• Files for searching the Internet. Software and services for professional search. The largest servers with books

    Most of the time a user spends on the Internet is spent searching for information that interests him. At the same time, there are many ways to obtain this data - you can look into an online encyclopedia and try to find the answer there, you can subscribe to a newsletter on a topic of interest and carefully study incoming correspondence, or you can consult with competent people on the forum by asking them a question. But the most universal way to find something on the Internet is to use one of the many search engines. Services for searching millions and millions of websites are, perhaps, the fundamental link of the World Wide Web. Without Google, Yahoo, Yandex and many other search engines familiar today, a user’s stay on the Internet would be more like a blind man walking through the forest. The importance of search engines for working on the Internet can hardly be overestimated - many users have search engine addresses as their starting pages, and it is from there that for many people an endless journey through various network resources begins. However, the effectiveness of Internet excavations is different for everyone - one person finds information instantly, another takes a lot of time, and a third may not find anything useful for himself at all. What is the reason? The answer is simple: searching on the Internet is similar to fishing - you need to know where to fish and what to fish for, i.e. where to look and how to look. In today's article we will talk about the best way to search on the Internet, and we will tell you what search engines exist for this, besides those that are “on everyone’s lips.”

    However, we will start with those systems that you know. If a user knows the address of a search engine, this does not mean that he knows how to use it. Let's check how well you understand search query technology. How accurate the results you will get, first of all, depends on how skillfully you formed the search query. For example, if you are looking for information to write a term paper, you do not need to enter its topic verbatim, especially if the work has a narrow specialization. You will find much more valuable information if you try to select keywords, that is, those words that will definitely appear in your work. If you are looking for a lost manual for a car radio, then by entering the model number, you will probably get a huge number of sites offering to purchase it. To weed out unnecessary links, you can use the search function in what was found or exclude some words from the search. In almost every search engine you will find an advanced search function. This is another good way to filter out unnecessary results. Such functions may include searching for pages that have been recently updated, searching for pages only in a certain language, or on sites located in the domain zone you specify. The time spent searching can be significantly saved if you know and use the query language syntax. Each search engine has its own characteristics. For example, when you are looking for something on Yandex, it would be a good idea to use the following techniques:

    • To search for words that should appear on the page in one sentence, put the & symbol between them
    • To exclude a specific word from search results, add it to your query by prefixing it with ~~
    • To find pages that contain at least one of the words specified in the search query, separate them with |
    • To search for a word in the specified form, put an exclamation mark in front of it
    The Google search engine also has its secrets. Here are just a few of them:
    • To search for information on a specific site (and only on it), enter its address in the query field, preceded by the word site and a colon (for example, site:http://www.site)
    • To search for a phrase that should appear on the page in its entirety, put it in quotation marks
    • To exclude pages that contain a specific word from search results, add it to your query by preceding it with a minus sign
    These are just a few touches that can help make your Internet search more efficient. If you want to achieve optimal results, we advise you to become more familiar with the syntax of the query language, which is described in detail in the help system of your favorite search engine. There is no doubt that Google and Yandex are indispensable tools for searching the Internet - search in these systems is convenient, flexible and very accurate. But, nevertheless, this does not mean that alternative search engines do not have the right to exist. Yes - they index fewer pages, yes - their methods for selecting resources are largely controversial. But such search engines have one undeniable advantage - they offer something new, different from accepted standards. Since alternative search services use a different approach to selecting resources that match the query, the search result will be completely different than in the case of conventional search engines. So, if long searches on well-known services did not lead to anything, this means one thing - you need to change tactics and try other methods of searching for information using alternative search engines. Often, alternative search engines use one or more lists of resources that have been found by Google, Yahoo and other major systems to collect results. These results are filtered, the best are selected and often visualized for better understanding using a diagram, site map, tag cloud, etc. Developers of alternative search engines sometimes go so far in their search for a new universal interface that it is sometimes difficult to recognize a search engine in a web page. And yet, these are search engines. Unusual and strange, at first glance...

    FindSounds.com - searches for sounds

    This resource is intended for those users who are in creative search. The resource allows you to search for sound files of different formats - wav, mp3, aiff, au. The resource database contains a wide variety of sounds - animal screams, grinding cars, ringing, knocking, sirens, buzzing insects, the roar of explosions and gunfire, splashing water, etc. Sound files can be searched by various criteria, for example, by size, the presence of two or one sound channels (stereo/mono), sampling frequency and sound bit depth. In the search results, the resource shows not only links to the found files, but also their main characteristics, and also shows a graph of the sound amplitude, which can be used to judge the nature of the sound of a given sample.

    The FindSounds sound effects database can be used in a variety of areas - from the development of computer games and other applications, to the creation of presentations and all kinds of clips. The search engine can be useful, for example, for those who create interactive web graphics and want to add variety to the site by accompanying the clicking of page navigation elements with different sounds.

