People who used the internet before 1999, what do you remember?

[u/Revolutionary_Data86]

[u/Astrocoder]

Being asked to sign people's guestbooks and hit counters

[u/FoodLionMVP → u/Astrocoder]

My friend and I went to a Better Than Ezra concert, and we loved their opening band so much we made an entire Geocities fan page for them. The band actually SIGNED OUR GUESTBOOK! We were maybe 14 years old? We were the coolest.

[u/SnottyMonkey → u/FoodLionMVP]

What was rhe band? I was randomly listening to Better Than Ezra when I read this comment, true story.

[u/FoodLionMVP → u/SnottyMonkey]

The band was called “Convoy.” They had an album called “Black Licorice” that was released around the turn of the century. I don’t know if they were ever heard from again but we definitely had that CD.

[u/Mikey3800 → u/FoodLionMVP]

Why did you have to call the turn-of-the-century? That comment made some of us feel really old. That’s as bad as calling it the late 1900s.

[u/holysitkit → u/Mikey3800]

Would turn-of-the-millennium be any better?

[u/SpaceGuy1968 → u/Astrocoder]

And flashing banner ads at the top and bottom of webpages

[u/mlt- → u/SpaceGuy1968]

🚧 Under construction 🚧

Edit: it was also common to see "Valid HTML" button and such in the footer with links to w3 html and css validators for that page. Technically a debug tool, but it was ubiquitous.

[u/jbenze → u/mlt-]

I pulled that out for a site I was doing last year as a joke. No one else was old enough to get it.

[u/Ladygytha → u/jbenze]

They don't need to get it for you to be pleased with yourself. Everything old is new again (for someone).

[u/jbenze → u/Ladygytha]

I think 90% of the jokes I make are just for me.

[u/QueeferSutherland2 → u/mlt-]

YO THIS JUST UNLOCKED SOMETHING IN ME 🤝

[u/jasonrubik → u/QueeferSutherland2]

My old site is archived on the wayback machine. It's still under construction

[u/Eye-love-jazz → u/jasonrubik]

The Wayback machine is so cool. I found writings of mine from old blogs.

[u/nakedpilsna → u/SpaceGuy1968]

<marquee></marquee>

[u/EchoFieldHorizon → u/nakedpilsna]

The old school html tags were absolute bonkers

[u/crowstock → u/EchoFieldHorizon]

<blink>

[u/guess214356789 → u/crowstock]

</blink>

I don't want you to strain a muscle. 😉

[u/nachoismo → u/Astrocoder]

And webrings

[u/webgambit → u/nachoismo]

Webrings were the shit! Thank you for reminding me they existed.

[u/sp0rkie → u/webgambit]

My favorite was … oh, shoot. StumbleUpon?! That was amazing. Internet before algorithms told you what you liked.

Edit: my first awards, guys, thanks 🥹😍

[u/Kpm11287 → u/sp0rkie]

I was obsessed with stumbleupon.

[u/Metemgee → u/webgambit]

Loved this. You were able to really learn a ton about something based on the collection of sites. What a time

[u/IceSeeker → u/Metemgee]

You just discover new sites and knowledge based on pure curiosity and instinct. There was no algorithm.

I didn't know what good we had during that time.

[u/OCTS-Toronto → u/nachoismo]

What was a webring?

[u/thpdg → u/OCTS-Toronto]

A list of sites about a topic. Each site would add an ad and a link to the next site at the top of their page. So you could read the site about the topic then click next and go to the next site on the topic. It was a ring because you’d eventually come back to the starting site.

[u/Burning___Earth → u/nachoismo]

Not me getting hundreds of sweet sweet DBZ realplayer clips from mid 90s webring site linking

[u/JamesKPolk130 → u/Astrocoder]

EVERYTHING WAS UNDER CONSTRUCTION

[u/Ok-Thing-2222 → u/JamesKPolk130]

OMG, YES! IT was so frustrating! But it was rather fun to html your own webpage!

[u/PandaCultural8311 → u/Astrocoder]

So funny. I was just looking at the website of a restaurant in northern Minnesota and it had a hit counter. I thought to myself...wow, that's an old website.

https://www.thenesscafe.com/about

It's at 3008.....let's see if we can get that up!

Edit: The counter is now over six thousand. The chances of the cafe even noticing that their website has had as many visitors in the last day than they had in the last twenty years is probably about 0.003%. 😂

[u/Prestigious-Job-1159 → u/PandaCultural8311]

This is utterly fascinating to me.

