# Googl (sneaky suckers). **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 5, 2002, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/googl-sneaky-suckers/130993 "2002-10-05T20:11:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2002, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/googl-sneaky-suckers/130993/21 "2002-10-06T21:05:22Z")
You mean there are people who _don’t_ have Google as their homepage, or at least a one-click bookmark on their Personal Toolbar? ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2002, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/googl-sneaky-suckers/130993/22 "2002-10-07T01:37:33Z")
Once by mistake I typed [http://www.altavisa.com](http://www.altavisa.com) — and I got a page that said, “Yep, we’re not Alta Vista, but as long as you’re here, maybe you wouldn’t mind taking a look at this…” So I deliberately typed in [http://www.goggle.com](http://www.goggle.com) and came up with a site that put a picture of diving goggles on its home page, and set itself up as a portal of sorts. The “goggle” theme was a sly wink to the folks who happened in there because of a typing error, since everybody knew that [goggle.com](http://goggle.com) wouldn’t exist if not for Google’s popularity. ---
**Author:** ![Urban\_Ranger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Urban\_Ranger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urban_Ranger)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2002, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/googl-sneaky-suckers/130993/23 "2002-10-07T07:33:44Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by DrMatrix \* > For Netscape 7.0, you can go to Preferences; select Navigator -\> Internet Search. Then select Google (or Lycos, Music: Artist by Spinner, Netscape Search, or Overture) from the Search Using: menu. Then when you want to search using Google, you just put your search arguements into the location bar. Same with Mozilla. ---
**Author:** ![RM\_Mentock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e274bd/32.png) [@RM\_Mentock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RM_Mentock)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2002, 9:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/googl-sneaky-suckers/130993/24 "2002-10-07T09:44:09Z")
There is also a current flap about [www.nissan.com](http://www.nissan.com) The guy, name of Nissan, has had his website for a long time–apparently, the only leg the big guys have to stand on is he has allowed some car sales companies to put links on his page. I haven’t even looked at the page–I get all my news from the papers. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Derleth \* > **Of course, that is the Internet as a whole, not the web. The web began as a small NCSA project, born when it released Mosaic, the first web browser.** First web browser, yes, but you skipped the part about [CERN](http://public.web.cern.ch/Public/), “Where the Web was born”, ya big lacuna ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2002, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/googl-sneaky-suckers/130993/25 "2002-10-07T22:38:45Z")
**Mentock** : Explain to me how you’re going to surf the web in a modern sense without a browser, ya ditto-head. ---
**Author:** ![Some\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Some\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Some_Guy)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2002, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/googl-sneaky-suckers/130993/26 "2002-10-07T23:51:55Z")
With a SGML parser and a pager, you yutz. (not that I think anybody ever did this, but you _could_ - after all, you can set Emacs up to interpret HTML fairly easily.) ---
**Author:** ![ForumBot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ee59a6/32.png) [@ForumBot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ForumBot)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2002, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/googl-sneaky-suckers/130993/27 "2002-10-08T00:20:27Z")
You think that’s bad? Check out what the folks at Googli have done: [http://www.googli.com](http://www.googli.com) ---
**Author:** ![RM\_Mentock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e274bd/32.png) [@RM\_Mentock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RM_Mentock)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2002, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/googl-sneaky-suckers/130993/28 "2002-10-08T01:13:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Derleth \* > **Explain to me how you’re going to surf the web in a modern sense without a browser** Why? ---
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2002, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/googl-sneaky-suckers/130993/29 "2002-10-08T02:34:20Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ForumBot \* > \*\*You think that’s bad? Check out what the folks at Googli have done: > > [http://www.googli.com](http://www.googli.com) \*\* Why you lousy… :mad: I’m _tellin’_. MODS!!! Thrash this sucker. Peace, mangeorge ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2002, 9:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/googl-sneaky-suckers/130993/30 "2002-10-08T09:36:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Derleth \* > \*\ ***Mentock** : Explain to me how you’re going to surf the web in a modern sense without a browser, ya ditto-head. \*\* Does lynx count? ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/googl-sneaky-suckers/130993/31 "2002-10-09T02:11:18Z")
