Besides speed, what would actually suck about surfing the internet back in the day compared to now? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago by soulifix@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

18 comments fedilink hide all child comments

My pick would be, dealing with the 'wild west' atmosphere. That being, before cyber bullying laws existed, you had bunches of people getting off scot-free with telling you to off yourself or call you a list of derogatory terms.

top 17 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[-] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I always thought the relative lack of people sucked back then.

Now I kinda wish it didn't have as many.

The vitriol was more or less the same as it is now, though. It really was dependent on the spaces you hung out, and if they were actively moderated and had rules against such crap. All but one of the spaces I would spend online would have dropped the ban hammer on someone telling someone else to kill themselves or for using a slur/spouting hate speech.

But it was also easier to find spaces where that kind of talk was encouraged, too.

[-] 857@fedia.io 1 points 1 year ago

Hand-curated categories -> lists etc.

Think back to what Yahoo originally was. Drill down through categories, subcats, etc. to find what you're looking for.

Worked for the time, but for a technical query today would be an absolute non-starter

[-] son_named_bort@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Pop up ads. You'd be on a webpage and suddenly you'd be in a completely different browser window and had to x out of that one. And the next one. And the next one. And so on.

[-] fubo@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

"Pop-up blocking" was originally found only in minority web browsers like iCab and Opera. Netscape didn't want to include it at first, because Netscape was dedicated to the commercialization of the web.

[-] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

Which is ironic because Firefox (Netscape's descendent) is the better one and Opera is chromium based, which is developed by Google, an ad-supported company that isn't so keen on continuing to allow browsers to block them.

[-] fubo@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

Google Chrome blocks pop-ups too. Google does not allow its own ads to be shown in pop-ups; this is a term of service of the AdSense product.

[-] CmdrShepard@lemmy.one 0 points 1 year ago

Pop-ups but not ads. They have moved to restrict what adblockers can block with newer versions of chromium.

[-] fubo@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Google has probably done more than any other major web company to ensure that ads aren't allowed to harm users — whether through unsolicited pop-ups, malware, or other attacks.

Malware ads used to be commonplace on ad networks; with "legitimate" websites like CNN.com showing ads (served via a third-party ad network) that attacked security holes in Windows users' browsers.

Ask anyone who worked in IT in the early 2000s. Web ads used to be a shitpit. Now they're annoying at most.

[-] CmdrShepard@lemmy.one 0 points 1 year ago

Sure but now everyone is at parity with regards to blocking ads and malware, but Google is intentionally rolling some of that back. I won't say they're 'evil' or anything (at least in this instance) but they're definitely greedy and there are much better options out there (though chromium makes up a huge majority of the market)

[-] beregoth@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

No mention of Mosaic (first web browser)? What sucked was you generally had to compile it yourself. That meant installing all the build tooling, building it, and turning it loose. Oh. Windows? Lol. No go. Gotta get an early version of Linux up and running first. That usually meant 20+ diskettes of Slackware installation.

But then you could surf in all the basic HTTP glory. It was a new world and it was awesome.

[-] Treczoks@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I was there way before "wild west". Back what you could safely assume that anyone you met on the internet either had a degree or was currently on the way to get one.

But what I would miss mostly if transported back in that time is the complete absence of any search engine or centralized knowledge repository. Just imagine a web without google, bing, etc, and with no wikipedia site equivalent.

Our "search engine" was a hand-written notebook in the terminal room, where everyone noted down interesting internet services they had found, including the numerical IP address of the server in case the DNS was flawky.

[-] Blamemeta@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

The wild west part was the best part. It felt real. Now it's all watered down.

[-] cassetti@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago

Remember when downloads could not be paused/resumed. Back in the day if your download was interrupted, you'd have to restart the download. Then apps like Downloadzilla and other programs let you download large files and resume as needed which was critical for large downloads that took hours/days to complete.

[-] CmdrShepard@lemmy.one 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

When I used to pirate music back in the late '90s/early '00s with dial-up, I'd setup like 3-4 songs to download and then leave them running overnight with our 28.8Kbps dial-up internet. If anyone called in on the phone during that time, it'd kick the computer off the internet and I'd have to start the downloads over again. Browsing porn (or just images in general) was interesting too as you would literally see images load top down, line by line. Video was essentially out of the question back then and the best we got was like 2 second looping gifs.

[-] cassetti@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago

Lol yeah I was lucky enough to get a dedicated phone line for dialup.

Although even at max download speeds, I think the fastest I ever saw on dialup was around 4.5kbps because our phone signal was so low quality haha.

Damn I'm getting nostalgic for the old internet, pre 2008 when the average person wasn't online. The internet had it's trolls, but it was a far more civil place compared to the modern era of vitriol and hate prevalent in many online communities.

Remember the IRC and downloading files using automated chat rooms with simple queues to request files from hosts. It's crazy to know they're still in existence and still pretty active.

[-] RikersBeard@showeq.com 1 points 1 year ago

lol... "old internet" "2008" ... wut?

load more comments

this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2023

1 points (66.7% liked)

Ask Lemmy

26290 readers

980 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Rules: (interactive)

1) Be nice and; have fun

Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them

2) All posts must end with a '?'

This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?

3) No spam

Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.

4) NSFW is okay, within reason

Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].

5) This is not a support community.

It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.

Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.