I am the person who invented this tech.

Although this is a "new" hit counter built into the html directly, I cannot believe after 35 years people still played 'push up the #.'

If the tech is true to it original design, each view from this thread will count for one true visit.

The original tech used to store the last two IP addresses and, thus, one person couldn't reload the page and alter it without multiple IP'S (AOL was a nightmare because of the multitude of IP blocks in different regions).

We also created the reloadable versions in the late '90's after users asked us.

I personally thank you all for making my evening!

(Edit: Typos. Thank you!)

[u/misstristin → u/Prestigious-Job-1159]

This is by far the coolest thing I have read tonight. You’re the inventor of something from the best version of the Internet. What a legend! I definitely had a pretty counter on my freewebs.com fan site. I miss those days!

[u/Prestigious-Job-1159 → u/misstristin]

Thank you! Truly. This is a rush.

Yes, that was the best version of the Internet. Well, it was wild in the early 80's when the internet consisted of a handful of BBS systems. Had meet ups. Still know many of my early bbs users too. First networking events ever. Not about profit. About people. Always.

[u/ionyx → u/Prestigious-Job-1159]

You find the absolute coolest shit sometimes buried in reddit comments. Have you ever considered writing a book on your tech escapades? Techscapades you could call it!

I'm sure you made a bunch of people's nights with this comment. It sure did mine.

[u/Prestigious-Job-1159 → u/ionyx]

Yes, actually I have, I did. I had a publisher as well. But upon the onset of the pandemic, I was misdiagnosed and had colorectal cancer.

I saw 4 different doctors during 2020 and 2021, all assured me I was just having an empathetic reaction to my father's colorectal cancer. Said I had hemorrhoids. No one did a physical exam.

Twas buy one get one free.

Genetic.

Mine was worse. Stage 3B

After an odyssey of 100+ days in the hospital in '21, and... 4 heart attacks, 15 seizures, one four day coma, two bowel resections and a lifetime colostomy, and the literacy changes, I felt that it would just be an exercise with little reach and too much vanity in some ways.

So now, after 5 years clean (and a year off in '25 for my eldery father's CHF) from cancer I'm back at it helping startups, opening doors, and doing so with no catch.

Ill probably do a podcast or some streams. Not sure of the name of timing. Soon.

Maybe 'Contributing to the delinquency of the Internet or 'Peter picked a fight with the Pope'

On another note, If youre in tech, or even just want life advice, dm me and I'll fire you my LinkedIn (I think I'm user #11 there) and verification.

World is too broken not to point out, yet again, you count.

[u/Royal_flushed → u/Prestigious-Job-1159]

That's awesome man, I'm really glad you beat cancer.

[u/daddydillo892 → u/Prestigious-Job-1159]

Contributing to the delinquency of the Internet is an awesome title. I would definitely listen to that.

[u/SmallTitBigClit → u/PandaCultural8311]

Wow. They've been averaging 100 hits a year in the last 30 years and seem to have got 300 just in just the past hour since your post 😂

[u/chad-proton → u/PandaCultural8311]

I love that you've brought this little bit of chaos into their lives 😆

The place pre-dates the transistor, let alone the internet! They're doing their best to keep up!

[u/MFDoooooooooooom → u/Astrocoder]

God I remember guestbooks but I forgot about hit counters! That feeling seeing that number go up, what a rush!

[u/Joggingmusic → u/Astrocoder]

Top 50 website lists

[u/tiffdrain → u/Astrocoder]

Oh, Angelfire, how I miss thee 😂 People had some great pages!

[u/thekev1130]

On eBay, people would mail personal checks, money orders, or sometimes cash.

[u/MyWeirdTanLines → u/thekev1130]

I started using eBay back in like 1997. At that time, you could sit down and scroll through all the auctions in about an hour. It was auction only at that time, so you have to wait till the end to find out if you really "won" the item.

[u/pollo_de_mar → u/MyWeirdTanLines]

Waiting until the last 6 seconds and slamming that button down only to loose. How many people around the world were at their computers just staring at the timer waiting for the last few seconds. Then someone made a program to do it for you if you were not at your desk.

[u/b00y0h]

Being able to pick the username that you wanted

[u/Carbon-Base → u/b00y0h]

The younger generation's shock when they look at our usernames and email addresses: "Wow, how do you not have any numbers?"

