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!

  • Hellfire103@sopuli.xyz
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    1 year ago

    Have a look at Neocities (a successor to Geocities). My website is here.

    You can also have a look at the rest of the Fediverse. There are some cool accounts on Mastodon and PeerTube.

    For that true “old web” thing, have you ever heard of gemini? Take a look. My capsule on gemini is here, but you will need a gemini browser in order to see it.

    Hope this helps!

  • vrojak@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    There’s wiby, a search engine indexing older style pages. I sometimes go there, just hit the random button and explore wherever I end up.

  • Borgzilla@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    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@lemmy.mlOP
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      1 year ago

      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.

        • Xer0@lemmy.mlOP
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          1 year ago

          Bro, I’m going to be honest. I have no idea. Still trying to wrap my head around how that stuff works. Someone linked something on another lemmy instance and it prompted me to setup a new account on that instance. So I’m not too sure how it all works 100%.

  • RadDevon@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    I didn’t run in exactly the same internet circles that you did, but I do still crave the sense of discovery of the early web. A few months ago, I put together a list of “old web” on-ramps to sate the hunger.

    Neocities is a big hub for weird web sites that aren’t trying to make a buck. For me, that’s the key. What’s the motivation for this web site? Is someone trying to sell me something, or do they love this thing they’re talking about so much, their enthusiasm has spilled out onto the internet?

    • Gmork@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Thank you for this! I have been plowing through your links throughout the day. I found some fantastic stuff and a rush of nostalgia.

    • Xer0@lemmy.mlOP
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      1 year ago

      Just read all the info on your link and this is mind blowing. I could spend hours just going through all the various links.

      • RadDevon@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        That’s awesome to hear! I can identify because I did spend hours going through them all! 😅 It was really fun! Took me back to that time. The stuff is still out there… it’s just hard to find because search engines don’t care about it.

  • technopagan@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    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.

      • argv_minus_one@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        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.

  • jgoerzen@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    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.

  • darkfoe@lemmy.serverfail.party
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    1 year ago

    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

    • RadDevon@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      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@lemmy.serverfail.party
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        1 year ago

        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.

    • Laille@lemmy.one
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      1 year ago

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

  • moonleay@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    If you are interested in technology and or programming, you might want to have a look at Hacker News. It’s a news aggregator for everything that involves technology and there are many interesting sites linked there on a daily basis.

  • Xerø@infosec.pub
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    1 year ago

    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.

    • Xer0@lemmy.mlOP
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      1 year ago

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