To be fair, the search space was much smaller before Google. Also, I kept using Altavista for quite a while before finally switching over to Google as my default search, changing only because google is infinitely better on technical searches.

Now, I use Ask for non-technical searches and google for technical ones -- I'm really starting to like ask, but it doesn't prioritize technical searches like Google.

I used Altavista, then HotBot, then Google. I remember reading a Time Magazine article in 1998 about the "new wave" of search engines; it featured Google pretty prominently, and I switched not long after that.

Google's results were very much better than everything else, by a much greater margin than they are today. Before Google, the cliche that every search returns porn was actually pretty true.

I remember using Altavista, Excite, WebCrawler and Yahoo simultaneously in order to find what I wanted.

Me too. Or one of those multi-engine search sites (Copernicus?).

One day, I decided to try Google. I remember having thought "Humm, this seems to be slightly better. I'll use it for a while"

Sometimes it seems incredible that it was only 10 years ago.

Ditto, I found Google in about 1998, from a multi-engine search site and noticed it was coming up with all the good stuff. I must have been one of the first people to use it (at the time).

Additional note that most other search engines were a test of pain before Google came along.

Oh yeah, I forgot about Copernic. They used to be awesome.

Infoseek, believe it or not, was damn good. Almost on a par with G back then.

I used to use hot-bot. I found they brought back the best results.

hotbot was awesome, especially for pirated stuff (songs and games). If you were a starving student, it helped finding entertainment for free.