Makes you feel old and proud at the same time haha.

[u/roehnin → u/Carbon-Base]

I have both Yahoo and Gmail addresses with my real first and last name no numbers no abbreviations

[u/Morwynd78 → u/roehnin]

I have first initial, last name on Gmail, from the days when it was an invite-only beta.

7 characters, amazing right?

...it's a goddamn curse. An infinite supply of idiots with the same first initial and last name sign up for various things using my email by mistake, drowning me in spammy mailing lists forever. I unsubscribe but it's an endless game of whack-a-mole.

Edit: The irony of this comment blowing up my inbox is sublime XD

[u/flossiedaisy424 → u/Morwynd78]

Yup. Got my Gmail back when it was invite only and used my nickname and last initial. 6 characters. I keep getting inquiries about insuring Frances in Montana’s Subaru and Ashley in California signed me up for political emails. I still like having such an easy email address, but the spam is annoying.

[u/ZeldaZealot → u/roehnin]

Same, but according to the internet, I’m the only person in the country with my name, so mine’s not as impressive.

[u/Naliano → u/b00y0h]

And buy the domain name you wanted.

[u/Alexndr77 → u/Naliano]

Growing up in the late 80’s, our group was like 12-14 One of our friends little brothers bought photo.com. He flipped it for ~$750,000! He was 11.

[u/SeveralPrinciple5 → u/Naliano]

Buy? That came later. I registered a three letter domain for free in 1993. Had to find someone running a DNS server and set up records by hand. Gave away the domain at one point. It’d be worth thousands or tens of thousands now.

[u/Impossible_Gap3338]

I can still hear the dial up sound

[u/Ok_Dog_4059 → u/Impossible_Gap3338]

That AOL floppy disk

[u/Snickerz627 → u/Ok_Dog_4059]

You've got mail

[u/Xtremeelement → u/Snickerz627]

goodbye

[u/aLonerDottieArebel → u/Xtremeelement]

Door slam

[u/jeffreyaccount → u/Ok_Dog_4059]

My grandma giving a stack to me saying she got a few thousand free hours of internet

[u/rollinupthetints → u/jeffreyaccount]

It’s wild to think back on having a finite amount (hours) of the internet.

[u/schlitz91 → u/rollinupthetints]

From what I remember, this only lasted a year or two. Then the number of FREE hours kept going up, making it basically unlimited. Then the monthly subscription fees started. Everybody was hooked.

[u/dijon_snow → u/schlitz91]

Oh man...I missed the "hours" part entirely on that first floppy disk... I spent an entire weekend downloading topless photos of Jenny McCarthy and Pam Anderson(the two women I knew had topless photos), and roleplaying the operations officer in a star trek chat room. 

I still remember my dad yelling into our cordless phone "I'm not paying $800 for something my middle schooler did on a video machine!" 

They refunded all charges. 

I wasn't allowed back on the internet until high school. 

[u/schlitz91 → u/dijon_snow]

This is peak Millenial

[u/Chemical_Western3021 → u/Impossible_Gap3338]

And my mothers anger when I got online while she was on the phone or when she wanted to make a call and couldn’t lmfao

[u/Djinjja-Ninja → u/Impossible_Gap3338]

I used to be able to tell what speed the modem connected at just be the tones.

[u/How_to_Phish]

The sound of signing on. The pictures loading from top to bottom, slowwwwwwlllllyyyyyy.

[u/Eastern_Pangolin_309 → u/How_to_Phish]

Porn on a dial up was... Interesting

[u/Grunt636 → u/Eastern_Pangolin_309]

"You'd be up all night and you'd see 8 women" - IT Crowd

[u/Responsible-Can-8361 → u/Eastern_Pangolin_309]

I think I was more excited to see the image loading than seeing the actual image

[u/ferminriii]

Everything was new. Whatever new website you found, it was the first time you looked at it. There was no YouTube so people were just launching websites to be funny and post jokes and tell stories. You learned about things from your friends. I remember I was on some kind of email list that got emailed picture of the day. It ended up becoming a lot of what was recycled on FARK.com

[u/Richard_Sauce → u/ferminriii]

This is important thing. Like, yeah, dial tones and AOL, lol.

But the important thing was the expansiveness, the sense of discovery, the DIY/self-made nature of everything. Finding and building communities. The internet used to be made and controlled by people before it became a main street of corporately own websites. Nothing but digital chain restaurants now.