    Gnod.net - will select music, books and films to suit your tastes

    When a person has a desire to read a new book, listen to some new music or watch a movie, he usually turns to his friend or acquaintance for advice, who has authority in his eyes. However, finding someone who would agree to express their opinion on this issue is not so easy. Firstly, not everyone likes to give advice, because when recommending something to another, a person takes on a share of responsibility, and many are stopped by the question “What if he doesn’t like the film that I recommend?” Secondly, the person who gives advice must understand what exactly the interlocutor will like, and what will be completely uninteresting. After all, taste and color, as they say... But there is an easier way to get good advice - use a special search engine that is made specifically for this purpose. So, you want to listen to a new band, but you don’t have the time or desire to look for good music. The gnod.net resource will ask you for several names of musical artists that you like, analyze the results and offer your own version of a singer or group that you should also like. The service has several databases - on music artists, films, books and people. Thus, the resource includes four services: Gnod Music, Gnod Books, Gnod Movies and Flork. The latest service, Flork, is a social experiment in discovering people who are interested in communicating with each other. We were happy to test the music section of this service and introduced three artists - Gerry and the Pacemakers, The Beatles and Hollies. Our selection was not random - these three groups belong to the era of the sixties, to an interesting phenomenon called the British Invasion. All these bands played a beat, and the search engine had to suggest a band or artist in the same style. And so it happened. The result offered to us is the group Archies, which in the late sixties was on the lips of all Americans with their cheerful song Sugar Sugar. After playing with the search engine for some time, we came to the conclusion that gnod.net often gives correct advice and is not mistaken very often. For clarity, the search engine can provide the results of its “advice” in the form of an animated cloud with the names of groups, authors or films. The database can be replenished independently by having “conversations” with the search engine and answering its questions in the style of “I like this” or “I don’t like this.”

    Alldll.net - finds library files

    We recommend that you immediately bookmark this search engine, as sooner or later it will definitely come in handy. Probably everyone has at least once encountered the problem of a missing dll library in their system. This usually results in programs or games refusing to launch, and the message “Couldn't find *****.dll” appear on the screen." There can be many reasons for this, for example, the absence of a file may be caused by incorrect removal of a previously installed application , accidental file corruption, etc. In addition, the developer could simply not include this library in the distribution of his product.

    Correcting the situation is very simple - just find the missing file on the Internet, download it and copy it to the directory of the program that refuses to start, or to the ..WINDOWSsystem32... folder. You can find and download the missing file easily and quickly using this service. The resource www.alldll.net is a searchable database of the most popular dll libraries. The files are sorted alphabetically and there is a search function. You can search for the file you're looking for even if you only know the approximate name of the library. It is enough to start entering text in the request field, and at the bottom of the page a huge list of files will appear that begin with the letters that were typed.

    Medpoisk.ru - search for medical information

    Despite the fact that this search engine uses the search engine from Google, this in no way reduces its value. Medpoisk.ru is a universal search engine that is designed to search exclusively on medical sites. This site is an excellent tool for every physician and anyone who wants to get an answer to any question in the field of medicine. How to treat this or that disease, what are the contraindications for this or that medicine, which doctor to see - all this and much more can be found out by “asking” a search engine. The search engine includes a labor exchange and can be used to search for work among medical professionals. The resource also contains a directory of medical institutions sorted by region. Among these institutions are the addresses of clinics, medical centers of various specialties, maternity hospitals, diagnostic centers, beauty salons, etc. We sincerely wish you to use this search service solely out of curiosity, and not out of necessity.

    Taggalaxy.de - search for images and photos

    Perhaps you have heard about the popular image sharing service Flickr.com? This is the same service that was blocked by the Chinese authorities in 2007 after photographs of the sad events of 1989 in Tiananmen Square, located in the Chinese capital Beijing, appeared on its pages. Flickr.com is one of the first Web 2.0 services, and the number of images uploaded by users is in the billions. The number of pictures uploaded to the servers of this service is so large that in order to find a specific image in this ocean of photographs and paintings, a separate search engine is needed. The service offers an image search service, but there is a more interesting way to search for images - using the unusual search engine taggalaxy.de. This search service is a tool for searching images on Flickr.com, with previews. What makes it unusual is the search interface, which is completely three-dimensional. The process of searching by keyword is reminiscent of some kind of computer game - different celestial bodies fly in outer space, between which you can move in the virtual world.

    After the keyword query is completed, a system of the sun and planets that revolve around the star will appear on the screen. Each celestial body has its own purpose and is “signed” with a word. In the center of the galaxy is the sun, the key query, all other bodies are auxiliary words, clarifications. If you click on the sun, this object will come closer, and photographs will fly towards it from all sides and surround it, the content of which is determined by the search query. This three-dimensional model with photographs can be rotated in virtual space, examining in detail and searching for the image of interest. After this, just click on the picture to enlarge it in size, and then you can better examine it and read the description.

    While working with this search engine, you can use the scrolling function - it allows you to zoom in or out of three-dimensional planets. The remaining planets that are visible in the search engine interface after the request are auxiliary words that allow you to clarify the request. For example, if you enter “Sky” into the search field, then among the qualifying words-planets there will be the words “clouds”, “sunset”, “blue” and other tags of similar meaning that users specified when using the Flickr.com service. The disadvantage of the search engine is that taggalaxy.de does not support the Russian language, so queries can only be entered in Latin characters.

    Nigma.ru - filters results from other search engines

    Among all the search engines that can be found on the Internet, there is a special group of search engines. It differs from all others in that they implement a multi-search function, that is, simultaneous search in several search engines. One of these multi-search systems is the Russian service Nigma.ru.

