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Urls for a rainy day

Websites Recommended by Users, to Help you find Anything and Everything on the Net

I only include sites that have been checked and recommended. If a site doesn't come up to scratch, please tell me so I can keep this list up to date. New addresses are marked *. The page is designed so that you can easily make it your browser's homepage

  1. Favourite Searchers
  2. Lists, Groups and Experts
  3. Other Search Facilities - Directories & Guides, Search Engines, Search Facilities, Image/Non-Text, Multiple and People Searchers
  4. Subject Guides and Libraries & Children's Resources
  5. Arts/Humanities
  6. Award Providers
  7. General Texts
  8. Media Archives
  9. Movies
  10. News
  11. Ready Reference - Facts & Data, General, Literary & Publishing, and World
  12. Academia
  13. Law, Crime, Politics, Government
  14. Science, General Knowlege, Computer and Internet
  15. Writers Resources

Disclaimer: No guarantee is given that any URLs are still operative, or are any use, or that any information supplied is accurate. In fact we take no responsibility whatsoever for anything at all, so it's on your own head for good or ill.

All suggestions and comments are welcome. If sending information on an existing link, please include the link's title in the FAQ as well as the address and any other information that you feel will be useful. If suggesting a new link, then I generally only include sites that have a wide range, and usually only those which compile links to other sites or will in some other way help Internet searchers. Click here.

Enjoy!

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Favourite Searchers

  • Alta Vista - Still very good- will search for images, audio, video
  • Best Private Search Engines - popular search engines like Google and Bing track your searches and other online activity. Comparitech list the best private search engines to consider as alternatives
  • Britannica - run by those encyclopedia people, was subscription only, then free, now subscription again - will they ever make up their minds? Still good value if you can afford it, but check out the free alternatives too
  • Galaxy - excellent directory
  • Google - the market leader for most searches - simple, functional and fast
  • Theinfo.com - excellent multi-search site
  • Profusion - very good metasearch engine which combines results saving duplication and can also check links are still live
  • Search Spaniel - one of the very best multi-search sites - free encyclopedia in many languages:
  • Wikipedia - Wikipedia works by allowing anyone who wants to correct an entry, which with millions of users works remarkably well.
  • Yahoo Directory - Sometimes great, sometimes not

Lists, Groups and Experts

Other Directories, Search Engines, Search Facilities, Image/Non-Text and Multiple Searchers.

Directories

  • About.com - value-added directory by experts on all subjects
  • Clearinghouse - one of the original value-added directories, rates links for quality no longer actively maintained but still valuable
  • DMOZ Open Directory - selective - sites evaluated by expert volunteers you too could sign up in your field of expertise
  • WebRings - sites linked by topic for easy browsing

Search Engines

Search Facilities

Image and Other Non-Text Search Resources

  • Ditto - image searcher
  • FindSounds.com - search engine for finding sound effects and sample sounds on the Web
  • Google - and Google can also search for images - is there no end to its abilities?
  • ImageFinder - searches for various kinds of pictures
  • Image Surfer - search for images by categories or keywords, the results are given in thumbnail image form
  • Webshots - impressive image search engine

Multiple Searchers with Multi- and Meta- Search Engines

  • Aliweb: SearchForm
  • Debriefing - efficient, removes duplicates, English and French
  • Dogpile - impressively fast, and you can set a maximum search time, eg: 20 secs
  • Freeality - includes some less usual search sites
  • Internet Sleuth - masses of categories
  • IPL - grades the top search engines by their strengths and weaknesses
  • IxQuick - highly recommended metaengine
  • Langenberg - a vast multitude of categories, from government to finding people, maps to cooking, encyclopedia to translation
  • MetaCrawler - search across multiple engines at once
  • OnlineSpy - from general web searching to song lyrics, pictures, newsgroup postings and maps not just USA!

People Finding and Other Miscellaneous Searchers

  • All-In-One/People - a number of people-searchers on one page
  • Ancestry.com - good for genealogical research and looking up details on dead Americans
  • Background checks.org - People Search, Public Records, Reverse Phone Lookup and more USA only
  • Bigfoot - look up email addresses, but by no means all-embracing
  • Infospace - reverse telephone lookup, address and email
  • Langenberg - find a person by a variety of email search sites
  • PeopleSearch - mostly fee-paid services but also some good free multi-search facilities to use
  • Vservers Domain Check - domain names, what's taken and who's behind them

Arts/Humanities

Award Providers

These sites search for newsites, rate them, and provide "Best" or sometimes "Worst" type listings, in all subjects:

General Subject Guides

  • BBC Web Guide - BBC Education's searchable guide to Internet sites on key subjects, with useful reviews of each site
  • Beaucoup - search pages on a multitude of subjects
  • Electric Library - publications, TV and radio transcripts, dictionaries, encyclopedias, maps, pictures and classic works. Note: monthly/annual subscription with free trial
  • ELib - subject-based review lists - still limited in scope
  • Encyclopedia Brittanica - The encyclopedia. Monthly/annual subscription with free trial
  • Encyclopedia.Com - Concise Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia
  • Escotet - links to sites in every category - humanities, social sciences, economics, etc, but takes time to find your way around
  • Internet Public Library - online books, magazines and newspapers from all over the world
  • Information Research FAQ - how to find information fast, online and off
  • Kai's StudyWeb- wide-ranging educational resources in English and Norwegian
  • Library Resources on the Internet searchable
  • LibWeb: libraries worldwide
  • MiningCo - a wide-ranging subject-based resource: "500 expert guides mining the net on thousands of topics."
  • OLIG - Oxford Libraries Internet Gateway - Sciences, Social Sciences & Humanities
  • Online Tutorial Resoruces - An impressively large number of free books and tutorials on-line on all kinds of subjects from entertainment and cookery to home and finance.
  • Pathfinders - guides written to get you started researching many topics, both online and off. Very focused and easy to follow - be patient if pages are slow to appear. Worth waiting for.
  • Wikipedia - free encyclopedia in many languages: Wikipedia works by allowing anyone who wants to correct an entry, which with millions of users works remarkably well.