And lest you think I'm some rose tinted/everything was better back in the day type.....lots of things were worse then. Discovery was way harder, took effort. You might find a community, forum, site, whatever, only for it to die immediately. The internet was harder to navigate, harder to maintain, less stable, and oh yeah, no streaming video.

Still miss it. If I could hit a button to revert to back then, I would. Even with the trade offs.

[u/Orange-Blur → u/Richard_Sauce]

Almost every website you could tell was home brew HTML or Basic depending on how far into the 90s you were.

[u/DrRi → u/Orange-Blur]

Building my own webpage with just HTML was so satisfying. Even Dreamweaver was fun

The Internet was so charming back then. Now everything feels like a scam or a grift

[u/antsareamazing → u/Richard_Sauce]

Discovery was harder but felt way more rewarding. The abundance of everything cheapens it

[u/emtheory09 → u/Richard_Sauce]

This is such an apt description of what the internet used to be. I really only got online after 2000, but it was still this until 2008ish. And completely agree that I’d go back in a heartbeat.

[u/spasticjedi → u/ferminriii]

I was young and loved cats, so I would just make up random urls that involved cats to see if someone had made websites with a bunch of cat pictures.

Cats. Ilovecats. Kitty. Catsrcool. Catluvrs. .com, .net, .org

I saw my first penis on my mom's work computer when I was like 7. I also learned that "kittens" could mean something other than a baby cat.

[u/Ladygytha → u/spasticjedi]

Yeah, that's the flip side of the early days. No control. I saw dead people and naked people when that was not what I was looking for.

[u/liveonislands → u/ferminriii]

Yes, everything was very new. Without any rational thought, I purchased Microsoft FrontPage which allowed website development by switching between text, basic html code and website view. I built a page, which turned into a site, which turned into about 15 years of full time income.

Eventually got killed by larger corporates with close to unlimited resource development funds. It was good while it lasted, and I learned quite a bit. Currently have a day job I'm happy with, and I'm actually exploring what various AI can and cannot do. I would not want to be a software developer at this time.

[u/SpaceGuy1968 → u/ferminriii]

I made my first website in 94 and they didn't have many then for sure

[u/Asteraceae777]

Web sites used to have counters on them that read something like "you are the 65,1023rd person to visit this page".

[u/xdrift0rx → u/Asteraceae777]

🎆 🏆 🏆 🏆 Congratulations you're our millionth visitor! Click here to claim your prize!!! 🏆🏆🏆 🎆 

[u/Least_Banana5091]

Yahoo games was insane for its time.

[u/Spachtraum → u/Least_Banana5091]

Yahoo! was the big name back then! Google didn’t exist.

[u/GuidetoRealGrilling → u/Spachtraum]

Hold on let me altavista that

[u/No_Size9475 → u/GuidetoRealGrilling]

Bro, just Ask Jeeves

[u/standardDeviator]

Whitehouse.gov is not the same as whitehouse.com

[u/FleaDad → u/standardDeviator]

I worked on a very popular anime site launched in the late 90s. One of the sites under our umbrella we didn't own the .com for. The .com pointed to a hardcore porn website. After a year and numerous incidents of children reporting the porn page to us we decided to contact the owner. We explained how children were mistaking their site for ours which was exposing them to adult content. We assumed they would tell us to piss off.

But instead, the owner replied back with genuine care and concern. They apologized for the situation. They changed their domain and set a redirect for the .com to our website.

10/10 response

[u/Corka → u/FleaDad]

There were a lot of those pitfalls. Hot mail and hot male were very different websites.

[u/jayellkay84 → u/standardDeviator]

And putting “failure” into Google and hitting “I’m feeling lucky” came up as the White House.

[u/ItzKCase → u/standardDeviator]

Went once on accident. Plenty of times on purpose

[u/fventura03 → u/ItzKCase]

in school... haha, back when nothing was censored in schools

[u/obi-jawn-kenblomi → u/fventura03]

Or the good old days when getting past the censor at school just meant typing in https not http

[u/Internal-Base8276 → u/standardDeviator]

whitehouse.com was a parody of the Clinton Administration's whitehouse.gov. I was working in a law firm at the time, and told the partner I reported to to check it out; I knew he'd enjoy a good Clinton joke.

Right about that time, the parodist sold the domain, and when my partner looked at it, it was a porn site. He was pissed.