    Nigma contains its own resource base, but in addition it allows you to search immediately across all the most popular search engines, including Google, MSN, Yandex, Rambler, AltaVista, Yahoo and Aport. The mechanism for selecting results in this search engine differs from most accepted methods of site discovery. The fact is that the engine of this service uses clustering of results. What does this mean? Imagine that you decide to find out for yourself what “rendering” is. Having compared the results in different search engines, the Nigma.ru engine selected the most likely results and, at the same time, on the left side of the window, next to the list of search results, displayed the so-called clusters - “visualization”, “creation”, “system”, “rendering”, “process”, “studio max”, “computer graphics” and other words and phrases. These clusters represent a thematic group of found documents. This way, you can quickly narrow your search or specify your search query. In Nigma.ru, you can also use categories to limit the area from which results will be selected - for example, perform a search only taking into account music resources, or display results only for images. Another opportunity of this service may be of interest to schoolchildren and students. Nigma.ru offers the services Nigma-mathematics and Nigma-chemistry. The first is designed for quickly solving simple equations and various arithmetic operations, the second allows you to work with formulas of chemical reactions. The search service recognizes more than a thousand physical, mathematical constants and units of measurement, allowing you to quickly convert from one dimension to another.

    Searchme.com - search engine with preview

    Everyone knows that in order to find specific information on the Internet, you need to spend a lot of time. When viewing search results, the user basically opens resources at random, not knowing for sure whether he will find what interests him on the new page, or whether it will be a waste of time. The creators of the search service searchme.com thought about this problem and came up with an original solution. The essence of this solution was to create a search engine in which the user could look at a rough thumbnail of the page before it loaded. This would allow us to form an additional opinion about the seriousness of the resource and its content.

    The implementation of this idea was simply magnificent - the created search engine has a beautiful animated three-dimensional interface and shows search results in the form of an animated ribbon of thumbnails, thumbnail screenshots of web pages that include the search keyword. The tape with the results, like a film with old negatives, can be scrolled in the browser window using a special slider located under the string of images. The sketches are loaded instantly, so there are no delays in drawing the results. It is especially convenient to work with search results in full-screen mode - then you can even make out the text of articles in the thumbnails of the results. To appreciate the convenience of this system, just try browsing news resources. Photos for the main news on the title page of the web publication will immediately make it clear which news on this resource is considered the most important.

    The solution is a specialized torrent search engine. There are a lot of sites on the Internet that search for torrent resources. However, torrent-finder.com has an undeniable advantage over other search engines - this service allows you to search for files on a huge number of trackers simultaneously.

    Astronet.ru - astronomical search service

    This resource provides information search on sites whose topics are, in one way or another, related to astronomy. In total, the search engine database contains about four hundred sites on astronomical topics - observatory sites, amateur pages, libraries of scientific literature, etc.

    One can only envy those whose profession is related to astronomy - there is a share of romance in the study of cosmic events. Nothing seems as interesting to a person as the area of ​​the unknown. Maybe that’s why he so often turns his attention to space and tries to find the answer to the eternal question “Is there life in the Universe?” We, too, did not differ in originality and tried to ask the search engine the legendary question “Is there life on Mars?” There were so many answers, and they were all so interesting that, forgetting about everything, we plunged into reading hypotheses and looking at photographs and models of the Martian surface. In addition to the search function, the site has a lot of other useful services, among which, for example, there is the English-Russian-English Astronomical Dictionary, a biographical reference book with detailed information about all scientists who contributed to the development of astronomy, and a glossary of astronomical terms. There's also a handy star map that generates the positions of constellations based on the latitude and longitude of the viewing point, as well as the time of day.

    Friv.com - free games for every taste!

    Everyone needs search services - those who use them to write a dissertation, and those who want to find out the weather forecast or train schedule, and even those who have carved out five minutes of free time and just want to, as they say, fool around, play some kind of game. some simple computer game. For the latter category of users, this resource will be a real treasure trove of games.

    This is not exactly a search engine, although that is what Western observers call it (Game search engine). The site friv.com is, rather, a catalog, a collection of 264 Flash games collected on one page. Click any of the colorful icons and play for your health. On friv.com you will find any “office fun” - from Tetris and chess to adventure quests and shooters. The plot of many games is made with great humor and will undoubtedly appeal not only to you, but also to your friends.

    VisualWorld.ru - search with associative links

    Each search engine has its own, unique method for selecting the right results. For example, this search engine works on the principle of associativity. This search engine tries not only to correctly select web resources that correspond to a specific request, but also to suggest the direction of the search using associative words. So, if you enter a keyword or phrase into the query field, the result shown by the search engine will look like a set of associative words, a semantic cloud, and, of course, the usual list of sites selected by the search engine as a result of the search.

    A distinctive feature of VisualWorld.ru is the visualization of associative connections, i.e. creating a diagrammatic map showing connections between words that relate to similar topics. At first, this graph may seem like something incomprehensible and unusual, but after several search attempts you get used to it and use it to narrow the search area. The VisualWorld.ru search service can operate not only in associative search mode, but also in regular search mode. For faster work with the system, there is a “light” version of the site - viwo.ru.

    Briefly.ru - summary of any book

    One can argue for a long time about whether the book will die or not, but the fact remains that today’s reader is not the one who leafs through the volume of Lermontov or Tolstoy, but rather the one who still knows how to read. Soon anyone who knows that Bender is a figment of the imagination of Ilf and Petrov, and not a hero of “Futurama,” and Homer is not a character from “The Simpsons” at all, but a completely adequate Greek who lived a couple of thousand years ago, will be able to consider himself a bibliophile. We think that the lost interest in literature is a temporary phenomenon, and the time will come when people will return to books. In the meantime, time dictates its own laws, and resources such as briefly.ru appear. You don't need to be particularly perspicacious to guess who this resource is intended for - of course, schoolchildren and students. Why read a whole book if you can find out in a nutshell what old Maeterlinck wrote about? The website briefly.ru has collected a large number of summaries for various books - from Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy to Shakespeare's Hamlet and Sholokhov's The Quiet Don. The content of works is sorted on the site by author, and there is a search function. We must pay tribute to the creators of this resource - they very carefully approached the selection of text for retelling, so most of the works are retold in literary language, everything is clear and ... interesting. Well, perhaps, among those who become familiar with the contents of these books, there will be someone who wants to recognize the book by reading it in the original. And not from the screen of a PDA or laptop, but from the white pages of an ordinary book, while this is still possible.

