Remember the Internet

[wulf109]

When I first used the Internet,I think it was 1992,you could type in something followed by FAQ and come up with neutral sites that provided actual information on the subject your looking for. Today however if you type xxxxxxxxxxx FAQ you get web sites providing NO information just offers to sell you the item of your FAQ. It's almost impossible today to find information since every link and search engine is money supported and is only interested in selling you something. I guess this what they meam by predatory capitalism. Yahoo was started by a couple of college students,now it's on the stock market. I guess I'm getting old and cranky because I don't think this is progress.

[pfh]

Also depends on the engine driving the search. Searches nowadays seem to rely on number of "hits" so naturally sale hits recieve more than the "educational" ones. (what's that tell us??!!)

Remember compu serve? my 1st isp.

[Soopafresh]

I recall being reprimanded for trying to sell a guitar on the internet in 1993. "The Internet is NOT for commercial transactions !" LOL

[offline]

If you are serious about searching, the only way
to increase the signal to noise ratio is to use
specialist search software.

Example: http://www.copernic.com/

[Deku Scrub]

I was first online in 1990 via Prodigy. It was not the internet as we know it; it was mostly bulletin boards and news/sports/weather info.
I spent most of my time in the bulletin boards yacking about Nintendo games.

Back on topic- I am also getting tired of people trying to sell me stuff when I just want some information. I wish google had an option exclude sales pitches when doing a search.

[normcar]

Google or any other search engine would beat the crap out of the other engines, if they had a way of avoiding the problem. I would also like to beat the crap out of the people who are trying to abuse the search engines in this way.

[wulf109]

Google and Yahoo are advertiser supported,they'll never limit the adds,it's how they make money.

[stiltman]

If I'm doing "serious" research, I use Ebsco 99% of the time. Now if I'm just casually search on a subject, I use google