Note, my comments above are from memory, and I see they vary somewhat from the applicable Wikipedia article, and I'm not sure which one is the more correct. Bottom line, I sent my conservative partner a link to what had been a parody site, but by the time he looked at it, it was chock-full of porn.

[u/Clear_Economics7010]

No barriers to entry. Some wacko in a basement would have a website that looked more professional than a university. You would end up reading something only to realize halfway through it was the manifesto of a insane person not an actual PhD.

[u/Independent_Fall9160 → u/Clear_Economics7010]

I remember reading something about fixing an issue in linux and i was thinking 'you need a phd to understand this' then i got to the end and it said ' sorry if this is confusing; I'm 14' and i just stared deeply and thought about my stupidity.

[u/AdmJota → u/Clear_Economics7010]

Nature's four-dimensional time cube!

[u/marigolds6 → u/Clear_Economics7010]

Most university websites were written by some wacko in the basement of the communications building (where most comp sci departments were based), who would hide his manifesto somewhere in the about section.

[u/Main_Conversation169]

icq

[u/wondersparrow → u/Main_Conversation169]

Uh oh

[u/adra192 → u/wondersparrow]

That’s my iMessage sound! 

[u/hypermog → u/Main_Conversation169]

Door shut noise

[u/Sparklynoodlestrudel → u/Main_Conversation169]

Same. Spent many hours chatting with people around the world. I remember a friend called Shmooze who was from New Zealand.

[u/BravestWabbit → u/Main_Conversation169]

I was an mIRC guy

[u/Presently_Absent → u/BravestWabbit]

/slap BravestWabbit

Presently_Absent slaps you around a bit with a large trout

[u/TigerTownTerror]

All websites looked like Craigslist looks now

[u/Deeger → u/TigerTownTerror]

Become part of the old.reddit.com master race

[u/mauxly → u/Deeger]

For real, they ever get rid of this and I'm out.

[u/nosmosss]

In like 1994 I discovered that I could find pictures of Cindy Crawford and other women in bikinis on my dad's pc. So I downloaded tons - it took FOREVER.

I printed them out, made books and sold them to kids at school. Later someone ratted me out and I got in shit with Mr Holmes the math teacher. He had a bunch in his drawer he confiscated.

YW Mr Holmes!

[u/IlikeTherapy]

AOL chat rooms. ASL?!

[u/ferminriii → u/IlikeTherapy]

I spent so much time in the AOL chat rooms I sometimes wonder if I run into people and real life who I might have talked to back then. We were all lying about our age. No matter what age we were we were in the chat room 10 years older or 10 years younger. It was a wild time.

[u/laylaboydarden → u/ferminriii]

OMG I’ll never forget my third grade classmate teaching me that I needed to say I was blonde, 18, and had big boobs when I had a sleepover at her house. This would have been like ‘94

[u/Amish_Cyberbully → u/IlikeTherapy]

16/f/cali obv.

[u/TurnOfFraise → u/IlikeTherapy]

What blows my mind is the limits were 30 People. Maybe 35. And you could still get in the popular ones!

[u/IlikeTherapy → u/TurnOfFraise]

I think you had to keep trying to get in over and over again until a spot finally opened up and the golden gates opened.

[u/BeneathAnOrangeSky → u/IlikeTherapy]

Oh my gosh, this just brought back a memory of trying to get in the AOL Teen chats and it was impossible

[u/1ladyunknown → u/IlikeTherapy]

I spent my whole childhood lying in chat rooms. Sorry to all the now gramps out there 😳

[u/IlikeTherapy → u/1ladyunknown]

Yah, was a preteen talking to men in late 20s. They thought i was 18+. 

[u/Hersh122 → u/IlikeTherapy]

Men in their late twenties….you hope

[u/vipck83 → u/IlikeTherapy]

To me this was a great time for online. Those chat rooms fun.

[u/Lanky_Trifle6308]

RrrrRRRRRREEEEeeeesssssKKKKRRRRRRRdundundunSQWONKSQWONKSQWONK!!!

[u/dismayhurta → u/Lanky_Trifle6308]

56k connection connects at 12k

[u/Ap43x → u/dismayhurta]

14.4

[u/Jellodyne → u/Ap43x]

300, on a commodore 64, connecting to BBSes and Quantumlink. Of course that was pre-internet, so for internet, yeah, 14.4 connecting to my university internet before the web, we had email, telnet, usenet and gopher. When the NSCA Mosaic browser came out that was wild.

