It seems that will just apply to the sidebar ads that pop up on every google search. Am I missing something?

Yup. My favorite thing about Google is its no-nonsense look.

My thought upon hearing the news this morning was, "well, what other search engines are there out there now".

Phooey. I'm disappointed.

Dogpile checks Google and several other search engines with no graphic ads on their pages. It does have a graphic at the top, but it's small and kind of cute (animated dog; small gestures on its part, though).

I'm afraid Google has me completely hooked. I haven't used any other search engine in what seems like years. It used to be I'd be using three or four engines regularly, but not more. It's kinda scary - media diversity (and that surely includes search engine diversity) is something to be encouraged.

I used to use AltaVista and still turn to it on rare occasions when something about Google stymies me. They seem to have similar text-only ads on the page in a quick glance at it just now, but I haven't used it a lot in ages.

IMO, for most queries, Yahoo and AskJeeves give as good results as Google.

Actually I favour www.ixquick.com over google anyday. Mainly because it does include Google anyway, but also searches other engines and then prioritises results in such a way that I usually get very good results on the first page.