I want to see if I can get a spark of the “old internet” back by making a starting page for myself with all kinds of cool websites. But not sure where to start because Google obviously will not work for this.
So… what are some of your favourite websites?
neal.fun definitely deserves a mention.
These games also have a similar feel:
Paper Trader
Guess The YearWelp, already spent way too much time on neal.fun! Great stuff!
Got a few:
https://everynoise.com/ You can find A LOT of music genres here. Genres next to eachother resemble one another. Figure out what you like, and what genres are close to it. Clicking on the >> will take you to artists in this genre, or search for artists in the upper right corner and see what genre they fall under.
https://clickclickclick.click This one is about privacy, see what a browser can track. If you don’t know much about pixeltracking, this one is a fun way to learn (and a little creepy hehe)
https://suno.com/create Create your own songs with an AI, just throw in lyrics, a genre, and you are done. A fun way to troll a friend by throwing in an old conversation
https://darknetdiaries.com/ Haven’t looked into this one myself, but these are true stories on the darknet, recommended by a friend of mine.
Darknet Diaries is a podcast, rather than just a website. It’s not all about the darknet, he does tons of stories about internet security and penetration testing.
I have listened to every single episode. It’s EXCELLENT.
Came here to post EveryNoise. Absolutely incredible site that just fucking WORKS. Can’t believe I went as long as I did without knowing about it.
It’s interesting. Some seriously fragmented genre names. Not sure I agree with many of them, but I always like new music discovery tools.
Clickclickclick is such a great eye opener. And I’ll definately will spend some time searching artists I like on Everynoise. Other two also added to my bookmarks for later viewing. Great links!
Enjoy!
Thanks for the links, they’re interesting.
I don’t know if it’s “lesser known” but I discovered boardgamearena.com last year and I’ve been addicted ever since.
It’s free, but there is a premium membership that gives some extra perks.
Hundreds of boardgames that you can play with others online, from rummy and checkers to Wingspan and Catan.
They offer casual matchmaking and ranked competitive modes and tournaments.
Set up an account and invite me to your favorite game! I would love to learn it! You can figure out my username on there.
BGA is fantastic. Free game selection is always growing. Membership, if you want to pay for the premium games, is a fantastic deal. Only one person in your playgroup needs a membership for everyone to play. The interface for most games is WAY better than actually playing in person and games are so much faster too. It’s not as good as hanging out in person with friends, but it’s damn close.
I miss the old Yahoo games site where during night shift you could play Canasta with probably some retired folks from the other side of the world
I just checked. BGA doesn’t have canasta. Sorry.
How do you feel about Hearts, cribbage or Kings in the corner?
Don’t know those, also, stopped doing night shifts (mostly) :)
Boardgame Arena is a great site indeed!
https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/
When I discovered this website, I started obsessively relacing all my shoes.
I feel insecure about my current shoelaces now.
That secure shoelace knot was an actual game changer. Shit just works.
I like single purpose concept websites that don’t do anything. They’re the opposite of the modern internet that values engagement above all. They communicate exactly one thing once and though you never have to go back, you’re always glad that they’re there.
Feel like you are really under selling all that zombo can do
Anything is possible… At Zombo com
So true! I hereby retract that antizombo slander
It’s not what zombocom can do, it’s what you can do at zombocom.
Zombo is great. In the 10 minutes I spent there I hung the laundry, bought weekly groceries, painted my living room, got married twice, got elected minister of foreign affairs of Belgium, made first contact with 4 different alien spaces and then evolved into a whole new life form that exists in 4d space. Good site.
I like single purpose concept websites that don’t do anything.
Aye matey.
Excellent thank you very much for this.
I am a now Junior Acolyte follower of the pug
Big ytmnd vibes
I’m amazed zombo still exists
When Flash died the site was down for several days. It was nerve wracking not knowing if it would return!
I agree, I love when a site is focused.
Like I said in another comment, got some big YourTheManNowDog vibes from these. Used to browse their random site visitor a lot back in the day.
Also, love how yyyyyyy seems to be a randomized site.
Archive.org has many facets:
Wayback Machine
Internet Arcade
Feature Films
NASA Images
Multiple Image collections
Live Music Archive
Free Audiobook Collection
Open Library
American LibrariesHow stuff works is amazing.
Wikipedia should not need to be mentioned.
All great and valuable links. Thanks! Archive has so many usecases. I recently used it to get some design inspiration for old 50’s and 60’s catalogs and magazines. Plenty of retro and vintage stuff to find! GifCities from the Archive.org team is also great :)
It’s a pretty simple concept with a lot of references, but Floor796 is fun to browse around when I’m bored. There’s a few interactive bits too, if you can find them.
What do you call these? Feel like I’ve seen this animated and printed a bunch of times in my life.
As far as art style goes, I’m not sure to be honest. Based on the artist’s YouTube page of their drawing process, it seems akin to making something in Paint.
In general, I guess you could call it slice of life? iirc the “floor” is supposed to be on a spaceship, just showing the day to day activities.The still image variety are wimmelbilder.
Frontend link to the sub on the old site.
Time for a rabbit hole. Thanks!
EDIT: Another term I found now is “isometric illustration”
Wiby, particularly the “surprise me” option is great for old school sites and that StumbleUpon feeling!
Ooh, that’s some old school stuff!
It is far from lesser known, but my favorite standalone site is still Atlas Obscura.
So that’s how 27/100 performance feels like…
Are these effective load times? I’m not exactly sure what this is.
Edit to add: Am I misreading this, or is your connection throttled? I have 0 issues loading the site with Firefox + uBlock Origin, either desktop or mobile.
I also had 0 issues. Worked fine with Firefox mobile/ublock, and with the built in Voyager browser. Didn’t seem particularly slow at all.
If you want an excuse to visit random coordinates around you geohashing.site is a interesting option. Each day everyone is given the same set of spots to go to, with optional challenges and badges one can do. Its quite surprising how strong the community has been going despite it’s age.
Futility Closet is a collection of entertaining curiosities in history, literature, language, art, philosophy, and mathematics, designed to help you waste time as enjoyably as possible.
Here’s one of my long time favorites:
What a treasure trove! At first glance I love all the ASCII art. But some of the texts feel like you’re browsing some old Reddit/4chan posts. Will take me a while to get through all the gems!
I am really happy that you appreciate it. There is so much to explore there, be careful because it’s easy to lose a lot of time browsing the files. Lol
I love reading about all the old school hacking and shit. There’s some genuine ‘anarchist cookbook’ type of stuff in there. Probably don’t try any of that shit, but it’s fun to read about none the less.
Probably don’t try any of that shit,
Now you tell me, I just spent the last couple hours trying to get free CompuServe access.
🤣
https://wavingwalrus.itch.io/peckin-pixels
This game about chickens is a really fun time sink.
I miss old StumbleUpon! It was great for this. Someone recently introduced me to Flashpoint Archive and I have a hunch that there’s a bunch of good stuff there.
Ooh yeah, the Flashpoint Archive is an amazing resource! I’ve dabbled in it before. Great blast from the past!
Blue’s News - Video Gaming, Technology and General Interest. I think it’s been around since the mid 90s.
Added to my rss feeds thanks!