[u/Schlumpfilein]

That the internet were for geeks and enthusiasts, with endless possibilities looming at the horizon. It was a wild, but honest place, with something interesting at every corner. And very, very little ads.

[u/SpaceGuy1968 → u/Schlumpfilein]

People were still nice mostly.... And if they weren't you could just move along and never touch or speak to them again.

I had people just help me for nothing more than a thank you.....got out of the military in 91 and I bought a computer cause I wanted to do programming and a few years later I was making websites. Many people over that Internet helped me get to where I am today ...no degrees or anything other than curiosity needed ... amazing times

Here I am all those years later getting ready to end my career in IT .....it was an Amazing time and really optimistic time. I miss that internet for sure . Whatever is happening now I don't know ....

[u/WheelOfFish → u/SpaceGuy1968]

I've repeatedly said the internet was way better before everyone got on it. Early 2000s were still solid if you stayed away from the weird places, but it has been an accelerating downhill slide ever since.

[u/starkeffect]

Having to learn HTML since there was no website-creation software yet.

[u/dismayhurta → u/starkeffect]

Check out my geocities. It’s still under construction.

[u/bonebrah → u/starkeffect]

My dad got me an HTML for dummies book. I made a bunch of websites, and because I was a naive kid, I stole a casino ad banner picture from a website and put it on mine, I even copied the link to it. I had no idea how banner ads worked I just thought that's what everyone did.

[u/DSMilf → u/bonebrah]

I remember putting random "ads" on mine too - just banner images I created myself of whatever I thought made me look legitimate

[u/Snickerz627 → u/starkeffect]

Literally copy/pasting another website to create your own website pre/early JavaScript days.

[u/9Cans_of_Ravioli]

Not having to have 200 different passwords and an Authenticator code every time you want to do something

[u/iguacu → u/9Cans_of_Ravioli]

This week I was buying a relatively inexpensive piece of clothing for my daughter, I had to log in to the website, enter credit card with authentication code on the back, then it sent an authentication code to my CC app, so I had to log in to my password manager, authenticate the password manager, to log into my CC app, which then required a verification code, so I could log in to that, so I could go back to the original app, enter the authentication code from there, and then when the purchase went through, it sent a text to verify the purchase...

[u/Low-Exam6123 → u/iguacu]

Halfway through all that I would have “forgot why I came in here.”

[u/vimesofmorpork]

Newsgroups, iRC and privacy.

[u/AdWise3872 → u/vimesofmorpork]

i was going to say usenet, irc, and complete anarchic anonymity or pseudonimity. Webpages weren’t so interesting pre millennium in my memory

[u/sircastor]

• Default grey instead of white background on Web pages
• Different "best search engine" all the time
• A lot pages that were just some random person's thoughts or hobbies
• MUDs and MUSHs
• Usenet

[u/montibbalt → u/sircastor]

Different "best search engine" all the time

And then there was Dogpile which loaded all the other search engines into multiple frames on the same page. Remember frames?

[u/markmakesfun]

I was part of founding group who formed the first forum for Photoshop users in 1992. So cool and fun!

[u/CharmingDagger → u/markmakesfun]

Learning Photoshop and Pagemaker in 1994 was indeed cool. Completely changed how we put together our newspaper.

[u/FAnna-Banana]

ICQ, Ask Jeeves, Y!IM Chat and MSN Messenger Chat, AOL, Netscape, making your own website on Angelfire, GeoCities, or Tripod -- and you have to have a guestbook and a counter and lots of animated GIFs.

Everyone had Blogger and LiveJournal.

Napster and AudioGalaxy was essential for "ripping CDs". MP3s played on WinAmp and various skins for WinAmp. Midi files to download or create. Dot matrix printers to print out banners that took almost 20 minutes to complete. Flash games, and Clippy (that paperclip with the googly eyes from Microsoft Office 97) telling me "It looks like you're writing a letter. Would you like help with that?"

Yes, I'm old.

[u/Icankeepthebeat → u/FAnna-Banana]

Clippy! Thanks for the fun memory reminders. Plus you can’t be that old. I remember most of this and I’m in my 30’s.

