Were 00's internet really better?

Underrated and based.

the world was better off, not the internet

it was different and that is the reason i liked it. nowadays everything looks like the same and shitty copypaste javascript pages eat all cpu.

I've come to hate browsing new websites because I always have to click on some stupid privacy agreement and cookie policy before I can even access that POS site and more often than not it's just the same web page as every other one, with no creativity whatsoever.

And don't even get me started on browsing the web from a smartphone, it's just pure cancer and if I can help it, I don't do it.

>Normies [...] ruined the internet.
100% this. It used to be the wild west. It flourished with creativity and freedom of expression, and was niche enough to feel like you were part of something special.

As soon as normies infected the web corporate and political interests followed. Now it's rife with tracking and bloated with mindless swill. Censorship is rampant as each world government tries to enforce their own dystopian future, and webmasters bow to advertiser's wills.

I yearn for internet 2.0

No JavaScript so yeah.

No but it had a few perks. I prefer having video streaming and modern online shopping

yes

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I stumbled back on a website I remember from the early 2000s recently that hasn't been updated in years and still looks basically the same, with all the same cringy stuff that drew 14 year old me to it
dragonlord.net/index.html

Post more shit like this, I need to feel the nostalgia

You could buy cheeze piza with your credit card like today you buy on amazon.

Yah it was better. Imagine instead of every normie having a facebook, people have geocities or tripod webpages. And normies are filtered out. Also look at that screenshot of windows. Has anything REALLY improved since then? I mean, just the aesthetic, and really you could make a case that aesthetic has gotten worse.

Cool, I think I saw a similar neocities page yesterday.
You should go through the neocities catalog if you haven't already.

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castlevaniadungeon.net/dungeon.html

Yes see above. Early 2000s were the best. At that moment in time web development really began to flex. Flash wasnt a big thing only shockwave. From about 1998 we went from geocities tier webpages to about 2003-4 where imo...webpages peaked. Look at Jow Forums. It gets the job done. Sometime around 2005 everyone started insisting on Flash menus and other junk like that. Webpages were still good for years until smartphone optimized webpages came into existence and monetization. A good webpage in 2000 was not more than 100-125kb now I think if you go to CNN it's 6mb of javascript, cookies, and other mindless shit.

Also back then everyone was building webpages for fun and not monetization. The internet was very decentralized and tons of inspiration. Now it's all aggregated on websites like facebook or google. Total fucking letdown.

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Da gubment uses 2.0 already.

No. Usenet was Jow Forums, but there was less media. It was harder to find what you wanted, and going to page 10+ on Google was something you OFTEN had to do.
Pop-ups and malware were still common, even with the rundimentary blockers at the time.
Jow Forums X didn't exist. You needed "404 defender" which literally just refreshed the page every few minutes. You didn't have (you)'s either. It was also common for threads on /b/ to die of old age. Considering how most of the threads were garbage (pic related) this wasn't a good thing.
Youtube didn't exist, and when it did you just had a bunch of normalfags uploading videos of themselves.
You also needed a million different applications to communicate. ICQ, MSN, AIM, YIM, etc. Then you had IRC servers that were unstable as fuck and were purely text only.
2000s Internet were garbage. People only have fond memories of it because the Internet was still magical back then. I'm sure there were ultra-boomers who said the same shit about Model Ts.

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While we rant about excessive Javascript in modern sites, we forget 3MB animated GIFs were entirely normal on sites accessed over dial up modem.

Makes me think of how phpBB and vBulletin have gone from being ubiquitous to being absent. Not sure I've come across one of those in years.

Can agree to some of this.

Remember that Internet Explorer or Nutscrape were the only 2 games in town. From what i remember IE>NS. I recall running Mozilla browser sometime in 2002 or 2003. Tabbed browsing didnt exist. Pop-ups and malware were rampant during this time. You had bonzi buddy and gator trying to be your password manager and all.

Otherwise one way to put it the content was great. Go look at reddit in 2005 vs now. The discussions were quality. I haven't stepped on reddit since 2009 in great capacity. That's when things started to turn.

