Project #15

Search Engines


1. WolframAlpha - I had never heard of this search engine until this project and I absolutely love it.  It is a very useful tool and gives you everything you could possibly want to know about whatever you want to know about.  It's really neat how you can put in math problems or any calculation and receive the solution.  If you type in one word, I put balloons, it will give you the definition, pronunciation, an image, first known use, origins of the word, synonyms, rhymes, and so on.  This search engine would be a great resource for students or anything knowledge base.  I will definitely use this search engine in the future.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/

2.  Bing - This search engine is a lot like Google,  You can search for something you want to know about and it pulls up links that you can click on to find out more.  You can look at videos, images, maps, news, and more for whatever you search.  It does have pictures and titles of recent popular headlines at the bottom of the screen that you can click on to find out more about them.  I thought that was really useful since I do not keep up with the news on television.

http://www.bing.com/

3.  Wikipedia - This search engine starts out giving you the option to use any language around the world.  One thing that I find useful about this website is the content box.  The content box is pretty much an outline of what is in the article.  If there is something specific that you want to know about the topic you are searching you can just click on the link in content and it will take you directly to the specific place you need to be in the article.  So instead of reading and scrolling through the whole article for one specific "fact" this will save you some time.  You can find information fast and easy but Wikipedia may not always be the most reliable source.

http://www.wikipedia.org/

4.  Ixquick - I have never used this search engine before now.  I think this site is more helpful for simple topics.  The search is pretty basic.  You just type in what you are looking for and it brings up links that you can choose from.  To the left it does have an option for you to choose how recent you would like the links/articles to be.  For instance if you would like only links/articles that have been published or updated within 24 hours you would click on Past 24 Hours and it would only bring up those links.  This site also ensures full privacy.

https://ixquick.com/

5.  Dogpile - Dogpile is a brand new search app.  I like that it has a "Favorite Fetches" on the main page.  This option lists what people search for most frequently.  This site also has tabs that you can click on if you want to use the web, see images, videos, news, local, shopping, and white pages to use for your search.  I find all of them to be useful but the white pages are a little different.  You can click on the white pages tab and it gives you the option to type in anyone's name and get their information, address, public records search, and reverse phone look up.  Once you find who you are looking for (it gives where all 'John Smith' worked, lived, and their age) you can even pay for a People Search Report and a Background Report.  I feel like this could be useful but could also be dangerous and an invasion of privacy.

http://www.dogpile.com/

6.  DuckDuckGo - This search engines main motto is that they do not track you.  Apparently people may search for things they don't want other people to see and I believe this reassures them that they will not get tracked.  This site works pretty much like all of the rest.  You type in something you want to know about and it brings up links about that topic that you can click on.  I found this search engine to pretty basic but helpful.

https://duckduckgo.com/

7.  Yahoo - This is a pretty popular search engine but I really haven't used it much myself.  Looking at the page I like the setup and that it has Top News, your local up to date weather, and Trending Searches that you can choose from.  It has many sub categories at the top including mail, news, sports, finance, weather, games, groups, and many more.  This site is much like Google in that they have their own email that people can set up and that you can pretty much do or find anything on this site.  I found this site to be very useful and will use it more often.

https://www.yahoo.com/

8.  Ask.com - I have never been on this site but I find it very interesting.  The first thing that I notice is the Question of the Day.  They have a multiple choice question that you can answer and it tells you if you were right or wrong.  If you were wrong it gives you the correct answer.  It also lists the previous questions of the day that you can answer.  On the right of the screen there is a poll you can take.  The poll question for this particular day is "Did the NFL make the right decision with Ray Rice?"  You answer yes or no and it gives you the current poll.  The search engine basically does the same thing as the rest of them.  You type in a question and it brings up links that you can choose to find out more information on your topic.  I found this site to be more entertaining and may use it more for just the trivia.

http://www.ask.com/

Callie Barton