AltaVista, a similiar history

[ElPolloDiabl]

Altavista (the search engine) founded in 1995 by DEC.
DEC was bought by Compaq in 1998.
Compaq merged with HP in 2002.
In 2003 Altavista was sold to Overture services, who were then purchased by Yahoo in 2003.
Article link: http://www.dailytech.com/RIP+AltaVista+19952013/article31880.htm

It's ridiculous how software (or a service in this case) get bought up and then left unmantained by the new company who has no interest in it.

[mikrucio]

yeah!

I was using altavista way back in 97, then i discovered google in 98 i think
now everyone uses google

[mrknight]

If I remember correctly (I'm getting old and my memory is not what it used to be...) I was using Altavista until I around 2000 when I started using Google.
During my first web experience in 1995 I used Webcrawler until I was introduced to Altavista. Just checked, Webcrawler is still around! I used Yahoo a few times but never used it as my 'main' search engine as I did with Altavista and later Google.

18 years ago I used the web for the first time. And Internet in general. 18 years. The children of today probably believe that the industrial revolution was made possible because of the Internet...

[paul1981]

yeah!

I was using altavista way back in 97, then i discovered google in 98 i think
now everyone uses google

I used to use yahoo, I avoided things with stupid names such as google, but looking back now even yahoo is more stupid a name than google. I remember when Twitter came on the scene and 'tweets'.... still sounds gay to me now... no way I'll ever have a twitter account or 'tweet' anyone. Why can't things have normal names anymore? My home page is Google though, has been for years.

[gertsy]

yeah!

I was using altavista way back in 97, then i discovered google in 98 i think
now everyone uses google

Yeah, if you want your every WWW movement recorded. By all means use Google. Shouldn't be long be for Facebook and Google merge. They have simular modus operandi.

[nicholas]

The first search engine I used was HotBot back in 96/97 then I changed to Google the day it went public in 99 I think.

For more privacy, route your http traffic through Privoxy (68k version works on MorphOS too, it's called Glimmer Blocker for OSX) and use http://startpage.com along with the hosts file found at http://someonewhocares.org

If you use Firefox on your PC disable 3rd Party cookies and enable Do Not Track, also install these addons: Ghostery, Adblock Plus, BetterPrivacy, No script, Refcontrol, Collusion, Flashblock, Self-Destructing Cookies

Install this too: https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere

Don't forget your tinfoil hat too!

[paul1981]

The first search engine I used was HotBot back in 96/97 then I changed to Google the day it went public in 99 I think.

For more privacy, route your http traffic through Privoxy (68k version works on MorphOS too, it's called Glimmer Blocker for OSX) and use http://startpage.com along with the hosts file found at http://someonewhocares.org

If you use Firefox on your PC disable 3rd Party cookies and enable Do Not Track, also install these addons: Ghostery, Adblock Plus, BetterPrivacy, No script, Refcontrol, Collusion, Flashblock, Self-Destructing Cookies

Install this too: https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere

Don't forget your tinfoil hat too!

All that just so no one can nick your amiga.org password?

[nicholas]

All that just so no one can nick your amiga.org password?

heheh

I'm sure google nab it everytime i login from Chrome on my phone.

[mrknight]

heheh

I'm sure google nab it everytime i login from Chrome on my phone.

I upgraded my phone firmware yesterday. Suddenly I have Chrome installed. I haven't used it so far.

I remember when Chrome was new. I installed it on my PC and later the same day Chrome crashed and I uninstalled it and haven't used it since. I'm sure it's much, much better now but you remember first impressions.

[Xanxi]

Shouldn't be long be for Facebook and Google merge. They have simular modus operandi.

Even if both are spying their users, the difference is that Google is offering great services for free (Maps, Documents, Earth, GMail, etc) whereas Facebook only give online space for crap and uninteresting things.

[gertsy]

Even if both are spying their users, the difference is that Google is offering great services for free (Maps, Documents, Earth, GMail, etc) whereas Facebook only give online space for crap and uninteresting things.

"For free."  I guess that says it all. But not in the way I'm sure you meant it. Everybody knows there's no such thing as a free lunch/ride. You pay.

Google earth - the places you look at and pin.
Maps - the same.
Documents - what you type into them.
Gmail - what you send.

http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/

All datamined summarised and applied to your id profile. Depending on your lifestyle and income your customer value can be worth millions over your lifetime. In marketing this data is immensely valuable. It's your choice if you want to give it up "for free".

[nicholas]

No product is truly free/gratis but some are Free.

http://www.fsf.org/about/

[nicholas]

I upgraded my phone firmware yesterday. Suddenly I have Chrome installed. I haven't used it so far.

http://www.cyanogenmod.org

If you need any help installing it just holler.

I remember when Chrome was new. I installed it on my PC and later the same day Chrome crashed and I uninstalled it and haven't used it since. I'm sure it's much, much better now but you remember first impressions.

I've stuck with Firefox since it was called Phoenix and later Firebird.

My loyalty has paid off as it now officially has the best performance of any browser.  It's addons are what kept me though.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/chrome-27-firefox-21-opera-next,3534.html

[Minuous]

Good riddance, AltaVista was crap anyway.

I remember signing up for their "Free Email for Life", that lasted about a year before they decided to breach their commitment and delete all the email accounts of people who wouldn't pay them. With no way of even forwarding emails to another account. What a bunch of blackmailing pricks.

[slaapliedje]

Whoa, blast from the past!  I only used AltaVista briefly, then Yahoo, then Dogpile.com.  Dogpile was a mega-search, and just used other search engines.  Turned out most things were found on Google, so I switched then.

In the past year or so, I've switched to DuckDuckGo.com because of Google's data mining.

I even sent them an email to support mycroft, so we could put it as a search engine in iBrowse.  They replied and said they'd consider working on it!  I think they're open source anyhow, anyone want to volunteer to help?  

slaapliedje