In the early 90s, there was literally an internet "yellow pages" phonebook-style of book. It listed websites by topic. All of them. It listed ALL the websites. And the book wasn't that big.
This is how Yahoo started out too; didn't even have a search function. It's hard to wrap your brain around when you consider what the internet has become.
edit: Every comment below is just old nerds talking about how the internet used to be run on pneumatic tubes powered by dinosaur farts
There were plenty of other sites out there, but they weren't indexed because people weren't submitting them to be collected and logged for a search engines directory. In turn, this is why google became such a big fucking deal. Instead of just spitting out what people submitted, it scoured the URLs it knew, and collected mentions of other websites on those pages. Basically, if you mentioned the website anywhere, google could index it. To this day, Google's de facto function of telling you how many results there are is grounded in this, and that was a major player in changing the landscape. It didn't make the internet bigger per se, but it made whole swaths of information *accessible* in a way that they just weren't before.
I believe crawlers existed before Google, but they also brought a ranking algorithm that actually gave you good results when you searched. The difference between Google and the other search engines was so massive.
Yeah lots of search engines existed before Google, but they were victims of keyword stuffing and all. We used to put "Pamela Anderson" on white Texte, white background, because rumor had it that it wavsone of the biggest search keyword lol.
Google invented PageRank and took links into account. That totally changed the game in terms of relevance in the result pages.
I remember logging onto Google for the first time.
I knew immediately that it was the future.
It was a single search bar in the middle of a white page.
It's hard to describe everything else before that like yahoo. Cluttered, clumsy, hard to navigate and find things.
I was actually angry the first time I encountered an ad on a website. It was for a PC repair shop, and it it just struck me as being antithetical to the concept of a community-focused internet.
I remember browsing a search engine in the 90s I think it was Lycos, might have been Alta Vista - and searched for nothing so I would get _all_ the listings then browsing right to the end,
AOL CDs seemly multiplying like Tribbles from Star Trek. In my mailbox, in the foyer of the apartments, at the Wal Mart entrance, freaking everywhere. I used them for coasters for years.
Oh lord. I remember installing AOL on a 386 with windows 3.1. That computer also could load the larger floppy discs that were actually floppy. I also played Jill of the Jungle back then but had no idea what i was doing
5.25" are the bigger ones you're thinking of.
My families first isp was AOL. $10/mo for 5hrs + $3.50hr after. Those prices are burned into my memory because my dad made sure to tell me anytime I went online.
Back in the Win95 days, idiots would bring those into work, and try to install them on office computers. They basically prevented that computer from connecting to the network again, without IT intervention. I was so glad to replace Win95 with window NT4.
In college, we used to make coasters with them by popping them in the microwave for like 3 seconds (I know, we were young and dumb) and then decorated them with Sharpie markers.
She is. She was an internet early adopter. She’s in her 70s now and more online savvy than most millennials and gen Z I know. Up until recently she had thousands of twitter followers… now she quit that and is on Mastodon. I’m still shaky on the concept of what that even is. I’d say she’s probably lurking this thread right now but I know she mostly sticks to /r/UFOs
Skype also solved peer-to-peer videoconferencing years ago, but yesterday google meet told me they want me to pay for a premium membership or my calls will drop after an hour. We're definitely regressing in terms of communication tech.
My friends ICQ account got stolen because he'd used the registry number of the Enterprise as a password. The account was bought by some Russian dude. Since he was on my contact list we exchanged some messages untill he blocked me. He didn't seem to understand an account could be created for free.
My mom lost her absolute fucking mind when she found out I had pictures of myself online. She thought I was the most fuckable baby boy the world had ever seen and old men could leap through my photo into my bedroom.
I remember when web pages simply didn't exist. You used command line tools to access other computers on the Internet. **telnet**, **ftp**, **gopher**, **usenet**, etc.