    Videoinet.ru - video search

    This service searches for videos in various online video repositories, both domestic, for example RuTube.ru, and foreign. Everyone knows that the largest video archive is the service YouTube. However, in practice it turns out that our domestic services for storing videos are not inferior in any way, and in some ways they are better than the service owned by Google. Firstly, domestic services are more democratic when it comes to uploading videos - fortunately, in our country it has not yet occurred to anyone to sue for the fact that a music video or a fragment of a new blockbuster has been posted online for public viewing. Secondly, the content of the clips that our users upload to the server is closer and more understandable to us. Here, for example, is a report from one of the TV channels, which has already become a documentary, about the events that preceded the arrival of Sir Paul McCartney to Ukraine - it turns out that there is a village called Beatlya in Transcarpathia, in which local Hutsuls prepare “garna pisnya” for one of the Beatles. And here is another video, where a drunk teacher from one of the capital’s universities is trying to give a lecture. The chance of seeing something like this on YouTube is much lower - this is what is close to our viewer, this is our mentality.

    You can search on the videoinet.ru service by tags, ratings and keywords that are related to the content of the clip. The service allows you to bookmark and create playlists from video clips.

    Kartoo.com - search with results map

    In a situation where a long search on the Internet did not bring any positive results, it is logical to assume that the search query was not made entirely successfully and should be formulated somehow differently. But the longer the user scrolls through the pages, the more difficult it is for him to use his imagination and figure out how else to describe his problem in one or two words. In this case, you just need to switch and try some completely different search service, for example, kartoo.com.

    The mere presence of an unusual search resource interface can push the user to the idea of ​​formulating his query in a new way. And if we take into account that the results will be completely different from those produced by the previous search engine, we can assume that the chances of finding the answer in this case will be higher. The search service is completely different from ordinary search engines - its appearance is more reminiscent of an application window. After entering a query word, an animated character appears in the application window, which entertains the user while the results are prepared for display. This is followed by the construction of a map of the Internet, which determines the connections between the semantic content of various resources. This map clearly shows which area is closest to the topic of the selected resource and where you should look for information. Interestingly, the connections shown on the map can be edited, thereby defining the search area. On the map of Internet resources, sites are marked with different icons - those with a larger icon size are more likely to correspond to the search query. Using the kartoo.com search engine is very unusual, especially at first. But, nevertheless, you get used to some search features instantly - for example, very convenient site icons that make it possible to judge whether you have viewed this page or not. The search engine also stores a history of queries, which is very convenient if you need to return to some result. To do this, you can view the list of words requested in the search engine and remember which one led to a particular resource. The search engine, unfortunately, does not work well with Russian text. The search can be carried out in one of three modes - across the entire Internet, only on English-language pages, and using a “parent” filter. When the search engine finds a lot of pages that match the query, the search results are divided into pages (as in any search engine) and for each of them its own Internet map is created. Any result map can be saved and then reused for searching.

    Webbrain.com - specification of the search area

    Visual presentation of search results is a common feature among alternative search engines. The closest and most understandable way to demonstrate the search area is a diagram, which, one way or another, is used by the creators of alternative search engines in unusual interfaces. The webbrain.com service is an attempt to make a search system in which the user could not only sort through the results in a row, but also choose the direction of the search. The search service works very simply. The user enters a query, after which a diagram of words that define the semantic search area is built at the top of the page, and a standard list of sites that meet the query requirement is shown at the bottom of the browser window. In the center of the diagram is the keyword that most closely matches the topic of the request. Sometimes the central word can be used to judge how “correctly” the search engine identified the meaning of the query. Well, this is true, although, to tell the truth, it seems to us that it would be more logical to see another word in the center of the diagram, for example “fresh IT” news" or "computer". The inaccuracy of the results of this search engine is explained by the meager database of indexed sites, but the idea itself is interesting and, perhaps, will someday be continued. In order to be able to work with webbrain.com, you must have the Java Virtual Machine, Internet Explorer, Firefox or Netscape component installed.

    Agakids.ru - children's search engine

    When a child strives to learn a computer, this should be encouraged in every possible way. But you shouldn’t let him search for answers to his questions on Google or a similar “adult” search engine on his own. After all, even if the search engine has the function of limiting search results taking into account unwanted content, this only means that with the filter turned on, pornography and violence will not disappear completely, but will appear less often on the results pages. No search service can guarantee a completely “clean” list of results. Parental control programs do not completely solve this problem either.

    But there is one very good way out of the situation - to invite your child to work with a special children's search engine agakids.ru. This service is designed in such a way that it searches exclusively for those resources that have been added to the agakids.ru database and have been approved by the creators of the service. The search service can also find useful information for parents - it will tell you how to raise children correctly, how to take care of their health, etc. The site also operates a children's Internet radio that broadcasts various fairy tales, children's songs, stories and much more. To make it interesting for a child to use this search engine, working with the results can be done in visual search mode, when the found pages are shown in the form of a beautiful animated series of screenshots of the main page of the sites. Adults will probably find it more convenient to work in text mode.