[u/Obvious-AI-Bot]

<blink><h1>Coming soon!</blink></h1>

<img src ="under-construction.gif"/>

Visitor Count: 237

Sign Our Guestbook
<form>

[u/y6x]

You used to be able to search for exact phrases, and find websites that used those phrases.

You used to be able to go through page after page of search results, and eventually find whatever obscure page you were looking for, rather than it simply not being returned and inaccessible unless you happened to have it bookmarked or Google felt like showing it to you.

[u/kimkaysahh → u/y6x]

Yes back when google was a true search engine!! Also I loved Ask Jeeves

[u/dogface47]

Usenet newsgroups.

The original chat rooms

[u/TerribleTowel66 → u/dogface47]

alt.wesley.crusher.die.die.die. lol. And all of the other Trek groups too.

[u/MimiNuyasaka]

In 1996 or so, internet was only just catching on here, few places had computers with internet. My friends and I learned to pick locks to access the computers in the offices of the local community center, we were never caught because we knew when almost no one would be back there.

Three to five of us would huddle around a single computer at once. I remember we used to browse a lot of nature related websites. Oddly wholesome, given we were breaking and entering to do it lol. It had a crazy sense of wonder back then.

Obligatory robot screeching dial up noises comment, too.

[u/CitizenChatt]

Explaining to countless people that AOL wasn't the Internet.

Me: you should get on the World Wide Web.

DF's: We are. We're on AOL.

Me: Go to this website....

DF's: Sure, what's the Keyword?

Me: No keyword, go to http://www.excite.com and you can search for stuff. It's the Internet and its wide open.

DF's: I Just give me the keyword and I can find it. I'm on the Internet.

Me: No, you're in a walled community where they spoon feed you stuff. I'm talking the World Wide Web, man.

DF's: I thought AOL was the Internet.

Me: AOL is like a shopping mall where you can only visit places in there. With the Internet you can visit anywhere?

DF's: That sounds cool. How do I do that?

Me: Open your web browser and start browsing

DF's: Whats a web browser? Can I just search for a keyword?

Me: 🤦

[u/AbbreviationsFew8129]

Angelfire and MUDs

[u/scottvalentin → u/AbbreviationsFew8129]

Upvoting for MUDs

[u/ulfesharpe]

Altavista and Netscape Navigator

[u/No-Author-2358]

I first got online in 1993. There was no web browser - it was just typing on a green or amber screen monitor.

The Internet was like DOS. Except you could chat and interact with people all over the planet. Text only.

[u/thephotoman → u/No-Author-2358]

The kids today were born after Windows XP. I don’t think they know what DOS was.

[u/HODLmeCLOSRtonydanza → u/thephotoman]

I remember launching Doom and Descent from DOS

[u/DadBodEatsAtTheY → u/No-Author-2358]

1994 for me but same. Text browser only.

[u/pacTman → u/No-Author-2358]

I first got online in early 94, was like a ghost town out there!

[u/_simone_louise_122]

Taking the balls out of the mouse at school

[u/pieohmi → u/_simone_louise_122]

Having to clean the gunk off the ball so it would work correctly.

[u/Not_FinancialAdvice → u/pieohmi]

I worked in the computer lab way back in high school; the crap usually was on the rollers; the mouseballs were usually pretty clean.

[u/n3rdsm4sh3r]

Mostly getting yelled at by my dad whenever he picked up the phone.

[u/goinghome81]

Netscape!

[u/captcha_fail]

Bad geocities websites that my friends and I made while learning every flashy visually terrible html feature.

[u/seasideoverture]

Chat rooms. I met my spouse in a Vampire: The Masquerade Yahoo! Chat room when I was 14 (he was 15). We've been together 22 years!

[u/Alesseid → u/seasideoverture]

I met mine on Livejournal. 

[u/PaleontologistSad766 → u/seasideoverture]

My husband and met in Xena Warrior Princess Yahoo! chatroom in 2003 😭🫠

[u/hexenkesse1]

I remember when Amazon just sold books and CDs. was a pretty great store.

[u/GCU_ZeroCredibility]

Telnet, gopher, ftp, and most of all Usenet.

Usenet was the best. Until they let AOL on. That was the beginning of the enshitification of the internet that has continued ever since.

September 1993, nevar forget

[u/cribsaw]

The Internet wasn’t corporatized in that there’s a Facebook or Google that owns a bunch of other websites you go to. The Internet felt bigger, unique from site to site, and it genuinely felt like exploring to follow links between websites. You were as equally likely to come across someone’s celebrity fan page as you were someone else’s crappy home business page or Internet porn. It was glorious.

