I miss older html internet

Ignoring the security implications, I miss kb large old raw html websites that loaded instantly on DSL internet. Nowadays shit is too fancy because hardware allows that, but I feel we're just constantly running into more bugs first and then worry about them later.

Edit: I've thought more about it, and I think I just missed the simplicity of the internet back then. There's just too much bloat these days with ad trackers and misinformation. I kinda forgot just how bright and eye jarring most old UIs were lol.

83 comments

You know what I miss? When information was condensed instead of spread out to insert more ads. When software willingly gave you all the options you could ever need instead of removing most of them because "people might get confused". When website took up the entire screen instead of a mobile wide strip in the middle because "it can be scary for people".

Fuck everyone who keeps lowering the bar of tech literacy just to appeal to the general public.
- I literally have a vertical monitor to avoid the middle strip of text problem. It especially sucks for higher resolution monitors, it just feels like so much wasted space on the left and right side of the article.
  
  The most used e-commerce platform on my country does this for the map for in store pick ups when selecting where the package is sent. The map is basically a long vertical strip and the actual map area occupies maybe 10-5% of a 1440p monitor.
  
  Drives me nuts every time I have to use it
  
  This is very true on anything above say 1080p and 100% scaling. I have 2x 1440p monitors and the strip of text in the middle is... way too prevent. That said, I have no idea how you would fill my monitor with useful information and have it scale. I've embraced running four columns of windows most of the time. Sometimes it's two columns on one monitor and a full screen something on my other.
- Click next after each paragraph of the story so I can load more ads! And by paragraph, I mean one <p> tag per sentence.</p>
- I miss the time when UI was utilitarian. None of that rounded corners and fancy themes nonsense. Function over form.
Not that unpopular an opinion I bet.
- Google thinks otherwise :(
  
  Unfortunately, Google is also complicit in this
- I saw a web page from 1999 today and as a full stack dev I immediately clicked away bc obvi NSFW
  
  BUT then I had the urge to go back to this simple ass web "site" and just admire it for a second like "wow, someone probably spent weeks on this 2 day design".
  
  Tbh afterwards I was kind of in awe that every option was available on each page with no sidebars or extra clicks. Not slick but quick tho!
  
  There was a design/development company which made sites and they bragged about making pixel perfect web sites. I can't for the life of me find them again but I remember when I saw their portfolio it was like porn for web developers. Everything was done simply and with least amount of images possible, but it looked so good.
Ignoring the security implications.

There are literally none with basic html.

It's when you started adding shit like Shockwave, javascript and the like, all massive security holes, things got dicey.

Plain old HTML, none what so ever.
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  That's a separate and unrelated issue of connection encryption, nothing to do with the contents of a site. You can totally have a basic HTML page served over HTTPS
  
  So is ASP, PHP, javascript and everything else.
  
  And has nothing to do with HTML.
  
  HTML is not HTTP.
My friend, enjoy.
- I was expecting this motherfucking website
- Thank you
- Funny how sluggish browser feels on these old sites. I guess it would be obvious considering they try to optimize loading and rendering speeds based on trends and developer habits which didn't exist back then, but still I would have thought simple HTML with monochrome background and very limited number of tags would load instantly.
I mean, there are basically no security implications for plain html.
- Oh, I just thought older websites were less secure. But I guess now that I think about it, you only got viruses if you clicked on the sketchy links yourself.
  
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Most of the issue with loading times are the billion ads and trackers. There are sites I visit that load instantly with Adblock on but extremely slow without it.
- looks at dependency list
https://motherfuckingwebsite.com/

And the drivatives: http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com/ https://bestmotherfucking.website/ https://perfectmotherfuckingwebsite.com/
Find the right webring, and you’d hit a treasure trove of content. Dig a little deeper and find something even more interesting. The pre-corporate takeover internet.

We talk about enshittification ruining everything, but Facebook and Web 2.0 started ripping out the heart of the internet. Everyone went along with it, and corporate claws sunk in. The fun internet got pushed aside for the ad-friendly internet.
Speaking as a web developer - sorry.
- No need. As someone who understands web development enough to know I know nothing about web development, it makes sense to me why the internet is what it is today. It's all about establishing a brand and identity now so doing extra things can make you stand out.
  
  While YouTube has gotten more sluggish over the years, I do think some recent changes like ambient mode have been pretty cool. I also support reasonable hardware requirements because things get obsolete over time.
  
