plug

On the fascinating subject of search engines.

There are one or two that I've traditionally used for most of my finding stuff needs. While most of the time I haven't had anything to complain about, at least one of them has picked up some annoying habits. This search engine that shall remain nameless has started spitting out suggestions whenever you type into the search field. You fill in a letter or two--say G-L--and suddenly there are results for "Gloria Gaynor," "Glad bags," "glue sniffing" and so on. To me this is annoying, distracting, and unhelpful whether or not the guesses are right.

So I was kind of in the market for a site that would be useful to me--as in bringing me links corresponding to what I want to see--but that wouldn't get on my nerves. It's the kind of shopping that doesn't involve spending money, which is a plus.

Anyway, I found a pretty good one in Clusty. It doesn't try to second guess you. What it does do is group results into clusters depending on what other words pop up. These are displayed in a sidebar. I think they are sometimes useful, but you don't have to refer to them if you don't want to.

It's not necessarily for all your surfing needs, but it may suit a lot of them. There's no tab for video results, which you may or may not find to be a problem. But if your looking for the old Duran Duran clip with all the titties, you'll find it. (Hint, it's "Girls on Film.")