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The early days of the internet were something else. Social media, video streaming, and algorithms were concepts that didn’t exist for everyday folks surfing the web.

Instead, everyone simply enjoyed connecting with the world and exploring it like a fascinating part of town they had never visited. It was an age of innocence, if you can call it that.

If you lived through those years, these screenshots will instantly throw you back. Youngsters, this is what life was like during much simpler times on the interwebs.

#1 I Lowkey Love This Pic So Much

#2 POV: It’s 2004 And Your Friend Sent You A Mysterious Webpage

#3 Hot Or Not (2002)

One of the early internet’s breakthroughs was AOL dial-up. Once it went mainstream in the early 1990s, normal folks were suddenly introduced to a fascinating new concept: the World Wide Web.

University of Virginia Data Science professor Mar Hicks credits AOL with connecting people to the world.

#4 2000’s Internet Explorer Spyware Toolbars

#5 The Internet May Be Just A Passing Fad. December 2000

#6 Internet Cafe

“(AOL) allowed ordinary and not overly tech-savvy people to access the internet in a straightforward and relatively easy way,” Hicks said. “(It) made the internet more well-known and more approachable to many folks who had maybe never heard of it before or only had a vague understanding of what it was.”

#7 Google Was Launched 28 Years Ago Today

#8 A/S/L ? Aol & Aim Chatrooms

#9 Dial Up Internet

Speaking of dial-up internet, those who lived through those days remember the iconic sound they heard whenever they connected to the web. Hicks describes it as “robotic screaming” that signals a “hailing procedure between two machines that were trying to communicate.”

#10 Sites Like Myspace, Club Penguin, And Early Versions Of Youtube Helped Shape How Millions Of People Interacted With The Internet Long Before Smartphones, Influencers, Or Algorithms Dominated Online Life

#11 Anyone Remember Yahoo Pool?

#12 Tired Of Your Cursor?

As Hicks explains, the initial screeches during the dial-up process signify a “handshake” between your computer’s modem and the network it is trying to access. It also includes the connection type and speed.

“The latter sounds represented the process of negotiating and testing the data connection,” she said.

#13 A Fidonews Article From 1989 Showing Common Icons And Abbreviations Of The Time Period

#14 My Favorite Part Of ’90s Internet Was How Websites Gave You Instructions On The Most Basic Functions Of Your Own Browser

#15 Yahoo! Answers

Broadband internet was another breakthrough in digital technology when its early versions emerged in the late 1990s. In a 2002 report by the Pew Research Center, experts viewed this technology as the “largest driver of the frequency of people logging on daily.”

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#18 Printing Out Cheat Codes From The Internet

Hicks also attributes the spike in internet usage to broadband technology, which also eventually led to the downfall of AOL dial-up.

“The internet is not so much a place anymore as it is a utility, the same way electricity and water in our homes are,” she said. “The end of AOL dial-up definitely represents the end of an era, although it’s an era that I’d argue has been in the rear-view mirror for many people for quite some time now.”

#19 Msn Messenger – The Golden Age Of Online Chatting

#20 Early Internet Exploring

#21 Aol… Countless Hours Spent In Chat Rooms As A Kid

#22 Back In The 90s, Mirc Was The Only Way To Chat With Groups Of People In Real Time Across The World!

#23 2005 Wap Internet Browsing. Motorola

#24 Here Is A Screenshot Of What Ebay Was Like 15 Years Ago

#25 Happy Birthday, Photoshop!

#26 We Built The Libraries Billionaires Charge Admission

#27 Why Do People Call Internet From 2005-2013 The “Early Internet”? That’s Chronologically Middle Internet. The Early Internet Is Web 1.0 (1991-2004)

#28 This Is How I Remember The Web Back In 94

#29 I Miss When The Web Had Less Polish But More Personality

I keep thinking about how much more personality old sites like GeoCities had. Loud colors, clashing fonts, blinking stuff, way too much going on. They often looked messy but felt like a real person designed them.

Now everything feels much more polished… but also completely sanitized and template-y.

1 year ago I began playing around with a few experimental UI ideas and picked forms as a test case. It started out as a small side project and then eventually turned into a tool where you can really mess with the design and layout. Make something that doesn’t look like a template.