Not sure why this has gotten so far up my nose but it really has. It is
another small step towards the 'dumbing down' of the web and computing
in general. Many of you will think I have far too much free time on my
hands to be bothered with this but I encourage you to consider it as
someone who prefers to think for themselves rather than having others
second guess you.
<RANT>
For as long as I can remember, I've used the altavista search engine and
even have (had) it as my 'home page' on my browser because it was
honest, reliable and useful. The actual url is www.altavista.com but
they are now redirecting requests to this url to 'country specific'
sites, in our case, au.altavista.com, where the default search scope is
sites only within Australia. Sure, you can get a full-scope search by
clicking a radio button but that's not the point - the default isn't
changable and I almost never need to search specifically within Oz.
Basically, when I type www.altavista.com, I really want
www.altavista.com, not something else (otherwise I would have typed
something else).
I find this insulting and liken it to the annoying "paperclip man" in MS
Office telling me, "It appears that you're typing a letter...".
Fortunately we have StarOffice and Linux as alternatives.
This "we'll do the thinking for you" stuff needs to be nipped in the
bud, not just at Altavista but elsewhere too. Otherwise we might as well
exclusively use Windows and AOL and accept all things as they are.
</RANT>
I've voted with my feet (mouse rather) and sent this to Altavista.
gsbme-lx040.gsbme.unsw.edu.au/~greggs/altavista/altavista_bye.jpg
and complained to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Thanks for listening. Gregg
Their reply:
Dear Valued Member,
Thank you for your inquiry.
Thanks for your mail.
AltaVista has created country specific web sites to provide a better
search experience to our visitors from outside the US and
altavista.com.au is one of these sites. From the Australian site you :
· have access to a local index of almost 10 million Australian pages ?
which is not available from altavista.com
· can search the whole of the index found on .com ? some 550 million
pages ? just select 'the world wide web' as your search option under the
search box
· can customise your search results ? save them, e-mail them to friends
or colleagues, and track where you've searched.
For the time being, we will continue to redirect you to the Australian
site when you visit altavista.com. If you need to visit the US site,
just click on the 'go to US site' link on the top right of the
Australian site.
If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us again.
Sincerely,
Edwin
AltaVista Support Team
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