Children's Resources

  • BBC Education - just as classy as you'd imagine with the BBC brand name
  • The Children's Literature Web Guide - includes info on movies/tv based on children's books
  • Encarta Online - concise level searches free, full encyclopedia payable
  • Homework Heaven - a massive online academic directory designed for student use, from junior to college and beyond
  • Internet For Schools - easily navigated educational resources, linked to UK National Curriculum, school sites and chat rooms
  • National Geographic - searchable for all ages, but also has special area for kids
  • Topmarks - good searchable directory for kids age range and subject can be specified
  • Yahooligans - The big Yahoo directory for little terrors

General Texts

Media Archives

Movies

  • CineMedia - links to over 5,000 sites devoted to actors, 700 magazines and journals, 800 film and video festivals, and 400 TV networks and channels
  • Greatest films - synopses of the greatest mostly US films ever made
  • The Internet Movie Database - not error-free but still the best
  • Netribution - Everything you wanted to know about the film industry, from statistics and services to festivals and even films.
  • Reelgood - search engine for where to stream, buy or rent a movie or show. Searchable for titles and people.
  • RML Movie Page - not just Australian links, but some local flavour
  • SA Film Independent - links to film and TV databases
  • Screensite: Film & TV Studies

News

Ready Reference - Facts & Data, General, Literary & Publishing, and World

Reference: Facts & Data

  • Esearch Central - market research reports, white papers, business intelligence including a forum for posting requests for information
  • Finding Data on the Internet - links to online databases for fact-checking or statistics
  • "Statistics Every Writer Should Know" - do you know the difference between mean and median...? etc

Reference: General

  • General Reference Resources
  • How StuffWorks - good resource on how all kinds of things, er, work, from technology and the body to finance and careers
  • Internet Public Library Reference Center
  • KnowPlay - dictionaries, encylopedias, finance, recipes, etc - good selection and fast
  • Martindale's Reference Desk - you won't believe the wealth of odd and unusual, and timely, references you'll find there
  • My Virtual Reference Desk - - inc. encyclopaedia, quick ref, fast facts, almanac
  • National Writers Union - loads of very useful research and resource links, well-organised
  • No Junk Reference Page - essays, freeware, samples, books, etc for free
  • Reference Shelf - inc. geographic, phone, words, scientific, perpetual calendar
  • Research It! - anagrams, currency converter, a language translator, dictionary, thesaurus, zip code retrieval, biography searcher, bible search, quotation search and package tracking plus a lot of other stuff you might need now and then
  • Virtual Reference Desk - census data, dictionaries, maps and travel, science data
  • Virtual Reference Shelf - you name it, they've got it

Reference: Literary & Publishing

  • Acronym Finder - more than 89,000 general and specialised acronyms and abbreviations in many languages
  • Babelfish - translates text and web pages between many languages
  • Bibliofind - search for and order real actual, paper! out-of print or obscure books from booksellers around the world
  • Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable
  • Media Finder - subscriptions, advertising and list rental rates-for over 90,000 publications
  • One Across - computer help for crossword cheats and why not?
  • Onelook Dictionaries - search 1,696,778 words across 258 dictionaries
  • Quotation Center - large database
  • Quotation Links
  • Quotations - Bartlett
  • Translator - Rechnik - translates common words and expressions between English, Spanish, French, Bulgarian, Portuguese, and Italian
  • Visual Thesaurus - online thesaurus that allows you to see the relationship between words in three dimensions
  • Voycabulary - dictionary, translation and thesaurus links for every word on any given web-page

Reference: World

Academia

Law, Crime, Politics & Government

Law & Crime

Politics & Government

Science, General Knowledge, Computer & Internet

Science and General Knowledge

Computer and Internet

  • Computer Virus Myths - the myths, the hoaxes, the urban legends, and the implications if you believe in them, with a list of virus hoaxes from A to Z
  • Datafellows: one of the best sites for the latest on virus myths
  • Internet-101 Demographics - single source page for Internet Demographics resources
  • Internet-101 Viruses & Hoaxes - also Myth, Fraud, Chain Letter and Anti-Spam sites
  • Internet Traffic Report - reports on data flow around the world
  • Junkbusters - get rid of junk e-mail, junk snail mail, junk phone calls
  • A Student's Guide to Internet Research with the WWW
  • Suzanne's Computer Page - Useful links, especially for Internet-related research. Note: the no-frames version may be easier on the eye
  • Web and Internet Search Engine FAQ
  • Webmasters' GuidetoSearch Engines
  • Windweaver Web Resources - over 100 pages of useful Internet search advice, comparisons of search engines and links

Writers Resources

General Writing Resources

Writing: Screenwriting and On-Line Scripts

All suggestions and comments are welcome. If sending information on an existing link, please include the link's title in the FAQ as well as the address and any other information that you feel will be useful. If suggesting a new link, then I generally only include sites that have a wide range, and usually only those which compile links to other sites or will in some other way help Internet searchers. Click here.

Credits: URLs supplied and compiled by Charles Harris, Laurence A. Moore, Steven Blacher, Yvonne Hewett and many others.

© Charles Harris

This FAQ may be copied in whole or in part for non-profit making purposes only, provided you tell me you're doing it, adequate credit is given to those who helped towards it and the home address is given http://www.search-faq.com.

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