Encyclopedias & FAQs
109 sites
http://searchenginehistory.com/
Search Engine History.com, published by Aaron Wall, traces the full arc of search engine development from Vannevar Bush's 1945 vision of hypertext through the rise of Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft. Covering early directories, meta search, SEO, pay-per-click advertising, and legal battles, it serves as a comprehensive reference for anyone curious about how the modern web's information retrieval systems came to be.
https://getmylinks.tripod.com/
Juanita Ville's personal link collection organizes dozens of categories spanning astronomy, crafts, diet, entertainment, health, and webmaster tools in a classic Tripod-era style. A compact but eclectic curated directory from the early web era, it offers quick-access links to everything from UFO sites and horoscopes to webcams and retirement resources.
http://oldavista.com/
Old'aVista is a nostalgic search engine built specifically for finding old websites from classic hosting services like Geocities, Angelfire, Tripod, and AOL, complete with a retro AltaVista-inspired interface. It indexes a massive database of vintage web content and offers curated directories, top searches, and links to preservation resources like the Internet Archive.
http://xahlee.info/comp/unicode_index.html
Xah Lee's Unicode Search is a comprehensive reference tool for finding Unicode characters, emojis, and symbols by name, ID, or hex code, covering everything from math symbols to ancient scripts like Cuneiform and Linear B. Visitors can browse an extensive categorized index spanning emojis, currencies, IPA characters, box art, and dozens of world writing systems, making it an invaluable bookmark for developers and writers alike.
https://webcurios.co.uk/
Web Curios is a long-running newsletter-style blog curating the most interesting, strange, and compelling corners of the internet, published on a regular weekly schedule. Each edition is a sprawling, opinionated tour through web oddities, digital culture, and current events, written with a distinctly sardonic British voice.
https://dlib.org/dlib/april05/hammond/04hammond.html
Published in D-Lib Magazine in April 2005, this academic article by Tony Hammond and colleagues at Nature Publishing Group provides a comprehensive review of social bookmarking tools, covering platforms like del.icio.us, tagging systems, RSS feeds, and the emerging concept of the social web. It offers a detailed look at how user-driven bookmarking and tagging were reshaping information management on the early Web, making it a fascinating historical snapshot of Web 2.0 in its infancy.
https://journal.tildeverse.org/
The Intentional Journal of the Tildeverse is an open publishing platform where members of tilde communities like tilde.town and tilde.club can share long-form essays and research on any topic that sparks their curiosity. It functions as both a scholarly journal and a social space, offering peer review, constructive criticism, and community discussion for writers in the tilde ecosystem.
http://earthstation9.com/index.html?genealo2.htm=
Earth Station Nine is a massive web compendium boasting over 46,000 resources organized across 790 categories and 1,228 pages, drawing from the so-called "invisible web" to surface hard-to-find reference material. Covering everything from genealogy and military history to occult phenomena, health, antiques, and international search engines, it functions as a sprawling research hub for curious minds.
https://unbubble.eu/
Unbubble.eu was a German-language privacy-focused meta search engine that closed in March 2019, and this archived page now serves as a curated guide to Google alternatives including Metager, Qwant, DuckDuckGo, Mojeek, and specialty search tools. Visitors can find categorized listings of independent search engines, children's search tools, and specialized search services, making it a useful reference for anyone seeking to escape the Google/Bing duopoly.
https://cdrfaq.org/
Andy McFadden's comprehensive CD-Recordable FAQ is the definitive reference guide covering everything about CD-R and CD-RW technology, from basic concepts to advanced topics like packet writing, disc formats, and hardware troubleshooting. Originally developed for the comp.publish.cdrom Usenet newsgroups, this meticulously maintained document reached version 2.73 and is available in multiple languages including German, French, Russian, and more.