary is ask.com, 2nd – mama.com; if I’m feeling adventurous – Cuil or KartOO
I like Silkwise now. http://www.silkwise.com, gives me crispy and reliable results.
There are other search engines besides Google?
That’s a great question, Judi. Sometimes when Google doesn’t find exactly what I’m searching for (a very rare occurrence), I’ll try Yahoo, which always seems to give pretty decent results.
Google is so dominant now it’s hard to imagine another search engine coming along and taking its place, but that’s exactly what happened to AltaVista.
My favourite searcher is Ixquick: http://www.ixquick.com
And here is why:
1)IPs are not logged they deleted in less than 24 hours (Google and Yahoo keep logs for 6months)
2)It is a metasearcher using the power of Ask,Yahoo,Google,Wikipedia,Exalead,and others all combined, not one searcher but 6 searchers in one.
3)You can customize the searcher sking
I don’t understand the question… You mean there are others?!? I guess I am too stuck on Google.
T & Joe, that’s exactly why I started this conversation! When Google wasn’t functioning, I sat there staring at the screen thinking, “now what?” Amazing how quickly you can become dependent on one tool always being there.
I’m definitely using http://delicious.com for my first search