about
Why bother?
Off and on, for many years, I have been rather annoyed with my blatant laziness with search engines. Way back in the before time, I was never tied to only one search engine. I used several to suit my needs best. Now . . . I'm a Google addict.Or at least I was, but now I've taken steps to rectify this problem.
How does The Hermit Crab help?
The Hermit Crab is simply a passthrough, a portal, to other search engines. Any terms search for through The Hermit Crab are passed, as-is, to a randomly selected search engine. Thus, addictions are quelled simply by taking myself (and yourself) out of the equation.How random is random?
Randomness is as random as can be. No preference is given in any way to a particular engine. Furthermore, the randomness is such that there is no memory. If you get one search engine, say Clusty, it's very possible to get Clusty again only three searches later.What if I really dislike some search Engines?
The goal here is to expose myself and others to as many quality search engines as possible. That said, everybody will have some they just don't like. I have my own. Currently only 19 search engines are available. Everybody is able to pick and choose which engines they wish to make use of. Simply set your preferences (browser cookies are required) and off you go.Only 19 search engines?
The Hermit Crab has just begun. In all honesty, there are hundreds of search engines out there. My goal, at the onset, was to provide a decent variety of search engines without becoming overwhelming. Having a list of 150 engines too choose from would probably cause people to not even bother. I know I would emit a nice, solid "ugh" if I saw that many.However, there is no magic to this list of 19 search engines. Hopefully, in time, I will find others I think should be on list. Better yet, hopefully people like you, who find The Hermit Crab useful, will give me suggestions on which search engines to include. The ultimate goal is to have a sizable list of truly high quality search engines.
Please take notice that some of these search engines require javascript and/or cookies in order to work. I cannot control this.
What if I don't want to let The Hermit Crab drop off cookies at my browsers doorstep?
Have no fear. Cookies are not required for The Hermit Crab to work properly. Cookies are only required to set your own preferences. If no cookie is set The Hermit Crab will simply draw on the pre-determined (currently by me) search engine selection from which to draw random searches. At present these are: AltaVista, AllTheWeb, Ask, ChaCha, Clusty, Gigablast, Google, Metacrawler, MSN, Snap, YahooAlso note that cookies are required to use the Framed Search option. All this does is provide a search frame at the top of the screen to provide immediate access to the current search terms for modification or for a quick, new search. For the framed search to work, javascript is also required.
Do your and your cookies store my information?
No. The only information gathered by The Hermit Crab is which engines are used (but not the search terms used) and basic visitor information such as your browser, operating system version and which pages of The Hermit Crab you visit. If you are interested in all that is collected please visit phpMyVisites (see link below).Credits
Not really credits so much as little bits of help along the way:Andreas Viklund (www.andreasviklund.com) : one of Andreas' website templates provided the jumping-off point for my layout.
Charles Knight and Read/WriteWeb (www.readwriteweb.com/about_charles.php ) : Charles' list of Top 100 Alternative Engines helped me pick out my initial 19 search engines.
Tadd Heidgerken (www.taddheidgerken.com) : For convincing me to include the Framed Search option.
phpMyVisites ( www.phpmyvisites.us ) : Wonderful website visitor logging system.
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