Yahoo!

Yahoo!, the beloved search engine and internet pioneer, was founded in 1994 by Jerry Yang and David Filo. Beginning as a humble website directory, it quickly rose to fame as one of the most popular search engines of the early internet era.

What made Yahoo! so special? Perhaps it was the exclamation point in its name, which always made it seem like it was really excited to show you search results. Or maybe it was the quirky Yahoo! logo, which featured a bouncing red ball and a friendly font that made you feel like your computer was giving you a hug.

But let’s be real, the best part of Yahoo! was its collection of weird and wacky services. There was Yahoo! Mail, for all your email needs, and Yahoo! Messenger, for when you wanted to chat with friends but also feel like you were inside a virtual fish tank. There was Yahoo! Answers, where you could ask random strangers for advice on everything from dating to DIY home repair (spoiler alert: their advice was often terrible).

And who could forget Yahoo! Games, which featured classics like Poppit and Mahjong Solitaire? For millions of people, Yahoo! Games was the ultimate procrastination tool, providing hours of mindless entertainment at work or school.

Sadly, Yahoo!’s fortunes began to decline in the early 2000s, as Google emerged as the dominant search engine and Yahoo! struggled to keep up. But for those of us who remember the glory days of Yahoo!, it will always hold a special place in our hearts (and our search histories).

So here’s to you, Yahoo!: you may not be as popular as you once were, but you’ll always be exclamation-point-worthy in our book.