    Eyeplorer.com - online encyclopedia search

    When creating this unusual search engine, the creators sought to make it as “smart” as possible, capable of precisely tuning to the search question. Having decided that there is no more universal database than that contained in encyclopedic articles, the creators of the service came to the conclusion that the new search engine should be created on the basis of Wikipedia, a popular online encyclopedia. Created by German programmers, eyeplorer.com visualizes search results and allows you to refine your search. Eyeplorer.com is a very convenient tool for quickly finding brief information in a specific area. The search engine looks like a pie chart. At the center of this diagram is a search box. After the query is completed, search results begin to be dotted on this diagram, and these results look like link tags that help the user uncover the essence of the question. Links in this diagram lead to online encyclopedia pages. For greater convenience, the chart scale can be changed using a special slider. Any tag moved into the query field automatically starts a new search and the chart rebuilds the results map. The search query can be refined by adding additional words that clarify the essence of the question. To the right of this diagram there is a notepad onto which you can drag comments-links to the diagram tags, a kind of online bookmark.

    Picollator.ru - search by image content

    When you enter a query on most popular search engines that offer searches for image files, you get results based on what text appears on the page as well as the names of the files. But the lesser-known search engine Picollator works completely differently. This system identifies what is shown in the pictures. Naturally, with this approach, the search query should not be formulated as a word or phrase, but as a picture.

    That's exactly what it is: upload a photo to the server or provide a link to a site where it has already been uploaded, and after a few seconds you will see thumbnails of images similar to the uploaded photo. The service has some limitations: it only works with photos of people. In addition, in order to get an acceptable result, the original photo must be of good quality - the person’s face in it must be clearly visible, and it is also desirable that he is not rotated.

    Kwmap.net - will suggest search directions

    The slogan of this site under the search form “Keymap of the whole Internet” fully corresponds to the essence of this search engine. The kwmap.net service visualizes the results found in the simplest and most visual way imaginable - in the form of a road map, somewhat reminiscent of a subway map. The nodes of this map are the keywords found by the search engine. The point at the intersection of paths is the central word, the same one that was entered into the search engine query field.

    The search engine partly does the user's work - in case of an unsatisfactory result, you don't have to worry about which question to ask more precisely - just look at the visual representation of the search results and select one of the keywords. In other words, using these key expressions, you can control the direction of the search.

    Conclusion

    The list of “strange” search services, of course, does not end there. The best minds are trying to develop an increasingly advanced algorithm for selecting search results on the Internet. But, despite all their efforts, no solution has yet been proposed that could arouse great interest among users. This can be explained not only by the force of habit, but also by the fact that over the years of the existence of Google, Yandex, Yahoo! and other search engines, many users have learned to “filter” results, skillfully using the syntax of the search query, no worse than alternative search engines do. We believe that the situation can radically change only when a search service appears on the horizon, using not the engine of older systems, but its own, and which will be able to index the same huge number of pages as Google. The debate regarding which search engine is the best is definitely doomed to endless debate. Surely there are many people who will argue that man has not come up with anything better than Google or Yandex. There will also be those who will say that alternative search engines search more accurately. Both are right. After all, your browser bookmarks have a place for all the search engines that might come in handy.

    Some useful services will help to significantly reduce the time it takes to search for documents and files down to a few minutes or even seconds:

    1. Yandex advanced search. Not everyone is aware that search engines have advanced versions of search. Yandex has this service on this page: http://yandex.ru/search/advanced. Here, by entering the required request, you can clarify the details of this request. For example, the document language, publication date, and, of course, the format you need. After clicking on the “Find” button, the search engine will give you a list of links to documents of the required format. All you have to do is click on the “Download” button, and the document will be downloaded directly from the server on which the document or file is located without any registration. Or you can first read the contents of the document without downloading by clicking on the “View” button so as not to overload your computer with unnecessary files.
    2. Advanced Google Search. Google also provides the ability to find files of the desired format. Here is the page where you can do this: http://www.google.ru/advanced_search. Unlike Yandex, Google makes it possible to search in such exotic formats as: Adobe PostScript (.ps), Autodesk DWF (.dwf), Shockwave Flash (.swf). In fact, the list of formats that Google searches for is much wider. If you add the so-called filetype query operator at the end of the search phrase and follow it with the file format you need, you can easily find the file you are looking for. For example, if you need to find a MIDI file of the composer Bach, you can type Bach filetype:mid and you'll likely find what you're looking for.
    3. Another useful service is located at this address: http://wte.su/poisk.html. This is a search service for documents of various formats, including TXT, FB2, ODT, and even RAR and ZIP. After entering your query, you can quickly navigate through the tabs, searching for a specific file type. The service has 2 significant advantages - simplicity and speed of search. The only drawback is that the links do not always lead to the final file. Where there is a direct link to the file, you will see a "Download" button.
    4. You can also use the FTP server search service http://filemare.com/ to search for files. After all, sometimes files are uploaded to FTP servers with open access to internal folders, but search engines often do not find them. After you enter your query into the search bar of this service, you will see a list of files and folders found on the Internet that contain in their name or path the text you entered in the search query.

