How did you find lichess.org?

I was wondering how did you first find lichess.org/? Share your story!

I found Lichess through a duckduckgo search. I was like "chess.com sucks, I want a better chess server" and tahdah! A heavenly city descended from the sky.

via EFnet IRC network (also that weaboo Evropi)

I used to play on FICS but it was a chore just to play a quick game with a buddy. He found lichess when he was searching for an easier web-based interface and the "play with a friend" feature was just what we needed. I fell in love with the place and kept coming back through the years. Now I can't even avoid engaging in forum discussion (and arguments) and am probably going to become a donor soon. I've watched this place grow from a neat little place where people could match up quickly and fight it out on the chess board to probably the best chess site in the world. It's been a fun ride.

I was playing a pickup chess game otb every few weeks or so, not really that interested, when I saw Chess Network bullet arena on Youtube. I watched it wondering why it was so fast, so I subscribed and kept watching. After a few videos I saw the site name where he played was called lichess.org, so I came here and have enjoyed it ever since.

I think I read it from a post on gamefaqs or reddit
and they said you can play chess anonymously here.

(Back then there was no rating and just pure basic feature).

My memory may be wrong but its been a long time.
Ive been here too long lol.

I saw a video of someone playing Horde chess, so I came here to try it out and I fell in love with all the cool variants :D

i was on multiple sites over the years including

chess.com - awful for free users

schacharena.de - outdated gui and heavy cheating problems in their league games

shredderchess.net - neat and slim site but without enough players when you seek longer time controls at times( at least some time ago )

fics - somewhat unwilling to improve but has great functionality

always missing something and trying sites from chess-links.org i stumbled upon lichess and was blown away and am constantly amazed how fast its getting better. imho thibault is going to leave a mark on the history of online chess .

i learned about it from a friend. chess.com is awful. no premoves. payments. bad boards. made like a toy and very distractive. lichess is best i seen.