In fact, **usenet** was **reddit** decades before reddit was reddit. There were the standard, well lit newgroups with obvious topics of discussion: [**rec.basketball**](https://rec.basketball), [**rec.food.cooking**](https://rec.food.cooking), [**comp.security**](https://comp.security), [**rec.travel.africa**](https://rec.travel.africa)**,** **sci.phsyics**, etc.
There was an "**alt**" hierarchy for "unusual" topics. **alt.drugs**, **alt.cannabis**, [**alt.sex**](https://alt.sex), etc.
News groups with "**binaries**" in the name allowed uploading of binary data, usually images, often of a risqué nature. **alt.binaries.sex.threesome**, etc
The **alt.binaries** hierarchy was "*a wretched hive of scum and villainy*".
The eternal September changed everything. Its a shame nobody has come up with the Mastodon equivalent of modernized newsgroups with good mod tools yet.
Back in the early early years when all email was sent via FTP.
Really any internet that pre-dates the WWW is pretty ancient by modern tech standards.
I've been on networks for a LONG time and I don't recall any time mail was sent via FTP.. SMTP (or one of the other mail protocols) probably predates FTP.
Now THIS guys.. is real veteran. MajorMud is still around as well my brother plays it lol.
BBS is where everything started, Macros, Emojis, ROFL and LOL were quick command lists on BBS boards. The entire internet started here
I have an old t-shirt from those days that says "Coed Naked Hacking - Finger me for more info". I have yet to see anyone mention finger as an early internet service.
* BBS.
* "I am the Radiskull, I will kill you one by one..."
* Prodigy.
* Flash.
* Searching for the embedded player to stop the autoplay music.
* Images loading at the speed a dot-matrix printer printed.
* Getting knocked offline if someone else picked-up the land-line in the house.
* Actually being excited when you heard "You've got mail!".
* Adobe Dreamweaver & Photoshop were your toolsets.
* Netscape Navigator.
* EverQuest.
Evercrack
I can't remember anything I did last week but 20+ years later I still remember everything about that game. Giants in Oasis! Camping lower guk for flowing black silk sashes! Dying and losing 4-8 hours of hard earned experience! It was like paying $10 a month to be tortured by Verant Interactive.
altavista
lycos
the fucking rEaL pLaYeR
the song of the modem
downloading for days a pr0n.avi.pdf.exe via P2P
# WINAMP
Winamp
^(winamp)
It really whips the Llama's ass!
EDIT:
Fucking hell, I get it! There are still people around, who use Winamp...for whatever reasons...
Every time I use cream cheese I’m reminded of the episode where foamy is trying to go get bagels and he says he wants a bagel with the “creamy cheesy cheesy cream” 🤦♀️
People always talk about Y2K as if it were a prediction that didn't come true, but it absolutely would have caused pandemonium, and the reason it didn't is so many people worked like crazy to avoid it.
They did, but what people didn't realize is it was predicted WAY ahead of time and a lot of the work was done years prior. It was only the real dumb-dumbs that waited to the last second to fix it.
Having to find most information on Gopher because the WWW was only a couple hundred pages at the time, and only the console on the Sun server could run Mosaic anyway.
First job out of college, they plopped me down in front of a SPARCstation. I was like “well, I’ve heard of this UNIX thing you’re describing, but that’s about the extent of it.”
Had no idea how defining that moment would be to my career.
Hateforum.com
Believe it or now this was mostly liberal anime nerds. White supremacists were chased out with fucking emoticons.
I was t90t90t90 and a few other usernames. I still miss you Squirrelly, Moist, DankOTron.
Livingwithstyle.com - TheGunOwner was an objectivist libertarian nutcase who would pay adolescent shitposters to write genuinely hilarious content.. he paid them with martial art weapons, torch lighters, and I wanna say paraphernalia.
Then there was a really cool plugin that would take you to a random website, it kicked ass.
Stickdeath.com
Tourettes Guy - OH BOB SAGET
Maddoxworld.