**puly** : lynx is a browser. It doesn’t do images, but it’s a browser. **Some Guy** : emacs is a development environment. It has its own programming language (elisp) and virtual machine, and you can write anything you want to run in emacs (the language isn’t circumscribed, in other words). So saying emacs is a browser makes as much sense as saying Linux is a browser. With an SGML parser and a pager, you have a bad lynx clone. It’s still a browser. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/googl-sneaky-suckers/130993/32 "2002-10-09T02:12:51Z")
What was at [googli.com](http://googli.com)? I can’t access the domain. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/googl-sneaky-suckers/130993/33 "2002-10-09T07:41:50Z")
Derleth, for some reason I thought Lynx predated Mosaic. As a hypertext browser it did, but independent of the web. Otherwise, it seems to have had web capabilities in the modern sense, though non-graphical, a month after the release of Mosaic. But from what I can gather, Mosaic was not the first web browser, which is really the point I was trying to address. Apparently, the first web browser was a a program called, simply, WorldWideWeb on a NeXT computer, which was finished on Christmas 1991. ---
**Author:** ![RM\_Mentock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e274bd/32.png) [@RM\_Mentock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RM_Mentock)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 9:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/googl-sneaky-suckers/130993/34 "2002-10-09T09:09:05Z")
[This link at Cern](http://public.web.cern.ch/Public/ACHIEVEMENTS/WEB/history.html) has a www history. My statement that agreed that mosaic was the first web browser is said to be in error. I guess it depends upon what you call a browser! Anyway, that should make things clear. It says Berners-Lee developed the concept in 1989, and demonstrated a prototype at the end of 1990. HEP folks were using it in 1991, and then it was made generally available. He launched a plea for other developers to join in, and NCSA responded with mosaic in 1993. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/googl-sneaky-suckers/130993/35 "2002-10-09T16:58:53Z")
**Mentock** : Interesting. Thanks for the correction. ---
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/googl-sneaky-suckers/130993/36 "2002-10-09T23:18:44Z")
Less than 12 years ago. Astounding, when you think about it. 🙂 Peace, mangeorge ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2002, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/googl-sneaky-suckers/130993/37 "2002-10-10T02:22:49Z")
I wonder if anyone remembers Gopher, the pre-WWW way to surf the Internet. Yup, there was “Gopherspace,” and although there weren’t personal Gopher pages, most schools, many government institutions and many research organizations and non-profits had Gopher sites. Instead of hypertext, Gopher sites were configured as a hierarchical list of documents … you “dug” through a site to reach a page. There Gopherspace was practically abandoned by 1997, long surpassed by the more visually appealing World Wide Web. There’s still a few holdouts, though. I found one Gopher site at gopher://quux.org/ . Unfortunately, it’s empty. I thought about setting up a Gopher server, in the same vein as the Web servers churning away on Commodore 64s and Atari STs. ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2002, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/googl-sneaky-suckers/130993/38 "2002-10-10T02:26:27Z")
Here’s a Gopher simulator of sorts for Web browsers that don’t support the protocol. [http://gopher.quux.org:70](http://gopher.quux.org:70) ---
**Author:** ![Spiratu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@Spiratu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiratu)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2002, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/googl-sneaky-suckers/130993/39 "2002-10-10T03:22:43Z")
I used to have a Computers for Dummies-type book that gave information on Gopher, as well as Archie and Veronica, which were (I think) the equivalent of search engines. There was also a little blurb about the WWW in there, which the author claimed was the biggest waste of time ever (ok, he may have been right there) and of course predicted that it would never catch on. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2002, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/googl-sneaky-suckers/130993/40 "2002-10-10T07:40:35Z")
Gopher! Hell yeah! University of Minnesota had one of the main pages, didn’t they? Cripes, I still remember when Yahoo! was a non-searchable collection of favorite internet destinations put together by a couple o’ college students. That was 1992. Two years later and the drab black-and-white unix shell with esoteric commands was replaced by colorful graphics, sound and point-and-click ease. Ah…nostalgia… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/googl-sneaky-suckers/130993.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/googl-sneaky-suckers/130993.md?page=3)