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You are remembering raging.com, still up-and-running today.

Altavisa used to be pretty clean, eg this 1998 version. I've often suspected that Google's initial popularity was due to Altavista's desire to be a 'portal' (remember them?) and the subsequent cruft that invaded their front page. They even tried to backtrack with Raging (and isn't that minimal now?) but I suspect people found Google was also a better search engine, rather than simply cleaner, and never went back.

Come on, people. Alta Vista has had text-only search for ages, and for at least a few years they've had raging.com which is just as aesthetically pleasing as Google. I find myself trying Google first and then going to raging.com if the topic i was looking for doesn't pop up in the first few Google pages (assuming Google has any results at all). Alta Vista picks up different results, and i'm sure lists a few pages that Google doesn't - mainly older pages that were around before Google existed and never got linked into the main spidering network.

raging.com is Alta Vista's minimal search, and it's just as fast and sleek as google, AND it doesn't assume just because you come from 203.x.x.whatever you're automatically interested in Australian content.

True! raging.com redirects me to http://www.altavista.com/web/text?raging=1, which redirects me to http://de.altavista.com/web/text?raging=1, so it assumes that I'm interested in German content, not Australian.

Then again, I have a German IP address.

3. Google loads quickly and does not attempt to invasively control your machine with javascript or other methods.

This is not true, as many Canadian users have known for a while and many Australian users such as myself have just discovered. Google now redirects the front page (www.google.com) to a country-specific front page based on your IP address. Sure, it's a nice service to have local information available (the paid advertisements down the side change to local advertisements, amongst other things), but it really sucks that you're forced to use it. Most users don't know to change their bookmark to http://www.google.com/intl/en/ to return to the "real" Google, so they're stuck with it. This was the number one reason why i changed from Alta Vista to Google in the first place, and now i'm really wondering whether i should stick with it. raging.com is Alta Vista's minimal search, and it's just as fast and sleek as google, AND it doesn't assume just because you come from 203.x.x.whatever you're automatically interested in Australian content.

http://www.altavista.com/web/text

Beat that Google (-:

AltaVista has actually had a "lite" version without the heavy commercial portal thingie for quite some time.

The link is/was: www.raging.com

But now I can see it has changed to point to the same renewed interface as www.altavista.com.

Check out www.raging.com. Altavista search; nothing but text.

• Unique No search engine comes close in terms of quality search results.
• Useful Regardless of net trends and fads, searching will always be a popular task, for just about every application (business, technical, entertainment).
• Unbiased Google has a strong reputation for delivering fine results first, rather than sites who've paid for "featured" links.
• Up-to-date As we saw in yesterday's story on Alta-Vista, the old-time search engines aren't keeping up. In contrast, google keeps stuff fresh. Any webmaster knows how frequently the google robot hits their sites.
• Usable No BS portal stuff, no "Search for 'Syntax Error: Cannot create HitException'". Just clean, fast, results.

Some sites are coming close in terms of some of these things (e.g. Teoma, Vivisimo, and Alta-Vista's Raging. Hoppefully, new sites will continue to give google a run for their money. But right now google is way ahead and continues to improve without adding unnecessary complexity. Considering how much people pay for net access, which will consist of frequent google visits, I think many people would pay $5-10/month for google if google started charging for general access.

AltaVista just started to look like all the others- commercialized, pushy, and annoying.

Ahh yes, everyone and their mom wants to be a fucking portal. If you still like Altavista's search results (I don't) you should look at www.raging.com.

Plastic just ran a thread regarding an article on the subscription side of Inside.com. It was about an as yet unpublished book by UK physicist Sir Martin Rees titled "Our Final Century?" as of the date I checked, there was nothing to be found on that book on the three search engines that combined have never let me down before: GOOGLE (Web & groups), RAGING (secondary web search) & DOGPILE (Print news). Part of the the problem is likely to be how current the story was, so my back up was to hit the big UK media sites BBC.co.uk, thetimes.co.uk, etc. but these also drew blanks.

AltaVista used to be pure, then went the portal route.

AltaVista did, at one point, fall from the purer faith. But then the clean, portal-less look of Google showed them the way, and they repented with Raging Search. Raging is exactly the same database and search engine as AltaVista, but with a Google-esque minimalist look. I can't imagine why anyone still uses AltaVista's front door when you actually your work done going through their back service entrance.

If you like Altavista, you may like to try Raging Search. It's made by altavista, using the altavista engine and database, but without all the stupid portal crap - just like the Google interface.

Using a combo of Raging and Google, I can find most things that I want with very few troubles at all.

Of course, this is one data point, but it's still a pretty bad failure for a random search. (I'm emailing a friend about the event.) It's also disappointing that Google has 3 listings within directories above the actual website - I don't think that would have happened a few months ago.

Here, use this. Screw Google. >;)

AV is bloated but their technology is first rate.

While I've been a Google fan since way back, I have to say that AV's frills-free raging is my engine of choice these days.

If you liked Altavista' search, but you don't like wading through all their portal crap, try http://www.raging.com/, which
has the Altavista search without any extra fluff.

Raging seems to be heavily influenced by Google. I wonder if there was a deal between the two that fell through, or if AltaVista simply wanted some of the "all we want is a search engine" market....

Either way, google is just want I need, and all I have on my home page.

I sent a message to the webmaster, and I got this reply:

Well, I think we should give them some time. Joshua answered a friend of mine in the same way: "Our thinking was to send text-only users to AltaVista, which has a search that is meant specifically for text-only browsers." "We are currently working on text-browser-enabling Raging Search. The work (optimizing pages for text-only browsers and making sure no functionality gets lost) should be done soon." Even better!

A superfast, minimalist search engine? Sounds perfect for Lynx, but no:

We're sorry. Raging.com does not support text-only browsers. For a superior text-only search, please visit AltaVista.

I've already expressed my disappointment to webmaster@raging.com.