    (Yu.A. SHAFRIN, newspaper “Informatics”, No. 9 2009)

    1. Statement of the problem

    Searching for information on the Internet is an extremely vague concept: due to the endless variety of materials on the Web, both in content, in the form of presentation, and in structure (as already mentioned, we find linear, relational, hierarchical, and network data structures).

    Therefore, the goals, methods and forms of information (data) search can be very different. In order not to occupy your attention with general words, we will give a couple of specific examples.

    1. Let's say you want to find on the Internet all the materials about a specific person by his last name. You can simply type this surname as a query in the input field of any search engine, for example, “Rambler” (that’s how they pronounce this name in the company). The search results will entirely depend on how widespread this surname is in society, and on the popularity of this person (precisely popularity, not scale!). For example, if you type Ferdyshchenko, you can hope for success, either you will find something, or you have never heard anything about such a person on the Internet. Another example: let the person you are looking for have the last name Kulik. If you type it into the search field, you will receive thousands of documents with Igor, Andrey, etc. Waders, with Kulikovs, Kulikovos, etc. If, fortunately for you, your Kulik’s name is, say, Nikifor (a rare name), then the request Nikifor & Kulik will dramatically increase your chances of success. Therefore, the formulated query should define the narrowest possible search area. You should be especially careful when using homonyms. For example, you want to get information about the chemical element boron. Typing this word in the search field is useless, since boron is a drill, coniferous forest, element, physicist Boron. If you type the query Element&Boron, the search area will narrow down sharply.

    2. Suppose you are interested in some topic (category). In this case, you may not need a query language or keyword search. If you have basic experience and intuition, then by starting with a more or less general topic (for example, “Science and Education” in Fig. 1 on p. 34) and using hyperlinks, you can get to the documents you need (for example, first “Abstracts” ", then "Collections of abstracts, term papers, diplomas", etc.). With a certain degree of confidence, we can say that in general, searching the Internet is more about the art, experience, horizons and intuition of the client than the use of browser tools and search engines. It is necessary to clearly distinguish between the different Internet search mechanisms described in the article:

    1) searching for documents using keywords using universal search engines;

    2) specialized search (for example, people);

    3) search on the current (displayed) page.

    The latter mechanism, in turn, is divided into two types - contextual search for text fragments on a page and search in structured databases of the site represented by this page (products, vacancies, services, companies, etc.).

    2. General information

    The World Wide Web on the Internet is millions of documents with unstructured text information (as well as graphics, audio, video). To find the necessary information, an Internet client often has to sort through hundreds of web pages (sometimes without much success), spending a lot of effort and nerves (as well as money).

    Since the beginning of the 90s they have been intensively developing reference services. The Internet helps users find the information they need, and these services can be divided into two categories: general-purpose and specialized.

    IN universal services use the usual principle of searching in unstructured documents - using keywords.

    The keyword of a document is a single word or phrase that somehow reflects the content of this document.

    For example, the programming literature is characterized by the keywords “Conditional jump”, “Macro”, “Interrupt handling”, etc.

    Universal search service ( search engine) is a complex of programs and powerful computers that perform the following functions.

    1. Special program- search robot- continuously scans the pages of the World Wide Web, selects keywords and compiles a database indexes. This database includes keywords and addresses of documents in which these words are found. Using links to other documents, the robot “downloads” these pages, finds links in them, and so on, until it has crawled the entire section of the Web that interests it. When the search engine indexer robot comes to website(for example, on www.rambler.ru), it first checks whether there is a service file in the root directory of the site robots.txt(in our example www.rambler. ru/robots.txt- the robot's name is written in lowercase letters!). If the robot detects this document, all further actions to index the site are carried out in accordance with the instructions robots.txt.

    2. The web server receives from the user request search, converts it and transfers it to a special program - search engine.

    3. The search engine scans the index database, compiles a list of pages that satisfy the query conditions (more precisely, a list of links to these pages), and returns it to the web server.

    4. The Web server formats the results of the request in a user-friendly form and transfers them to the client’s machine.

    Specialized reference services are subject catalogs that contain more or less structured intelligence about addresses servers on one topic or another. Unlike universal index databases, thematic catalogs are compiled by specialists and provide the client with more rigorous, reliable and systematized information about Network documents. The level of "garbage" in these directories is much lower than in automatically compiled indexes, but they are updated much more slowly. Previously, search engines were divided into universal (with index databases) and “hybrid” (index databases and thematic search). This classification is to a certain extent outdated: now most search engines can be considered “hybrid” - they search both in index databases and in thematic headings. Here is a small list of the most famous search engines today with the URLs of their home pages:

    • MSN Web Search - http://search.msn.com(search engine service MSN);
    • Excite- www.excite.com;
    • Yahoo! - www.yahoo.com;
    • Infoseek- www.infoseek.com;
    • Lycos- www.lycos.com;
    • Lycos- www.whowhere.lycos.com;
    • Alta Vista - http://altavista.com;
    • Google - www.google.ru;
    • Rambler ("Rambler") - www.rambler.ru;
    • Aport - http://aport.ru;
    • Yandex ("Yandex" or "Yaps1ex") - www.yandex.ru.

    Note that among Russian users, the Russian-language systems Google, Yandex, Rambler and Aport are currently the most popular. Almost all pages that allow searching have a Help button. Click it and print the system manual.

    3. Microsoft built-in search engine

    In general, to start a search, you can call one of the search engines or one of the subject directories known to you. However, Internet Explorer developers, for the convenience of the client, most often build into the next version of the browser a unique interface with the currently selected search engines. Internet Explorer itself does not search: it receives a request from the user, processes it and passes it on to the appropriate search engine.

