textfiles.com still looks like the 90s. It has stories, jokes, essays, and generally interesting stuff.
Zombo.com
Came looking for zombo.com. Was not disappointed.
But then, zombo.com is the old Internet.
Aw i miss when website tracking was only "xxxx users have visited this page" and it was just a simple counter that counted up.
Don't forget signing the guest list.
I remember being so proud when I implemented that on my first website.
THIS PAGE IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION!!!!
I haven’t visited in a long time – but I can’t imagine Craigslist has changed much.
It has not, though there really isn't much posted there anymore. Facebook marketplace has replaced it for most stuff. :(
This was mentioned on another post a few months ago, but it depends on your locale. In some places, it's Craigslist. Others, FB Marketplace.
It's not obscure, but, for me, Wikipedia is the ultimate example of the old internet that still persists today.
Free to use, no account required, ad free, non-corporate, multilingual, heavily biased toward text, simple and utilitarian design. Hyperlinks concatenate relevant pieces of information, which serve as the means to navigate the site. The code is very simple (seriously, view the page source of a wikipiedia article). It's based on the human desire to learn and share knowledge with others, and has remained resilient to corruption by commercial interests that pervert that desire for monetary gain. It's a beautiful thing.
https://www.spacejam.com/1996/jam.html
I’m pretty sure spacejam.com showed that page up until the sequel supplanted it.
From a time when websites used <table> or position: absolute; to place elements on the screen. That website is just one big table.
Kernel.org, home of the Linux kernel, hasn't changed much.
Kernel.org today:
Kernel.org in 1998:
https://web.archive.org/web/19980130085039/https://kernel.org/
Along the same lines,
slackware.com today:
slackware.com in 2001:
http://web.archive.org/web/20010404232132/http://www.slackware.com/
Florida’s unemployment website
Not a website, but since you mention BBSes...one thing that would look pretty familiar to a 1990s Internet user would be most of the text-based MUDs, the ancestor of MMORPGs, that are around.
The MUD Connector is still around, and still has a list of active MUDs.
While I suspect that most dedicated MUDders use dedicated clients, the base protocol is still normally telnet, and you can use a plain old telnet client to play...a protocol that predates Internet Protocol itself.
Your way back search engine https://wiby.me It even comes a surprise me button
I have the suprise page set as start page in my browser, so i get a surprise website, when i open a browser window.
Ebay
I imagine their source code is such an unmaintainable mess that it’s impossible to modernize
Fark.com
gradients, animated GIFs, "best browsed on", and a frame once you click enter. Only thing it's missing is an index page.
frame
Now, that's a name I've not heard in a long time.
Story time: In the super old days, I want to say 1996? 1997? I wrote a four or five line HTML that would split the screen into two horizontal frames, then split those each into vertical frames, then those horizontal -- ad infinitum.
I don't think there were any browsers that didn't fail that test. I'm sure I only checked IE3 or IE4 and Netscape. One of them locked the computer up and had to be killed via "close program." The other one locked the machine up and it became completely unresponsive, needing to be hard booted.
They are trying to be 90s, but I love it. I thought they had a site counter at some point, but maybe I am misremembering and it was just the guest book.
I get most of the stills for my Star Trek memes from trekcore.com which has a pretty old-web feel to it.
TIL Timecube is no longer up. That was my go to site for what the internet used to be like.
https://search.marginalia.nu/ is a search engine for non-commercial content and is pretty great regarding the old-school factor :-)
My healthcare services websites. Their website and mobile app require separate logins. The website logs in then redirects to a completely different website.
They have a tax-free “store” that feels like a completely different website.
Everything is laid out using what seems like the idea of middle management and not modern design philosophy.
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
