How to Surf the Web
I miss the old internet.
I’m of course referring to the world wide web, but only sad nerds would correct you on such a pedantic level (I do this regularly).
There was something magical about the early days of the internet. If you’re old enough to remember when the web was a more simple place then maybe you share the same nostalgic feeling for it as I do.
Take the title of this article, which is a nod to the the act of browsing but also is a little bit of clickbait; something that never existed when the web started to become popular. It was so pure and full of knowledge. We were so ready to explore. There was no need for clickbait.
I still remember going to my friends house where his dad had purchased a modem with a 28.8 kbit/s connection, painfully slow now but utterly magical at the time. We’d sit and ‘surf’ for hours, reading about anything and everything.
We don’t really do that now, do we?
When did we stop discovering?
In the early days of the world wide web, (and I’m thinking mid nintees here) browsers were becoming a thing. You needed one to look at websites. This seems so trivial now, but back then it was Netscape Navigator we used on a windows machine. I was only a wee boy but as a bit of a geek I figured basic computer stuff out and would spend countless sunny days over school holidays happily sat indoors at the computer (a Tiny if I remember rightly).
I didn’t have the internet at home for a few years as it was still very expensive and needed a half decent computer, so I’d go to the ‘internet cafe’ in high school. There was only one room in the whole school that had internet access, and you could go every Tuesday lunchtime and use it for half an hour. It was me and a bunch of other nerds.
Throughout the week I used to write down websites I wanted to browse, then check them all out when I got there. It was awesome.
Back then there were websites of text and images, and not much else. Including ways to find them - there were of course no commercial search engines. Instead, directory sites like Yahoo! were an absolute gift, you could delve into any subject and learn everything about it. Who knew if the information was all accurate? Who cared. The sites were often written so passionately that misinformation wasn't even something we considered, and I'd bet we didn't need to.
The ‘random’ buttons these sites had were pretty crazy as one minute you’d end up on a site about pets, the next you’re on something dark and disturbing. It was fun.
Then came actual search engines like Lycos, Hotbot and others which were quite primitive but much more advanced than human-curated directories. These sites used pretty basic ways of discovering and storing results, including often just a simple look at page titles, which meant the results were a mixed bag!
But it was a new way to view information on the web - you went to it with queries about what you wanted to know, rather than randomly discovering sites.
And of course Google came along in the late 90’s; a more advanced search engine which took into account context through links, simply meaning the results were a lot better than previous search engines.
But despite the movements and advancements in search, the internet was still something you had to sit down and use.
Even early popular social media like MSN Messenger and MySpace were things you’d sit down at the computer for hours with, and they were quite primitive in terms of functionality - largely then focused entirely on you connecting with friends rather than trying to serve you ads or algorithm based content.
The Turning Point?
I probably sound like a miserable old sod here, but the internet doesn’t seem that fun anymore.
I’m not saying I don’t love it. I still love the internet - and unlike a lot of people - I still think it has changed the world for the better, not worse.
But we’ve lost the simple act of discovery that was so much fun in the early days of the web.
And I think that’s happened because the internet is always with us now. We don’t have to wait to find answers, and we don’t ‘surf the web’ with that sense of wonder and discovery. Information is all around us and is ever growing, and that’s probably a good thing generally, but a quick visit to any local or regional news site utterly plastered with ads and affiliate links has me yearning for the more simple days of the early web.
You could argue that sites like TikTok and Instagram allow for “random” discovery. But the difference is that they are passive - the video content is so easily skippable and designed for such short attention spans that it’s just simply not the same experience. As computer people know, you can never get truly random results, but at least we didn’t have echo chambers before.
And the ads are unbearable now. The act of creating for the web without the intent of making money feels very lost. What a shame. I like sites now (much like I try to make mine) with simple designs and long, interesting articles written with passion.
There’s kind of three stages I see in the evolution of how we’ve used the web:
At first we only consumed
Then we connected
Now we have the ability to easily create
Of course there’s much more depth to the subject than this, but broadly that’s what’s happened in the timeline I describe above.
We were always able to create websites ourselves, but to most people (including me as a kid) that was very complicated. Now social media and platforms like YouTube give people the opportunity to create and share with ease, and we have an unfathomable amount of content out there.
Another element is the fact that the web was mostly text, and we did a lot more reading. Now everything seems to be designed to fit into a 30 second video that’s low-attention-span-friendly. It’s interesting Google has added a ‘web’ filter now though. I’d love to see what the demographics are on that!
There just isn’t really a lot of places where you feel yourself discovering something totally new, totally random, and sometimes totally pointless; but great fun.
With that in mind I’ve been searching for tools and sites that give that nostalgic feeling for the web back. Go ahead and waste some time... surf away…
Wiby
Wiby is a search engine that only indexes pages without JavaScript. So you can imagine the results are rather interesting. It also has the legendary random feature!
Protoweb
Protoweb seems like a crazy cool project - basically they are restoring a ton of old sites which you can browse through their proxy server using either an old browser or their Retrozilla modern browser. Rather than other projects that are using Wayback machine to view old versions of sites, Protoweb seem to be actually rebuilding the sites functionality for a truly old school experience that can be viewed on really old machines.
https://protoweb.org/protoweb-browser/
Oldweb
This is a cool project that simulates in browser what websites looked like on older browsers. It uses Wayback machine for the sites so it’s far from perfect and it’s quite slow, but still great fun.
The Old Net
This project focuses on allowing older computers to browse the web by again using Wayback Machine but limiting the tech for older browsers. It’s a better way to display 90’s sites than the Wayback interface too (I think).
The Useless web
Well this pretty much does what it says on the tin… sends you to random ‘useless’ websites. Please don't @ me with what you find... 😀
The Bored Button
The Bored Button takes you to little web games when you press it. Yep, that’s it. A personal fave I stumbled on, check out the high scores here. Guess some people have too much time on their hands!
Wikipedia Random
I didn’t know before writing this that Wikipedia still had a random function. Bookmark the URL for when you fancy discovering something new.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Puggle
Some of you may remember when IRC and chat rooms were a big deal, and we thought it was a good idea to connect with random people. If you want to experience that again, Puggle is a good place to start. You have been warned 😀
Neocities
So Neocities is still going?! Need I say more?
SpaceHey
MySpace functionality as it was when I was a kid. Side note do a site: search for SpaceHey and see what’s out there 😀
QuakeNet IRC
QuakeNet is still going and was once one of the most popular IRC networks.
https://www.quakenet.org/about
I hope you enjoyed this moan / article / pointless list. Give me a shout if you have any recommendations you want adding!