This article comes fromDen of Geek UK.

That is, were going to take a nostalgic look at the early days of the World Wide Web.

Lets get something straight though just because we miss something, it doesnt mean that we want it back.

Having said that, there are a few things that should make a welcome reappearance.

It was rarely used and few knew what it meant.

It became apparent that in the world of computers things were at something or other.

Furthermore, people started to see dots everywhere, and this wasnt a job for an optician.

Things involving computers were also dot com, or dot net or alt dot something.

Something was going on somewhere, and it involved computers, the @ symbol, and dots.

Increasingly, people on TV shows and in films were going online and emailing each other.

For example, you might have been lucky enough to be exposed to the internet through work or education.

Why did people end sentences with a colon, a dash, and a closing bracket?

What exactly is an FAQ?

The newsgroups, the search engines it was a new frontier to be explored.

The difficulty in connecting imposed a distance between you and your online life.

As often as not, online communities were made up of people you didnt know in real life.

That last ones interesting because people were still feeling out the privacy implications at that time.

Now, theyd perhaps (and perhaps rightly) consider it an encroachment on their privacy.

Gaming the Free Offers

Do we want it back?Were not naughty enough now.

On top of that, you typically had to pay the ISP a monthly fee.

In addition to a better overall deal, constant reliable Internet access became an essential requirement of geek life.

In the end, we all just accepted the situation and started paying those bloodsuckers.

Modems

Do we want it back?With a heavy heart no, a thousand times no!

Once the evening rolled around, the possibilities opened up.

Older 2400 bps modems went bluuuu, bweee, chrrrrr on connection and were only practical for text-mode access.

Those strange fools often wanted to use the phone line to make and receive telephone calls.

Dial-up felt slow, even if youd never experienced anything better.

A few seconds later, everything would be readable again.

Gopher

Do we want it back?The ideas should be given a new airing.

Like web pages, Gopher pages use clickable hypertext links to link to other pages.

For one thing, Gopher sites are hierarchical.

Gopher was, in contrast to the web, fast and consistent in appearance.

In fact, perhaps Gopher, or at least its approach, could make a comeback on mobile devices?

Wiki sites are a good example of a uniform system for getting information.

Imagine how chaotic things would be if every page on Wikipedia used a custom layout?

Some Gopher sites are still in operation, but the system is not in widespread use anymore.

Bookmarks

Do we want it back?Its just not as needed with the modern internet.

you might still bookmark if you want to, but how many of us really do?

In addition, web access is so much faster than it used to be and always available.

When the web was first becoming established, it exploded, and information was scattered everywhere.

Remembering where a useful resource was located was sometimes difficult.

Added to that, we netizens tend not have the loyalty to specific sites that we once did.

A classic GeoCities website often featured a textured background, perhaps a starfield.

An animated under construction graphic would often sit above the jerky scrolling message along the top of the screen.

In as many sizes as possible.

With as many weights as possible.

In as many colors as possible.

Hmm… Perhaps, a next generation of the web could bring back individualism and warmth to amateur websites.

If youre planning something like this, Mark Zuckerberg, we beg you, no flashing text.

Upgrading to Go Online

Do we want it back?Want it back?

Weve still got it.

At that point, it was time to upgrade your, previously, perfectly good computer.

Thats before the pointer froze due to the strain.

It was okay though, you had an ace up your sleeve, a plan that could not fail.

Before the turn of the millennium, most ISPs would provide Usenet access as part of the core service.

Basically, Usenet was a forum system that was accessed through a special utility called a Usenet client.

Accompanying the decline in popularity, years of stored up discussion are now very difficult to access.

In many ways, it was the original online social online grid.

This isDouglas Adams first postto alt.fan.douglas-adams in 1993.

Theres a pop in of competitive quiz that just isnt viable now.

It worked until Ricky mentioned something that Brent had forgotten to look up.

Its an aspect of knowledge that has changed forever.

FTP is still in use today, but its not as prominent as it used to be.

Telnet was a handy little tool.

All this, without installing any software on your setup other than the dialler and telnet client.

A lot of technologists such as id Software co-founder John Carmackmaintained an informative .plan filefor many years.

FAQs

Do we want it back?Some of us are still admirers of a well-kept FAQ.

There is even an FAQ FAQ list, the first question of which is What are FAQs?

Who is Grant Naylor?

and What does smeg mean?

are the sort of questions with answers youd find there.

E-mails not only an everyday thing now, its become a bit passe as a way of communicating.

However, there was a time when it was cutting edge.

Do you remember when you first used it?

Perhaps a relative moved away, and you were able to stay in contact through the medium?

Of course, geographical distance made no difference in the world of e-mails.

You know, I just got a message from New York, youd tell an amazed relative.

The modern equivalent would be seeing a little red symbol with a number in it on Facebook.

In addition to messages from pals and work related ones, e-mail lists were a bigger thing back then.

Boring stuff would often sully the inbox, telling you that youd signed up for this or that.

You might get a message from a person selling something.

Probably not very many, but there was always a sneaking suspicion that it might be the case.

Thankfully, spam protection tends to be built into every e-mail service now.

These days: Seeing things in your inbox?

Getting an actual letter in the post?

As ever, films present an exaggerated version of reality.

See our feature onunrealistic computer scenes in films.

In a film, receiving an e-mail meant music playing and a 3D envelope spinning around on the screen.

In real life, it meant a beeping sound and a little open envelope icon.

Instant messaging and Chat Rooms

Do we want it back?Difficult to say.

Do we like revealing what were up to?

Do we like being bothered?

In fact, how many of us switch off the instant chat feature in Facebook to avoid being bothered?

Back in the early days of the internet, we could spend an entire evening simply chatting online.

Chatrooms are a close relative of IM, and that concept has suffered a similar decline in popularity.

Now hardly anyone uses IM, and chatrooms are nowhere near as popular as they used to be.

Theres no point in using it if theres no one to talk to on the other side.

For many of us, chatrooms and IM were a big part of our lives in the 1990s.

surfing app Wars: The Prequel Trilogy

Do we want it back?

Mosaic was the first popular web web app, but chances are youve never heard of it.

Netscape Navigator was a commercial alternative to Mosaic that appeared at the end of 1994.

It felt traitorous to install Microsofts online window on a Mac.

surfing app installation in the 90s it was paranoid.

Later browsers made pop-ups optional, before eventually disabling them by default.

Its nothing like it was in the 90s.

The term long awaited film trailer took on a bigger meaning if you were downloading it via a modem.

It was barely even worth watching fifty or sixty times.

One misspelling and youd discover all the other people who were as bad at spelling as you were.

In addition to search, Yahoo also featured an extensive web directory with thousands of categorized pages.

Google changed everything by being so… so… infuriatingly good.

From the start, it nearly always guessed what you were after.

Admit it, you sometimes feel a little victory when it corrects your search and it gets it wrong.

As rare as that is.