  I guess I just miss the simplicity of early internet browsing more compared to all the bloat that exists today.
- Soorrryyyy
There isn't a day I don't think about how annoying the modern web is. Fancy crap, GDPR, a trillion frameworks weighing 1mb+ each, a ton of useless extra info for SEO and whatnot. All to see the pure information I initially seeked saying "yes". Which could've been a 1kb site.
- The GDPR is not annoying. The fact that it is necessary is annoying.
  
  Truetrue. Yet it still doesn't serve much of a protection service. What should we care a about a tracking-cookie when most sites use multiple tracking-scripts anyway? Or force you to either accept or pay. Or simply deny entry at all.
  
  I just need another plugin to block another thing...
Right there with you buddy.

Craigslist and McMaster are so efficient..
I miss kb large old raw html websites that loaded instantly on DSL internet

Instantly? We had very different DSL connections 😳
- It depends on when you had it. I had a 4Mb connection when most people were still on dialup, and it flew.
What would stop an individual or company nowadays to build a pure html website? Isn't this what a "static site" is?

Isn't this what HUGO and Jekyll produce, only a little bit prettier?
- Nothing. Warren Buffetts company Berkshire Hathaway has the most simple business's site of all time.
  
  https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/
  
  The fault is a combination of execs wanting a slick site, marketing wanting a highly SEO scoring page, and Devs wanting to play with web frameworks.
  
  Hey, they even have an old-school tracker-free static advertisement image on that page. Now that's a classic.
  
  Table-based layout, that shit is ancient. We used to build websites this way >20years ago ^^ Mainly because IE was too stupid for anything else.
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  I dont think that usability or acessibility gets so much in the way. It's more about thinking webpages as applications instead of documents. Plain html is easier for screenreaders and larger fonts. You can also get responsive with very little css.
  
  Simplicity is just not the goal anymore.
  
  So essentially what you are saying is getting in between people and smaller, simpler and faster loading sites is convinience and other people?
I just learned about https://neocities.org/, seems up your alley
Try this: https://makefrontendshitagain.party/
- Also wiby.me. (hit "surprise me")
I instantly hit the Firefox Reader Mode button or turn on Brave's accessibility reader. They cut all the crap out of most websites. Bonus is they often remove paywalls.
Neocities!
This web thing is okay, but it will never replace Gopher.
- Gopher is still alive :)
  
  See?
Maybe you'll appreciate https://spacehey.com/
You can still use old Gmail. I do. It's fast. It has no ads. It's amazing.
- I got some bad news for you: https://techcrunch.com/2023/09/25/google-is-killing-gmails-basic-html-view-in-2024/
- Enjoy it while you still can.
- I like using email client software instead. It just uses Gmail as a backend and the inbox looks however I want it to look.
  
  Plus, it works while offline on the train or with Amtrak's shitty WiFi
Everything is a transpiled Rract SPA loaded with trackers ..want to read your neighbors blog? Suck these hundreds trackers ...
I remember building the first web site for our company many, many years ago. It was Friday afternoon, approaching 16:00, and I was eying my jacket hanging next to the office door, when the owner and CEO came in and told me that he had come to the conclusion that we need a web site.

When I left the office at about 22:00, we had one. The CEO and I had sat down together while I set up an apache on a linux box on the desk across from me, and he actually learned a bit of HTML while following me "designing" a web page with a text editor and painting tool. It had everything we needed back then.

Even today, I have the habit of cleaning up HTML perpetrated by horrible tools, most often Word or Calibre.
wiby.me/surprise/

I set this as my home on chrome

It should load some older websites at random each time it's opened
- That's an awesome idea
I'm still the old school developer that refuses to build JavaScript only sites. I build sites html first, and add some JS here and there to add some bling. But I never make it a requirement
Who cares about performance when you can have performance
You might be interested in htmx. While not fully as simple as html it tries to avoid the issues that come with large complex structures that SPA style websites often utilize
It's obviously not got everything, but Gemini is a protocol that really harks back to web 1.0, and there's a real fun niche going on there. Worth a check out:

https://geminiprotocol.net/
Man, I feel the same.
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Can you share some examples of issues you're having?
- I never claimed to have issues? I'm just saying the internet today is just filled with so much bloat and ad trackers. I do like some changes over time, but the era of just raw html and organized websites, and a lack of clickbait was nice.
A couple of helpful tips to get back that lightning fast feeling...

Disable Javascript. I use https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/disable-javascript/

If you're using a phone, try PureBrowser

It's incredible how fast things load when you use one of those options! Although I appreciate a few websites simply refuse to work
The new https://gamersnexus.net/ website is pretty damn fast. Be like the boy!

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