How the Internet Used to Be

Augmerson

Geocities everywhere. Geocities and Angelfire. Websites on Justin Timberlake and the Spice Girls. Being excited when you got an email. Rotten.com being a novelty. Trying to look up pictures of your favourite celebrity nude. A/S/L? Counter-Strike. 33k and 56k modems but never actually connecting at that speed. mIRC.

What are your favourite memories of yesteryore from the Internet?

EdenHazard

First time being on the internet was going on www.disney.com, me and my mum sat on front of the computer for what seemED like an eternity, watching the disney homepage load up. I think we gave up because it was just too slow, that was around 1998. I think began using the internet in 2002, and while slow was still able to do stuff, getting Broadband was just :O But yeah I'd say not many can remember the first website they ever visited on the world wide web.

Bearshare, Kazza, Limewire, Spinchat, this is all 2003. Going on to search for pictures of Trish Stratus from Wrestling and freaking out my parents would walk in on me.

Hulk Hands

Checking up www.dialatone.ie (i think), spending a fortune and being incredibly excited when the ringtone got sent to your phone

Jen Pigs Fly

I always wondered ... What exactly was geocites?

I always remember funny junk and lime wire

Augmerson

ISDN was the holy grail.

What happened to Netscape?

pharmaton

oceanfree chat :P
indigo and all the free cd roms that came with everything

Augmerson

xxxJennyxxx wrote: »

I always wondered ... What exactly was geocites?

I always remember funny junk and lime wire

Google image search Geocities

https://www.google.ie/search?q=geocities&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=AdMOUqCUGLOy7AaG8IGYAw&biw=1280&bih=685&sei=CNMOUvK5Bamq7QaMs4GIDg

Rayne Wooney

Club Penguin was great craic

C.K Dexter Haven

Augmerson wrote: »

What happened to Netscape?

She's now working as a waitress in a cocktail bar, going out with a guy who drives a Rover- sad end really.

Shanotheslayer

Xfire and mIRC

gurramok

I'm still on mIRC, old skool which is still the network of choice for network savvy types doing "other" type of activity..hehe :P

Hotornot.com was popular back in the day in the 90's

Augmerson

gurramok wrote: »

I'm still on mIRC, old skool which is still the network of choice for network savvy types doing "other" type of activity..hehe :P

Hotornot.com was popular back in the day in the 90's

Ratemyface.com ha

Duggy747

The official website for the Space Jam movie is a great novelty throwback :pac:

FearDark

Porn used be incredibly hard find.

pandaboy

Alta Vista websearch!

pharmaton

I just remembered I worked for AOL briefly. Jesus I had completely blanked that part of my life

gurramok

FearDark wrote: »

Porn used be incredibly hard find.

Since when?

It was certainly widespread around 1998. Quite a revelation excuse the pun of whats out there

Insect Overlord

Augmerson wrote: »

Rotten.com being a novelty.

*flash-backs*

The horror, the horror...

nice_very

the longest minute ever, friday night 23:59, to avail of the surf for free weekend

pharmaton

gurramok wrote: »

Since when?

It was certainly widespread around 1998. Quite a revelation excuse the pun of whats out there

I was going to say I googled gay porn but I didn't, I'm pretty sure I yahood it

[lesbians were very different then too)

Augmerson

Nobody could make any calls when you were on the Internet. Madness.

Maximus Alexander

MSN messenger.

whirlpool

nice_very wrote: »

the longest minute ever, friday night 23:59, to avail of the surf for free weekend

17:59, no?

o1s1n

nice_very wrote: »

the longest minute ever, friday night 23:59, to avail of the surf for free weekend

I broke the esat 'terms of fair use' (probably Napster!) an got cut off.

Only other option was IOL a few months later with the above on the weekend.

Had my pc to auto dial at 6:00pm friday

The_Valeyard

Oceanfree.net chat rooms

gurramok

o1s1n wrote: »

I broke the esat 'terms of fair use' (probably Napster!) an got cut off.

Only other option was IOL a few months later with the above on the weekend.

Had my pc to auto dial at 12 midnight friday

ESAT Nolimits with a limit!

Yeh Stoneage now. Anyone remember AudioGalaxy? Class for finding rare songs back in the day.

nice_very

whirl, we had something like 8pm-8am free mon-fri and the weekend 48hrs free, all for the princely sum of 10 IRP a week.. around 1999/2000ish

whirlpool

Napster - downloading a song - 95% complete - Download Failed. :mad:

Only made worse by being followed by then hearing someone talking on the phone. Usually your sister.

pharmaton

widows 3.1/95

FearDark

gurramok wrote: »

Since when?