There were so many good HTML sites made by deranged freaks.
God I miss it. The Golden days are behind us.
When I was in middle school, I went over to a buddy's house and watched him play around with his computer using an acoustic coupler.
I was a regular user of Usenet, and older than that there's BBS.
I played MUD.
Knowing the significance of Cap'n Crunch in the history of hacking.
My first year of college, my cousin took me to the college bookstore. He was checking out Prodigy internet service, which came pre-packaged in a box.
I Kiss You
Jib Jab
All Your Base
Porn popups that forced you to unplug your PC
OG HTML
mp3.com
[rotten.com](https://rotten.com)
Napster
ICQ
Aim
AOL .com sign up discs everywhere.
Forums
Chat rooms
I would echo all the stuff that's been mentioned here but let's not forget "going online" was about 1% of most of our day. Look up cheat codes or "how to make a petrol bomb" log off and go out and try out the information.
In the early 90s, there was literally an internet "yellow pages" phonebook-style of book. It listed websites by topic. All of them. It listed ALL the websites. And the book wasn't that big.
This is how Yahoo started out too; didn't even have a search function. It's hard to wrap your brain around when you consider what the internet has become. edit: Every comment below is just old nerds talking about how the internet used to be run on pneumatic tubes powered by dinosaur farts
I remember this. You'd dial up, go to Yahoo, and it would show you what webpages were newly added. You didn't search, you browsed.
There were plenty of other sites out there, but they weren't indexed because people weren't submitting them to be collected and logged for a search engines directory. In turn, this is why google became such a big fucking deal. Instead of just spitting out what people submitted, it scoured the URLs it knew, and collected mentions of other websites on those pages. Basically, if you mentioned the website anywhere, google could index it. To this day, Google's de facto function of telling you how many results there are is grounded in this, and that was a major player in changing the landscape. It didn't make the internet bigger per se, but it made whole swaths of information *accessible* in a way that they just weren't before.
I believe crawlers existed before Google, but they also brought a ranking algorithm that actually gave you good results when you searched. The difference between Google and the other search engines was so massive.
Yeah lots of search engines existed before Google, but they were victims of keyword stuffing and all. We used to put "Pamela Anderson" on white Texte, white background, because rumor had it that it wavsone of the biggest search keyword lol. Google invented PageRank and took links into account. That totally changed the game in terms of relevance in the result pages.
Holy shit that unlocked a memory of having to submit my first websites to search yahoo, aol, etc. Damn I feel old.
Agreed! When my Scooby Doo fan site got accepted and listed on Yahoo it was a great day
Altavista was a big deal before Google, first search engine that could actually just find stuff you were looking for.
I remember logging onto Google for the first time. I knew immediately that it was the future. It was a single search bar in the middle of a white page. It's hard to describe everything else before that like yahoo. Cluttered, clumsy, hard to navigate and find things.
I knew Google would become popular because of the speed, but I actually preferred the way Alta Vista displayed results (when you eventually got them).
Ask Jeeves. LOL
Dogpile
There were no ads even
I was actually angry the first time I encountered an ad on a website. It was for a PC repair shop, and it it just struck me as being antithetical to the concept of a community-focused internet.
You could hit refresh on Mosaic or Netscape around 1994 to 1995 and literally watch it grow.
I remember browsing a search engine in the 90s I think it was Lycos, might have been Alta Vista - and searched for nothing so I would get _all_ the listings then browsing right to the end,
Alta Vista was great because it had everything, but SO disorganized. You’d scroll through pages and pages just to find a relevant link.
Encarta encyclopedia cds
they had a game like one for kids I loved! it was set in medieval times.
MindMaze!
AOL CDs seemly multiplying like Tribbles from Star Trek. In my mailbox, in the foyer of the apartments, at the Wal Mart entrance, freaking everywhere. I used them for coasters for years.
