The first thing that comes to anyones mind when ‘search the internet’ is google. That is not a particularly bad thing as google possibly has the largest catalog of websites etc etc. However for more specific searches, i find google even with the Xippee extension, which I mentioned in why firefox? why?, quite obsolete. Information is hard to find among the several hundred pages google finds about an obscure topic. This is where web 2.0 search engines come in. For me these are much easier to use and organize the information extremely well
- Cuil.Pronounced ‘cool’. As you can see from the screen shot, cuil has a very google-like interface. Simple text based design and a search bar
However cuil really comes into use when we actually search something. Lets say we type in a random term…’pomegranate. What cuil does is that it organizes the files into simple thumbnails for easier search. This is much more visually apealling to the eye than google.
Cuil was highly anticipated and even termed the ‘google-killer’ yet it hasn’t done so. However cuil still remains an excellent site for an organized search.
- Searchme. Is truly a next generation search engine. Again it displays a simple front page similar to Googles’ however as we search lets say for the sake of keeping things constant ‘pomegranate’. We are given a similar interface to apple cover-flow. This method of searching is extremely visually appealing and is very efficient method of searching as it gives you a thumbnail of what the website looks like. very useful tool.
For me searchme is a much better tool to use than cuil. I find it more intresting to search with and it is much easier
- Viewzi. Possibly the best search tool out there. Viewzi organizes your data into categories. Pretend you’re searching for pomegranates recipes instead of the fruit. Viewzi organizes your search into different categories and allows you to change between these categories extremely easily. This is extremely useful as it allows you to categorize your search
In the screen shot i am in the photo version. As you can see above the photos there are tabs. This is where you switch your search style. Pretend you want to search for pomegranate album. Than the result is similar to this screen
Searching with viewzi is ultimately much more fun and provides much more refined results
- Joongel. My last example is my latest find. Unlike the other 3 examples it doesnt organize the results by category but omits results from obscure sites. It only searches the big websites in that particular category. This leaves you with an absolutely massive database to search from without all that useless stuff about a blog about a guy living on the South Sandwich Islands.(Thought that would be extremely interesting.
Joongel has a crowded homepage yet it simple to understand and is extremely useful. Joongel searches your term on all ten websites and than allows you to choose which website to choose results from. Obviously you can change your website incase you don’t find what you want. This leaves the hassle of going to ask.com, google and yahoo to search for the same thing
However i am being hypocritical here. I still use google extensively but the baove websites, I feel if I use more, will be much better and will reduce my search time by far
simplified overthinking 