It was certainly widespread around 1998. Quite a revelation excuse the pun of whats out there

Before 1997 ish everything was a pay site! No porntube then my friend!

gurramok

I paid a fortune to EircoN for ISDN back then, oh so we were so ripped off by a monopoly. And then Ireland Offline was born!

pharmaton

I had some serious phone bills all the same

FearDark

gurramok wrote: »

I paid a fortune to EircoN for ISDN back then, oh so we were so ripped off by a monopoly. And then Ireland Offline was born!

I had a dial up one way and my downloads came through my a sattelite dish. Fantastic for Napster but awful for Counter Strike or any other online game for that matter. Then we got ISDN, changed my life! Often got home from school on a Friday, turned on the PC, logged into my favourite game and before ya knew it it was time for school again on the Monday, eating my body weight in crisps and red bull and holding in my piss to a point where I'm sure I have permanent damage!

The_Valeyard

"Get off the phone I want to use the Internet"

FearDark

Back in dial-up days we had a money jar for the internet, if you wanted to use it it would cost you 60p per hour... I can tell you, there were massive phone bills circa 95-00

1ZRed

The dial up screechy, annoying noise. I'm probably one of the only people on the planet that actually liked it! Miss it in a strange way

pharmaton

and it was all so amazing and new and mindblowing, wtf happened.

http://www.internetis****.org/

MaroonAndGreen

pharmaton wrote: »

and it was all so amazing and new and mindblowing, wtf happened.

http://www.internetis****.org/

It got better

Ruu

Doras search engine and Tinet.ie email.

gurramok

Hold on as this is down memory nostalgia way, who here remembers using 56k over Windows 3.1 on Netscape?! Huh?!

pharmaton

MaroonAndGreen wrote: »

It got better

faster and bigger, really not better.

shleedance

Playing chess on Yahoo, Rotten.com, ebaumsworld, screeching sound of the modem when dialing in, chatting up people on YIM, trolling on yahoo chat rooms, making ****ty websites on geocities and downloading ringtones for my phone.

There was no youtube, broadband or social media. A completely different time.

AllGunsBlazing

Metallica suing everyone.

whirlpool

pharmaton wrote: »

and it was all so amazing and new and mindblowing, wtf happened.

http://www.internetis****.org/

No.

pharmaton

whirlpool wrote: »

No.

ya sound like a junkie :P

Allyall

FearDark wrote: »

Before 1997 ish everything was a pay site! No porntube then my friend!

Streaming movies did exist. But god help you if you tried to watch one.

They were mostly still pictures.

Tiny thumbnails, seeing a female in what looked like a "lovely picture", and clicking on it. It took about 1-2 minutes to load the picture fully, and popups.. :mad:... 20 popups per picture. Internet Explorer seemed better than netscape to some, whilst waiting for the picture to load you were constantly closing popups that wouldn't close until they were fully loaded, and that took AAAAGGGEESSSS..

Porn was possible, but you worked, for one picture.

SEANoftheDEAD

I actually miss how the internet used to be. Now a days every Tom, Dick and Harry has access and the rise of social networking has actually bothered me.

Going back 10-15 years it was almost like a cult thing to have internet and as someone else pointed out I also miss the old dial up tone. At around that time I was mad into WWF, and finding a website via Altavista that had wallpapers or theme music gave ye a unique feeling as there was time involved searching for the content that was fairly rare.
We didn't have the luxury of Google images Pirate Bay back then

McCrack

Askjeeves.com

Man he knew everything. I was well impressed.

ahjaysis

I still use mIRC, Xchat, and Counter Strike (have a little portable edition on a usb)

mIRC and Xchat are still pretty huge.

eviltimeban

First ever "internet" experience - playing 688 over a phone line with a friend who would dial in over a modem.

Newsgroups - eg rec.music.beatles, alt.music.

Ireland Online.

Morpheus.

Real Player.

Lycos.

This is the first website btw: http://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html

The Black Oil

MSN messenger in your system tray, and looking at your transcripts afterwards.
MSN Groups
Setting up a hotmail account
Alta Vista, Ask Jeeves, Dogpile, Excite, Lycos
Configuring dial up through your Internet Options
Real Player
Metallica whining about Napster
Oceanfree chat
Phantom FM's chat room
Sky News technology slot/show
Ordering XP service pack 2 on disc rather than downloading it
Spybot Search and Destroy, Adware
BBC Cult message boards