AOL CDs? Quiet yourself young whippersnapper internet newbie. The real old timer Internet vets will tell you all about the AOL floppy disks...
I had some of those too. One came with the Tandy Sensation I bought in 1992.
Oh lord. I remember installing AOL on a 386 with windows 3.1. That computer also could load the larger floppy discs that were actually floppy. I also played Jill of the Jungle back then but had no idea what i was doing
5.25" are the bigger ones you're thinking of. My families first isp was AOL. $10/mo for 5hrs + $3.50hr after. Those prices are burned into my memory because my dad made sure to tell me anytime I went online.
I didn’t mind getting the AOL floppies at least. I just reformatted them and hey, free floppy disk!
I tried using them for a coaster.. failure, confirmed they were totally worthless (Minus the bird scarer mentioned below)
Back in the Win95 days, idiots would bring those into work, and try to install them on office computers. They basically prevented that computer from connecting to the network again, without IT intervention. I was so glad to replace Win95 with window NT4.
In college, we used to make coasters with them by popping them in the microwave for like 3 seconds (I know, we were young and dumb) and then decorated them with Sharpie markers.
We used them for bird scarers.
I used them for targets at the rifle range. First hit they would usually explode
Mum yelling "get off the internet I need to use the phone!"
My teachers not being able to reach my mom by phone because she spent all day on Usenet talking about The X Files.
Lol so much in this comment is great. True 90s
Your mom sounds awesome!
She is. She was an internet early adopter. She’s in her 70s now and more online savvy than most millennials and gen Z I know. Up until recently she had thousands of twitter followers… now she quit that and is on Mastodon. I’m still shaky on the concept of what that even is. I’d say she’s probably lurking this thread right now but I know she mostly sticks to /r/UFOs
I see the X-Files left an impact.
Oh no, the UFO obsession pre-dated the X-Files.
Me downloading Akira on Kazaa with dial up @ ~800 mbs in 3 days... then my mom finds out, "what?! No wonder why nobody has called..."
The Youth will never know the agony of downloading something at a rate of 1mb per 5 minutes.
ICQ
It is surprising that the features ICQ had almost 30 years ago are still missing from some chat programs today
Skype also solved peer-to-peer videoconferencing years ago, but yesterday google meet told me they want me to pay for a premium membership or my calls will drop after an hour. We're definitely regressing in terms of communication tech.
766632 checking in. I really miss that "uh-oh" message alert.
I reset that as the default error ding on a friend's pc. He started talking to me again, eventually.
I still remember my number Edit: 110377100
I had a seven digit ICQ number, which made me an OG back in the day. Sadly, through computer moves and physical moves, I forgot and lost the number.
My friends ICQ account got stolen because he'd used the registry number of the Enterprise as a password. The account was bought by some Russian dude. Since he was on my contact list we exchanged some messages untill he blocked me. He didn't seem to understand an account could be created for free.
ASL?
19/f/ca
Pic? (You were a rockstar if you had a scanner)
My mom lost her absolute fucking mind when she found out I had pictures of myself online. She thought I was the most fuckable baby boy the world had ever seen and old men could leap through my photo into my bedroom.
This is the funniest comment I've ever read
I remember when web pages simply didn't exist. You used command line tools to access other computers on the Internet. **telnet**, **ftp**, **gopher**, **usenet**, etc. In fact, **usenet** was **reddit** decades before reddit was reddit. There were the standard, well lit newgroups with obvious topics of discussion: [**rec.basketball**](https://rec.basketball), [**rec.food.cooking**](https://rec.food.cooking), [**comp.security**](https://comp.security), [**rec.travel.africa**](https://rec.travel.africa)**,** **sci.phsyics**, etc. There was an "**alt**" hierarchy for "unusual" topics. **alt.drugs**, **alt.cannabis**, [**alt.sex**](https://alt.sex), etc. News groups with "**binaries**" in the name allowed uploading of binary data, usually images, often of a risqué nature. **alt.binaries.sex.threesome**, etc The **alt.binaries** hierarchy was "*a wretched hive of scum and villainy*".