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Old enough to remember that if you were a poorfag you were limited to running ezboards?

UBB, VBB, and otherd required licenses and you had to get hosting. For unemployable 14 year olds money wasn't attainable like it is now online.

>You also needed a million different applications to communicate. ICQ, MSN, AIM, YIM, etc.

There was Trillian for that (with the annoying af laughing kid sound for the :D emoticon).

Also you had to use Xfire if you wanted to communicate in game. Oh, and the GameSpy client was a thing, as well as MSN Gaming Zone for AOE2.

Holy shit, I was trying to remember what that cheapo one was, thank you.

it was better because you could actually make friends with people on the internet, now the internet is just a giant anonymous blob of shitposting where everyone is the same

>Jow Forums X didn't exist. You needed "404 defender" which literally just refreshed the page every few minutes.
i still just go back to the tab and hit f5 or turn on auto mode, Jow Forums x is unnecessary
>Youtube didn't exist, and when it did you just had a bunch of normalfags uploading videos of themselves.
there was less content and more dumb shit, but it was new and charming at the time, and seeing normies doing funny things on video with no ads, no marketing, no "content creators" marketing youtube as a career, it was better because it was *ours*, not Google's
>You also needed a million different applications to communicate. ICQ, MSN, AIM, YIM, etc. Then you had IRC servers that were unstable as fuck and were purely text only.
yeah, this was weird, you needed an account on everything at some point, but it still felt better than what we have today, what's the alternative to that today that doesn't mine all of your data or shit up your experience with unnecessary garbage
>Then you had IRC servers that were unstable as fuck and were purely text only.
text only is all you need

this. it felt more innocent and honest in a way. people had personalities without manufacturing by social media.

>i still just go back to the tab and hit f5 or turn on auto mode, Jow Forums x is unnecessary
You still probably use notifications, (you)'s, backlinks, hovering, etc. all of which originally showed up in Jow Forums X. The entire "native extension" is just Jow Forums X Lite.

>there was less content and more dumb shit, but it was new and charming at the time, and seeing normies doing funny things on video with no ads, no marketing, no "content creators" marketing youtube as a career, it was better because it was *ours*, not Google's
Good content requires a budget. Low quality dumb shit is still all over youtube. Just sort by New, it's all still there. Normie shit that Jow Forums hates like TikTok or Vine are also exactly what you're looking for.

>yeah, this was weird, you needed an account on everything at some point, but it still felt better than what we have today, what's the alternative to that today that doesn't mine all of your data or shit up your experience with unnecessary garbage
You're better off today than you were back then. It was pathetically easy to steal people's info back then, and RAT/rootkits were VERY common. These days we have HTTPS which means only the NSA can (directly) spy on you, and thanks to the EU privacy online is better than it's ever been.

>text only is all you need
Why not talk face to face? Boomers say we should be doing that. Don't be a digital boomer.

>guis were a mistake
you seem to be stuck in the 80s, gramps

>You still probably use notifications, (you)'s, backlinks, hovering, etc. all of which originally showed up in Jow Forums X. The entire "native extension" is just Jow Forums X Lite.
Fair. I forgot Jow Forums X had anything to do with all of that.
>Good content requires a budget. Low quality dumb shit is still all over youtube. Just sort by New, it's all still there. Normie shit that Jow Forums hates like TikTok or Vine are also exactly what you're looking for.
It's harder to find on Youtube now, you have to purposefully filter through the noise. And no, TikTok and Vine are shit.
>You're better off today than you were back then. It was pathetically easy to steal people's info back then, and RAT/rootkits were VERY common. These days we have HTTPS which means only the NSA can (directly) spy on you, and thanks to the EU privacy online is better than it's ever been.
Better off, sure, but nostalgia is a bitch.
>Why not talk face to face? Boomers say we should be doing that. Don't be a digital boomer.
Because people look at you weird when you're scratching your nuts and talking to them at the same time.

>normies
Oh the irony