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SEARCH ENGINES --
A search engine is a program that locates specific information in a database for you. They don't all work the same, so here is a little bit about how each one operates. You should try different ones and use the one that you like and that gives you the type of results you need.

  • Google PC Magazine picks Google as the Editors' Choice in the December 5, 2000 issue. They say "...Google still focuses on searching. Fast with a refreshingly spare interface. Google consistently turns up high-quality, highly relevant results."

  • Northern Light They also selected Northern Light as an Editors' Choice. This search engine uses custom folders and a natural language search engine.

  • AltaVista is the largest search engine on the web. Scooter, the AltaVista spyder, searches about 6,000,000 web pages every day. It indexes all the words on the pages. When searching, it ranks sites for relevancy and places the best ones at the top of the list. About 15% of searchers use this site. Use this site when you have lots of words that are relevant.

  • Excite looks for themes and common words when its spyder searches web pages. It uses your search words to infer the actual meaning of your search. It can summarize all the pages from one site into a single listing. About 25% of searchers use this site. Use this when you have ideas that make a theme type query.

  • HotBot searches about 10,000,000 web pages each day. Web page owners can submit their pages to this site. About 5% of searches are with HotBot. Results show the page title, relevancy and description. Use this when the site may not be on other sites, but the owner may have submitted it to HotBot.

  • Infoseek results are catagorized. This can help get you to your subject faster. The site has other powerful features to narrow down the searches. About 19% of searchers use Infoseek. Use it when you can categorize your question.

  • Lycos is based on a spyder that makes its own key words and title for a site. Use this site when you have key words for searching. The site has powerful tools you can use to focus the search. About 15% of searchers use this site.

  • WebCrawler has a smaller database and will give you fewer results. Only 3 pages to look through, not 15, for example. The spyder does not search sites with frames. About 8% of users use this site. Humans help catagorize the sites. Use it when you need the top sites for a catagory.

  • Yahoo! is the most widely known search tool and is used by about 45% of searchers. Humans check the work of the spyder. Yahoo! users submit sites and the category they fall under and these are also checked by real people. If Yahoo! doesn't find it, it will use AltaVista's database for more results. You can always start here and go to the others if this does not work for you.

  • SearchBug.com Finding things on the internet is easy using searchbug. This site is easy to use and takes the work out of looking for some kinds of information not easily found using the other search engines. Compare shipping rates, look up phone numbers, etc.

  • About good for general queries;

  • AOL.com gives rather poor results in my opnion. Go elsewhere;

  • Ask Jeeves is a natural language engine;

  • Direct Hit excells in home page targeting;

  • FAST Search has over 1 billion pages in its database;

  • Go To has sites that pay to show up on your list;

  • IWon gives away cash prizes, $10,000 every day and $1,000,000 every month. One might start here just to play the game;

  • LookSmart has a team of live Webrarians and over 200,000 categories;

  • MSN similar to Hot Bot with boolian and wild card searches;

  • NBCi is good for commerce, finance and unusual phrases;

  • Oingo This site helps clarify your search with drop-down boxes;

  • Open Directory Project an extremely successful Web directory;

  • Raging Search is bare bones Altavista without news feeds and shopping services.

  • If you can't find it anywhere else, try this page with pointers to EVERYTHING! I could spend hours and hours at www.refdesk.com

    • CYBER CRIME --
    This list is some links to sites that deal with the criminal side of the web.   This includes such things as computer intrusion or hacking, password trafficing, software piracy.   Internet fraud is stealing your information over the internet and misusing it, such as credit card number theft or social security number theft and related items.

    United States Department of Justice CyberCrime

    Cyber-Safety Rules of the Road

    Mr. McGruff talks about Cyber Safety for Kids.   Don't miss this site if you have kids learning to use the internet.