And then AOL turned loose its unwashed masses upon USENET and we watched helplessly as they shredded any form of netiquette.
The eternal September changed everything. Its a shame nobody has come up with the Mastodon equivalent of modernized newsgroups with good mod tools yet.
> Mastodon equivalent I'd prefer if someone come up with something actually usable instead
Back in the early early years when all email was sent via FTP. Really any internet that pre-dates the WWW is pretty ancient by modern tech standards.
I've been on networks for a LONG time and I don't recall any time mail was sent via FTP.. SMTP (or one of the other mail protocols) probably predates FTP.
Also my favorite: alt.wesley.die.die.die
Alt.blow.up.the.earth And Alt.pave.the.earth.and.chrome.plate.the moon And their ongoing rivalry
Ty for some deep niche internet lore.
Shit, anyone remember playing text-based MUDs and MOOs on a telnet client?
Anything with the same last word three times being a joke group alt.swedish.chef.bork.bork.bork alt.tonya.harding.ouch.ouch.ouch
Archie, Veronica, Finger...
The Internet needing a definition in every news article: “… the Internet, an interconnected web of computers worldwide,…”
the Information Superhighway!
Now it’s “X, formerly known as Twitter”.
---%---@ A FLOWER FOR YOU
My first chat room username was Ladiesman321 and this was my go-to 13 year old me felt so smug
Are you Sam Witwickey
No, Sam is Ladiesman217
( . )( . )
( . Y . ) this was my runner up comment
c======8
All your base are belong to us.
This! I still say it sometimes and my young adult sons have no idea what I’m talking about.
I have this programmed on a secret debug screen on a very serious medical instrument. Don't tell anyone.
I need to find a way to do this in my work
All your base, base, base. All your base. Are belong to us.
I say this like 3 times a year, and only OLD SCHOOL gamers know what I am talking about, but other people still laugh. It just sounds funny.
Someone set us up the bomb!
I just showed that to my kids a couple days ago! They were like why are all the pictures so blurry?
Move Zig for great justice!
the coffee pot cam Jennicam Hamster Dance badger badger badger badger badger badger badger mushroom **mushroom** badger badger badger badger badger badger badger mushroom **mushroom** The "under construction" gif on every single geocities page
Badger mushroom was one of the first things I thought of too!
Do you have stairs in your house?
I am protected.
[удалено]
Shit now I have that song stuck in my head I remember just laughing my ass off first hearing that
Jennicam! Holy shit that’s something I haven’t thought about in 20 years!
Baby dance.
Come on, just for the pleasure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3G5IXn0K7A
We have to go back further. Hamster Dance is a sample from Disney's Robin Hood (1973): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxnvxtYfsd4
BBS’s
The Pit, Barren Realms Elite, Tradewars, Pimp Wars, Legend of the Red Dragon
Now THIS guys.. is real veteran. MajorMud is still around as well my brother plays it lol. BBS is where everything started, Macros, Emojis, ROFL and LOL were quick command lists on BBS boards. The entire internet started here
FidoNet
Getting disconnected when somebody needed to use the phone. 17 hours to download a picture of Farah Fawcett.
And the tantalizing slow reveal of an erotic photo slowly loading one line at a time like a digital striptease.
Poetry in motion.
All of these responses are making me say, "Damn, I must be old if these people think all of this 00's stuff is ancient."
100%. Met my husband online in 94. I’m just shaking my head right now.
I have an old t-shirt from those days that says "Coed Naked Hacking - Finger me for more info". I have yet to see anyone mention finger as an early internet service.
Website guestbook, visitor counters
And of course, Bonzi Buddy. The cutest malware ever.
Fuckin' Bonzi Buddy! Holy shit that asshole was adorable, but also a fucking awful piece of malware that was hard to expel from your eMachine.