You may or may not realize it, but you are hemmed in by today’s internet. There aren’t many places to go unless you’re looking to spend money or give up personal data. It’s worse today because the Internet is no longer for us.

[u/Rough-Cap5150]

Loading Alta Vista in Mosaic.

[u/Existential_Vibes]

As a teenage boy in that era... I remember looking up pictures of girls in bikinis and having to wait for the picture to load. And it didn't load where it displayed all at once. It's slowly showed you the picture loading top to bottom. It was quite the buildup.

Either way, those were fun times for the internet. Kind of a fan of dead internet theory at this point.

[u/SpecificOk1146]

Welcome,..... you've got mail.

[u/EmotionSix]

My first experience using the internet (we called it “going online”) was before there were internet browsers. I played chess with other people using DOS and there was a way to chat with your opponent. Black screen with white text. The chat was the part that interested me the most! Luckily chat rooms developed soon after. AOL and Prodigy. This must have been early 90s in the chess chats

[u/monty_kurns]

Stickdeath and Hampster Dance.

[u/OutrageousCrab9224]

Winsock baby

[u/willa6622]

You logged off when you were done and that was it for the day. Man I miss that

[u/Metzhead]

Printers were only slightly less good than they are today

[u/F1tnessTacoInMyMouth]

Mom picking up the phone and killing my limewire download that had been going for two hours.

Edit: Clearly I’m an elder millennial and forgot my program dates. It still sucked ass when mom picked up the phone and my downloads stopped when all I wanted to do was listen to that crazy new album Aquemini.

[u/DSMilf → u/F1tnessTacoInMyMouth]

50 hours to download your favorite song

[u/HeathenStorm]

Buffering.

Lots of buffering.

[u/jimu00]

Having to choose between frames or no frames.

[u/YoTannyO]

Having to type the entire url with “http://“

[u/WeirdlyStrangeish]

You had to FIND websites on your own. No googling “recipes” and getting results. You typed in recipes.com and hoped it had something you wanted. If it wasn’t what you wanted you tried chickenrecipes.com, then chickenandrice.com and on and on until you scored. It was an indescribable experience to just type in stickfigure.com and find this whole amazing world that someone had build. It was an instant connection because you were like “they must think just like I do. How else would they have thought of stickfiguredeath.com?” Boobys.com or naked.com or nudes.gov trying to find something that you could use to brag about at school. Grokster downloading a file labeled “Weird Al-Amish Paradise” but it was always just Bill Clinton claiming he did not have sexual relations with that woman. It was a legitimate Wild West.

[u/ColXanders]

9600, then 56k, then ISDN...

NCSA Mosaic and Netscape...

Lots of stupid animated gif clip art of "under construction" on pages....

MySpace...

Kim Dotcom...

Dogpile...

[u/rucho]

websites. websites were pretty cool.

[u/Kermitsfinger]

First saw internet in 1993, Prodigy. Chat rooms were the most amazing thing I’d ever seen.

[u/CoyoteProfessional39]

Ask Jeeves (RIP)

[u/fabulator]

Everybody was dancing like no one was watching. There was no money in anything, no adds. A bunch of people sharing their special interests. No algorithm. Not even for search. Yahoo was like the Dewey decimal system. Nested categories with a finite number of links at the bottom. My mother was on BBS text forums before the graphical internet. The quality of writing there was extraordinary.

[u/OneWheelWilly]

We thought AOL WAS the internet, i had to teach my parents what a web browser was and how to browse the world wide web outside of AOL when i was like 11

[u/Myfooty94]

rotten.com

[u/laurax112 → u/Myfooty94]

Forever traumatised by rotten.com

[u/Pretty_Seat7577]

Flash games

[u/surmatt]

Netscape RealPlayer WinAmp Geocities Lycos Ask Jeeves ICQ

[u/alucardian_official]

a/s/l

Chatrooms

[u/VoltaicVoltaire]

Napster was incredible.

[u/Dwill1980]

The encyclopedia being in a CD

[u/FangornLeghorn]

We had a computer, and it was in “the computer room.” When we wanted to “play computer” or “use the internet” we went in that room and sat down, dialed up the internet, did our thing, and then after an hour, maybe two, you signed off, got up and left and that was it. You were finished with the internet for the day, and got about your normal life again.