25 People Discuss The Things That Are So Ancient That Only An Internet Veteran Would Remember
1. The Username Struggle is Real
Signing up for a new email address and the username not already being taken.
Glorious times.
R33Gtst
2. Virus Fears
When we used to risk getting viruses just to get cool cursors
Blackout1322
3. Paper Maps
If going on a long car journey, having to print off directions from MapQuest.
ItsBulkingSeasonLads
4. Online Research
When doing research online- Wow this site has had 300,000 people visit, the information must be legit
Wildcat_twister12
5. Encarta
Anyone else remember that trivia game built into Encarta, where you had to answer trivia questions to get through this castle where everyone was basically frozen creepily into place and couldnāt be freed unless you made it to the end?
JerseyJedi
6. Real Player ā Enough Said
Real Player.
Also: uninstalling Real Player.
Orinocobro
7. Flash
Not being able to play flash games until the flash player had been updated.
joothinkso
8. Good Times
Playing pool in yahoo chat rooms.
superwholockian62
9. AOL
Making aol away messages in the funky fonts and colors. And those midi sound files that played on a loop. And those dress up ādollsā. It would take AGES to download all of those images.
Lilliputian0513
10. Desktop Themes
Remember desktop themes? Changing all your icons, mouse pointer, computer sounds, etc., to images and sounds from, like, Dr. Katz: Professional Therapist or whatever.
kal_el_diablo
11. Multiplayer Hassles
Having to physically carry your computer around to a friendās house if you wanted to play multiplayer.
gfyans
12. Signing Onto The Net
Actually having to āswitch onā the internet. Opening the shortcut, typing password and clicking connect and then waiting for the dubstep music to finish.
AlexMullerSA
13. CDs
Putting a music CD into the computer to check out the āextrasā only for it to load way too slow to do anything with.
usspaceforce
14. Basic HTML
Old websites written in a notepad file with basic HTML using tables for spacing/formatting and images that took forever to load. This included lower than lo-fi midi audio files that auto played when the site loaded and āwebringā affiliation links at the bottom of the page.
People thought making a personal page look professional meant it looked like a newspaper column with a ātable of contentsā link list on the left side in traditional roman numeral style list.
The_Superfist
15. Only Books
When Amazon just sold books.
Daz-mond
16. Floppy Disks
Floppy disks and CDās that came in the mail containing 500 free hours from AOL.
Keithninety
17. Get Off The Phone
Having to make sure no one is on the phone so you can use the internet
Conny_and_Theo
18. Expensive Mistake
When I set up our internet for the first time mid 90s I accidentally had it calling a long distance number. Dad received a phone bill for $2800. We no longer had the internet in our house after that.
ltBurnsWhenlPvP
19. Ask That Guy
Ask Jeeves
sev45day
20. Porn Problems
Starting a ten minute clip porn download on LimeWire before you left for school and still having to wait for it to finish when you got home.
Then have your dad get mad bc of so many viruses on his computer.
Phil_Hurslit51
21. URLs
Having to actually type out āhttp://www.āĀ before entering the website.
OriginalAnalysis2940
22. Are They Lazy?
OMG that just unlocked a childhood memory- I used to get so annoyed when parents would type a website name into the search bar and look for the website link that way. I was like, āWhy canāt they just type out the whole website url? Are they lazy?ā
Natural_Crit
23. Chatrooms
Going into AOL chatrooms and saying, āHey! They put a fireworks show into the chat! Hold Alt and hit F4 and youāll see it!ā
Then watching as, one-by-one, chatroom participants disappeared.
john_snape_
24. LimeWire
Ah yes, LimeWire was like having unprotected sex with the internet. Guaranteed virus.
LordSialo
25. The End
Reaching the end of the internet.
It was possible to run out of new websites to visit.
BW_Bird