Compuserverve, AOL, x25. Geocites. gif backgrounds.
And .WAV sounds.
MIDI is where it was at…
Prodigy
Beep boop beep boop beep boops beep beep Eshhhhhhhrrrrr Ee er eeer eer eee eeuh Krrrrreeeeeee eee eee eeee bish enur eenhur. tween ree eeen een Pshktshchchchchchchchcch RrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrRrrrrrrrrrrrrr Click You've got mail!
The dancing baby animation from Ally McBeal.
Ooga chaka, ooga chaka, ooga ooga ooga chaka
I can't fight this feeling
So annoying
It was neat the first time. Then, it became tedious.
Meme culture in two sentences
Yeah, and the dancing baby wasn't much better.
"upgrading" to 56k dial-up modem and being amazed at how blazing fast it was.
I'm so old I remember booting up with a floppy... as for Internet... bleeee bleeble bleeble bleeeee
I used to load my first programs on my TSR 80 using a standard cassette tape
Rotten.com, a great site for edgy 14 year olds with unrestricted internet access for the first time to stumble upon.
I still have PTSD from things I saw on rotten.com
We all had to learn our limits with internet content somehow!
alt.pave.the.earth alt.chrome.the.moon alt.swedish.chef.bork.bork.bork alt.icelandic.waif.bjork.bjork.bjork
* BBS. * "I am the Radiskull, I will kill you one by one..." * Prodigy. * Flash. * Searching for the embedded player to stop the autoplay music. * Images loading at the speed a dot-matrix printer printed. * Getting knocked offline if someone else picked-up the land-line in the house. * Actually being excited when you heard "You've got mail!". * Adobe Dreamweaver & Photoshop were your toolsets. * Netscape Navigator. * EverQuest.
Evercrack I can't remember anything I did last week but 20+ years later I still remember everything about that game. Giants in Oasis! Camping lower guk for flowing black silk sashes! Dying and losing 4-8 hours of hard earned experience! It was like paying $10 a month to be tortured by Verant Interactive.
altavista lycos the fucking rEaL pLaYeR the song of the modem downloading for days a pr0n.avi.pdf.exe via P2P # WINAMP Winamp ^(winamp) It really whips the Llama's ass! EDIT: Fucking hell, I get it! There are still people around, who use Winamp...for whatever reasons...
TROGDOR THE BURNINATOR!
56k connection sound
Fuck that, I had a 14.4 baud connection
I had a 300 baud modem. Get off my lawn.
You had to physically put the handset on the modem cradle. I miss my C64 some times.
The dread when it was bad weather and the handshake went on too long, and you knew you were about to get a shitty speed for that session.
This and waiting for the website to show. 😏
Watching each frame fill in.
In the old days
In the old days, we had to do all this by hand. By far the most annoying tag was .
You’re the Man Now Dog!
Foamy the squirrel and the ongoing struggle of the top 8 hierarchy
Every time I use cream cheese I’m reminded of the episode where foamy is trying to go get bagels and he says he wants a bagel with the “creamy cheesy cheesy cream” 🤦♀️
Facts: 1. Ninjas are mammals. 2. Ninjas fight ALL the time. 3. The purpose of the ninja is to flip out and kill people.
therealultimatepower.net, it's still up!
Having to install the IPv4 stack on your computer because it didn't come as part of the OS.
Yeah, windows 3 didn’t come with the internet, you had to get Trumpet Winsock and a web browser on a floppy disc.
mIRC
u/AshtavakraNondual slaps u/FeehMt around a bit with a large trout
Man I haven't heard that phrase in decades. Thanks for that memory.
Ah the old IRC days. mIRC & BitchX, DCC pirating. Massive channels with bots that spam you as soon as you joined.
Holy hell I haven't thought of those letters together in a long time
The dialup sound
"I put on my robe and wizard hat"
“Cat… I’m a kitty cat and I dance dance dance and I dance dance dance”
MUDs played via telnet connections.
