Somewhat. I remember that I was using Archie for finding files that were distributed via FTP. We had directories like Yahoo or DMOZ. At that time directories were the starting points for me. Internet seemed large, but not infinite.

For searching there was Altavista, Lycos, Hotbot, … Ask Jeeves was something that tried to be more that search engine. You had a feeling that now you can find all of the info and files on Internet. Google wasn’t the first one out there but it seems to me that it is the only one that survived.