I can remember the early days when Windoze 98 ruled supreme, and Alta Vista was THE search engine.
I can recall finding as much, if not more, with Alta Vista, than Google ever have (your results weren't censored, unlike Google - and if you don't realise that Google filter your results, even when you have "Safe Search" switched off, then you really are naive!)
What a shame that Alta Vista was hobbled and castrated by corporate scumbags intent on corporate aims and gains, rather than the development of a search engine that was a real force in searching the WWW - and long before Google began to rule the world.