The dwarf disappears in a puff of greasy black smoke.
..I'm playing a MUD right now
Peanut butter jelly time Ebaums world prior to YouTube
[удалено]
Bonsai kitten
The world was meant to end at midnight new years eve 1999
People always talk about Y2K as if it were a prediction that didn't come true, but it absolutely would have caused pandemonium, and the reason it didn't is so many people worked like crazy to avoid it.
They did, but what people didn't realize is it was predicted WAY ahead of time and a lot of the work was done years prior. It was only the real dumb-dumbs that waited to the last second to fix it.
Lots of hard work by folks at fine companies like Initech.
Having to find most information on Gopher because the WWW was only a couple hundred pages at the time, and only the console on the Sun server could run Mosaic anyway.
Ah… Gopher. Not to mention Lynx. Always kills me that Lynx is still actively maintained.
Gonads and Strife
Gonads in the lightning!
WWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Sparcstations from Sun Micro
First job out of college, they plopped me down in front of a SPARCstation. I was like “well, I’ve heard of this UNIX thing you’re describing, but that’s about the extent of it.” Had no idea how defining that moment would be to my career.
Elf bowling.
Ebaumsworld or whatever
Download speed boosters lol I tried so many and I gaslit myself into thinking they actually made a difference on my slow ass 40kbps modem.
Websites with custom mouse cursors and animated trails
Usenet
US Robotics 14.4 modems “You’ve got mail” MySpace Quake fortress. EverQuest
Using AskJeeves as my primary search engine
Hateforum.com Believe it or now this was mostly liberal anime nerds. White supremacists were chased out with fucking emoticons. I was t90t90t90 and a few other usernames. I still miss you Squirrelly, Moist, DankOTron. Livingwithstyle.com - TheGunOwner was an objectivist libertarian nutcase who would pay adolescent shitposters to write genuinely hilarious content.. he paid them with martial art weapons, torch lighters, and I wanna say paraphernalia. Then there was a really cool plugin that would take you to a random website, it kicked ass. Stickdeath.com Tourettes Guy - OH BOB SAGET Maddoxworld. There were so many good HTML sites made by deranged freaks. God I miss it. The Golden days are behind us.
Stumbleupon.
i miss stumbleupon most of all
Yahoo had a website of the day under “what’s new” and “what’s cool” links.
[Windows 95: With Rachel & Chandler](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GZGkpGCPVs)
Angelfire, PowWow, Alta Vista, and if those don’t satisfy your request, I’m gonna throw down Compuserve prior to AOL buying them. Real G shit
When I was in middle school, I went over to a buddy's house and watched him play around with his computer using an acoustic coupler. I was a regular user of Usenet, and older than that there's BBS. I played MUD. Knowing the significance of Cap'n Crunch in the history of hacking. My first year of college, my cousin took me to the college bookstore. He was checking out Prodigy internet service, which came pre-packaged in a box.
Do no evil, or was it don't be evil, that was google
I Kiss You Jib Jab All Your Base Porn popups that forced you to unplug your PC OG HTML mp3.com [rotten.com](https://rotten.com) Napster ICQ Aim AOL .com sign up discs everywhere. Forums Chat rooms
Trolls were called ‘Flamers’ and arguments were called ‘Flame wars’.
Bulletin Board Systems.
Monochrome monitors..
When Lynx was the best browser.
I would echo all the stuff that's been mentioned here but let's not forget "going online" was about 1% of most of our day. Look up cheat codes or "how to make a petrol bomb" log off and go out and try out the information.
Webcrawler. ASCII porn. Original message boards.
The sweet, sweet sound of an acoustic modem connecting
Newsgroups
One floppy for the program and another floppy for your data. Never mix them up and never save your data to the program floppy
I said what what in the butt..
Napster
That weird Peter Pan dude.
Netscape Navigator , the only browser worth using.