    Click on the browser toolbar button Search.

    On the search panel, in the input field, enter a query (logical expression) and click the button Search(in different systems - Search, Find!, Search). After some time, a list of hyperlinks to documents that satisfy the entered query appears below the input field. When you hover your mouse over a hyperlink, a tooltip (or a summary of that document, or simply its URL) will usually appear. With a mouse click you can open any document.

    The width of the search bar can be changed by dragging its right border with the mouse.

    4. General Internet search engines

    So, when searching by keywords (in index databases), you type into the input field a query, which is a logical expression that is formulated according to the rules of syntax given search engine.

    Methods for searching for the necessary data in the vast ocean of Internet resources can be divided into three groups:

    • “intuitive-heuristic” techniques based on the user’s erudition, experience, outlook and intuition;
    • usage search servers, which provide to a certain extent formal (instrumental) search mechanisms for keywords;
    • search in thematic (categorized) catalogs.

    1. Heuristics. Role request in a particular case, a single word can play (for example, Adjika). And this word can play the role of a starting point, from which you will not only reach a specific information, but also get a lot of useful data about objects, directly or indirectly related to your task. This tactic provides a very effective indirect search if it is difficult to achieve something “head-on”. Let's give a few examples.

    1) Let’s say that as a query you typed some rare but famous surname, for example, Ktorov(A.P. Ktorov (1898-1980) - great actor of the Moscow Art Theater). In this case, you will certainly receive not only information about Ktorov, but also many interesting documents directly related to theatre, performing and dramatic arts. Starting from the issued register, you can, for example, find actors with a common surname (for example, B.A. Smirnov) or a bibliography of rare books about the theater.

    2) Type the word “Refrigerator”, and you will find yourself in a completely visible range of data related to household appliances: in online stores that sell not only refrigerators, but also other household goods, you will receive information about the design of the units, their consumer properties, prices, about manufacturing companies, etc.

    3) Search for "Adjika" (food item) and you can explore tons of recipe material, cookery books, and maybe even celebrities who are passionate about cooking.

    4) The word "Avisan" (medicine) will almost certainly lead you to the drug you are looking for; At the same time, it will provide you with the opportunity to identify diseases, their symptoms, and treatment recommendations. Probably, even more valuable for you will be access to many very useful medical sites, for example, to the universal pharmacy site in Moscow http://apteka.mos.ru, where you can research prices and drug substitutes, and look for other medications that you have already thought about but would require additional effort to find.

    As already mentioned, with this approach, the effectiveness of Internet search largely depends on the user’s experience and outlook. When you are looking for materials on a certain topic, you should under no circumstances rely on the “intelligence” of the machine: you yourself must take into account the peculiarities of the vocabulary of specialists on this topic, possible combinations of terms, etc.

    2. Query languages. Requests for searching and retrieving information are based on the apparatus algebra logic. As an example, consider elements of the query language of the Yandex search engine, used for strict search in index databases. Essentially, this is the syntax logical expressions, and it differs little from the syntax of other Russian-language systems (for example, Rambler and Aport). To search for documents containing a word, enter it in the search field and click the button Find. You can narrow your search: News, Products, Encyclopedias(the composition of these buttons, as well as the appearance home page, may change). If the request contains multiple words, the following rules must be followed:

    1) logical AND (AND) - search for a combination within a sentence: natural silk (separator - space) or natural&silk;

    2) logical AND (AND) - search for a combination within a document: natural&&silk;

    3) search for the phrase - “Golden Orpheus” (direct quotes!).

    In addition, you can search by the distance between specified terms (specified in words or sentences), search in the title, in the text of links, in the description, in image captions; search for links to a given URL (for example, #link="www.holm.ru*"), etc. Yandex searches not only by a given word, but also by its word forms. For example, if you specify the word “newspaper”, then documents will be found that contain the words “newspapers”, “newspaper”, “newspaper”, etc.

    3. Thematic search. The thematic rubricator of the Yandex system allows you to find a lot without the help of logical algebra. Other search (and not only search) systems have the same categories (but with different content), for example, Rambler and Aport.

    5.Specialized search

    Internet technologies are developing rapidly. New search tools are systematically emerging. An original (and, apparently, promising) specialized search system is offered by the Lycos company: www.whowhere.lycos.com (literally translated “Who? Where?”).

    First, you can search by person's first and last name to search for his email address, his phone number, web pages on which this person is mentioned (drop-down list Search Type: (Search type)). Conversely, you can search for a person by his email address or phone number.

    Secondly, in the main part of the window there is a kind of rubricator, using which you can search for people of a particular circle, occupation, etc.:

    • people in the field of entertainment and favorite activities: directors, musicians, athletes;
    • people and money: investors, brokers, buyers, officials;
    • people “similar to you” (sharing your interests, close to you in age, worldview, intelligence, etc.): women, children, families, travelers;
    • people who can help you: career advisors, employers, etc.

    6. ICQ

    Recently, a system of communication between people called ICQ (pronunciation "I seek you" - I'm looking for you) has gained wide popularity. The system operates using special software. Each recipient is assigned an individual number, which can be entered into the user's address book. The connection is established by selecting the corresponding entry from the address book.

    7. Search for data on the displayed page

    So far, we've looked at keyword searches for unstructured Web documents in index databases, as well as topic searches.

