Where's the feel of the old Internet gone, and what sites do you use?

Hey all. Since the Internet has just been boiled down to the main big social media sites, it feels like the magic is gone. Whens the last time someone said to you "hey check out this cool website"? It's always the same: TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, FB, Reddit, Discord. Forums are basically dead. Chat rooms are dead. Message boards are dead.

I miss that feeling of just discovering interesting or quirky websites. Lemmy is cool because it feels fresh and new, and there's not a boat load of users here yet. But what other sites do you guys use or can recommend? I remember browsing Joe cartoon, Newgrounds, weebls, Ebaums, failblog, damnlol, and a bunch of other stupid but either funny or interesting sites.

Are there sites out there that still have that early Internet vibe? I feel like there is a treasure trove of still active websites out there but I have no idea what they are. Any recommendations would be GREATLY appreciated.

Edit: I created !oldweb where these sorts of sites can be shared!

darkfoe,

No specific recommendation from myself, but I've found a lot of the more "personal" feel of the internet has gone underground, ie, off search engines. A lot in discord, some in matrix, and some showing up here. Odd one still on IRC, but that's slowly shifting to discord/matrix

Laille,

Out of curiosity, what do you mean by in matrix? Never heard of it before.

darkfoe,

Matrix is basically federated discord. It's to discord what Lemmy is to reddit

RadDevon,

Yes, this is the problem. Search engines used to be a way to find stuff. They slowly evolved into more and more effective platforms for monetizing internet users, meaning the only content you can effectively find now is content that's selling something (or perhaps content that is selling you).

Breaking out of that bubble can reveal that content that isn't built for selling is still there. It's just like you said: it's gone underground. Not by choice but because the ground got moved.

darkfoe,

Yeah, hopefully the explosion of Lemmy and Mastrodon leads to more of the message board level of the internet, only without having to maintain five gazillion accounts and checking them daily for new content. That era was pretty nice and was indexed well by search engines.

fernandu00,

That was poetic!

jgoerzen,

The Tildeverse! https://tildeverse.org/ Check it out. A bunch of multiuser systems, with services ranging from IRC to Usenet and Mastodon. Many Tildes support Gopher and Gemini homepages, there's Tildeverse Radio, and all sorts of things.

Billy_Gnosis,

There's many reasons why the old web nearly disappeared, but I think the main two are cell phones and social media. Combine those two things with giant corporations trying to monetize everything and this is where we end up. The old internet was awesome.

Hyperz,

Not a specific site, but you can get the old internet feel using Tor Browser and exploring Tor websites. Last time I checked it out it felt like going back to the early 2000s or late 90s depending on the website. There are also some sites hosted on IPFS that looks like something from Geocities.

calcifer,

Can you recommend any fun links that aren't illegal?

TheAnonymouseJoker,
@TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml avatar

It is better to not discuss what you browse on Tor, considering the sensitive nature of it, plus illegal material that exists. If you can roam around silently without honeypotting yourself and learning and enjoying your time, I see it as a net positive.

Hyperz,

Unfortunately no. It's been a few years since I've taken a look at it. But it shouldn't be too hard to find Onion sites that list other sites. And there are Onion search engines out there as well. Maybe you could start here.

Sabata11792,

4chan. I know it's a shit hole, but it's the shit hole I grew up in and it's chaotic nature is nostalgic.

YourFavouriteNPC,

Ever since Tickld went to shite, the internet hasn't been the same for me. Oh how I miss those days.

quarterlotus,

I came across this list recently, compiled by 4chan's /g/, that has a bunch of sites to check out.

Xer0,

There's some seriously good stuff in here. Thanks!

cavemeat,

crap, they deleted their comment, what did they say?

Xer0,

There was a few links to other stuff, gutted they deleted it. I will start posting some links on !oldweb

comfy,
@comfy@lemmy.ml avatar

Honestly, some of my favourite sites are niche interest groups. One I've contributed at lot to (even creating a magazine for) has between 5 and 10 active users in total. They're just so comfy.

And yes, some of my favourite sites are the ones you may look at and declare dead :)

Xer0,

Care to list some of your faves? :)

comfy,
@comfy@lemmy.ml avatar

I'd rather not, just because they have a spam problem which isn't under control yet, and we're talking NSFL spam.

Borgzilla,
@Borgzilla@lemmy.ca avatar

Yo, a couple years ago I had become fed up with the state of the modern Internet, and I started looking for alternatives. This is what I have found so far:

  • Gopher protocol (sdf.org is pretty active)
  • Gemini protocol (Modern version of gopher)
  • Shared UNIX systems (also called tildes) sdf.org is great!
  • RSS
  • IRC/Matrix to chat with people
  • Session messenger to chat with family
  • BBSes via syncterm
  • wiby.me and marginalia.nu search engines to find personal web sites
  • oldavista.com to browse the 'Old Net’
  • Web forums
  • Neocities
  • Webrings (They still exist!)
  • Lemmy (This is a new one)

The next step for me will be to build my own personal site. The only way to keep the independent web alive is to participate in it.

Xer0,

Hey, this is great. Thank you. I have actually just created a community here !oldweb if anyone is interested. Just a place to share these sorts of sites and lists etc.

3yiyo3,

Hey, this is great. Thank you. I have actually just created a community here !oldweb if anyone is interested. Just a place to share these sorts of sites and lists etc.

Just joined, thanks :)

willow,

Metafilter is very old school in a good way! http://metafilter.com/

Xer0,

Man I remember this site. I'm surprised it's still going!

Xero,
@Xero@infosec.pub avatar

I use reddit mostly because it's a link aggregator for the non-gaming stuff that interests me. Apart from that it's Ars Technica, Slashdot, or Techmeme.

aio2,

vimm.net is really cool for older game ROMs and just has a classy feel to it :)

r3d5un,

I like Hacker News for technology and programming news.

d3Xt3r,
@d3Xt3r@lemmy.ml avatar

If you want old school and quirky, check out https://www.windows93.net/ A little less quirkier version of this is https://windows96.net/

klemptor,

check out https://www.windows93.net/

Oh man, I have the feeling I'm going to waste so many hours of my life here haha

argv_minus_one, (edited )

See also Infinite Mac and PCjs, which emulate a vintage computer in your browser and have disk images of various operating systems and applications from the '80s and '90s.

Infinite Mac uses several pre-existing Mac emulators like Basilisk II, compiled to WebAssembly, whereas the PCjs emulators are written from scratch in JavaScript. Interestingly, this demonstrates the advantages of WebAssembly, as Infinite Mac is significantly faster.

technopagan,

gamecopyworld.com still looks as awesome as ever since the times I used diskettes to transfer a No-CD crack from the local library's Internet-enabled PC to my offline PC at home, ca. 25 years ago.

RadDevon,

Holy crap, I had totally forgotten GameCopyWorld! Thank you for this!

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