    1. At the same time, the browser provides contextual search on all displayed (current) pages.

    To do this, select the command Whole word And Case sensitive.

    2. Many sites and portals have their own structured databases in which you can search for any section of the database (by topic of a given site). For example, on the Moscow pharmacy website http://apteka.mos.ru There are two mechanisms for such a search:

    1) alphabetically: you click on, say, the letter “P”, and the site gives you a list of all medications starting with the letter “P”;

    2) in the standard search field you type the name (for example, Avisan) and click on the button Find(or Search). The site's search system will find you all pharmacies that stock the selected drug, indicating prices, addresses, telephone numbers and delivery methods. Search mechanisms (or rather, its details) may change on different sites (including on the same site), but they are very easy to understand.

    When searching for many products, vacancies, services, companies, etc. (in hierarchical structures) the search area can be gradually (or immediately) narrowed by indicating in several input fields, for example, the model of a consumer product, the desired price, city, age and much, much more.

    Briefly about the main thing

    1. Internet resources contain almost all the information accumulated by humanity, and categories of this information can be found on many sites and in all search engines (for example, electronic libraries, individual articles, museums, theaters, etc., etc.).

    2. To search the Internet, you can use special search engines that have strict query languages ​​based on the algebra of logic. In addition, these systems and many sites that cannot be considered search engines make it possible to conduct thematic and specialized searches. Nowadays the most popular systems in RuNet are Google, Yandex, Rambler, Aport and others.

    3. Internet Explorer most often has a built-in search engine that allows you to use search engine services in a convenient manner.

    4. There are various specialized search systems (for example, people in the field of entertainment and favorite activities: directors, musicians, athletes).

    5. The browser provides contextual search capabilities on all displayed (current) pages. To do this, select the command [Edit-Find on this page...] and in the window that appears, type the desired text fragment. Checkboxes allowed Whole word And Case sensitive. Many sites have built-in search mechanisms based on the subject of the site (products in alphabetical order, vacancies, etc.).

    Set file search parameters in the FileSearch search engine

    The FileSearch search engine, specifically designed for searching files, is available at filesearch.ru. Once there, you must enter the name of the file you are looking for. You can use a dot to indicate the extension. In the second field of the search query, you must select what kind of files you want to search for. By default, the search is performed by the names of all files and by the names of folders (directories). Instead you can choose:

    • Music.
    • Images.
    • Video.
    • Server.

    By and large, you don’t have to specify the type of file you are looking for, but simply indicate its extension.

    In the third list field, you can specify which specific domains you want to search for: com, ru, org, and so on. By default, the search is performed on all domains.

    You can use wildcards in your search query: “*” (asterisk) - replaces an arbitrary group of characters, and “"." (question mark) - stands for one arbitrary character. For example, if you specify *.avi in ​​your search query, all files with the avi extension will be found.

    If you specify da*.avi, you will find all files whose names begin with the letter combination da (then any arbitrary number of characters in the name) and have the extension avi. If you set da??.avi as a search criterion, then you will be searched for files whose names have four letters, the first of which is da, and with the extension avi.

    Searching for files using Rambler

    The well-known search engine Rambler, among other things, has a file search capability.

    Moreover, Rambler searches for files quite well. To take advantage of this opportunity, you should either immediately follow the link, or on the main page of the Rambler search engine, select File Search from the list of services. Next, the search is carried out similarly to how it is done in FileSearch (this was described in the previous paragraph).

    Every day the volume of information from the network, and therefore on users’ computers, increases. On the average user’s hard drives, the number of files can reach several hundred, and finding the one you need in the total mass is not at all easy. The standard Windows search engine does not always work quickly and has very limited functionality, so it makes sense to use third-party programs.

    In this review, we will look at several programs that will help you find the necessary data on your computer.

    This program is perhaps the most powerful tool for searching PC disks. It has many fine settings, filters and functions. The distribution also includes additional utilities for interacting with the file system.

    One of the distinctive features of Search My Files is the ability to completely delete files by overwriting them with zeros or random data.

    SearchMyFiles

    Search My Files is often confused with the previous software due to its similar name. This program differs in that it is easier to use, but at the same time, it lacks some functions, for example, searching on network drives.

    Everything

    A simple search program with its own features. Everything can search for data not only on the local computer, but also on ETP and FTP servers. It stands out from other representatives of similar software in that it allows you to track changes in the computer’s file system.

    Effective File Search

    Another very easy to set up and use software. With a very tiny size, it has a sufficient number of functions, is able to export results to text and table files, and can be installed on a flash drive.

    UltraSearch

    UltraSearch can find not only files and folders, but also search for information in the contents of documents by key phrase or word. The main distinguishing feature of the program is the automatic initialization of connected media.

    R.E.M.

    REM has a more friendly interface than previous participants. The principle of the program is to create zones in which files are automatically indexed, which can significantly speed up the search process. Zones can be created not only on the local computer, but also on disks on the network.

    Google Desktop Search

    Developed by a world famous company, Google Desktop Search is a small local search engine. With its help, you can search for information both on your home PC and on the Internet. In addition to the main function, the program provides for the use of information blocks - gadgets for the desktop.

    All of the programs in this list are great for replacing native Windows search. Choose for yourself: install simpler software, but with a smaller set of functions, or a whole search engine with the ability to process files. If you work with folders and drives on a local network, then REM and Everything are suitable for you, and if you plan to “carry the program with you,” then pay attention to Effective File Search or Search My Files.