What are some old websites that should be re-remembered?

[Clistenes]

http://www.stardestroyer.net/

The Completely Unofficial Star Wars Encyclopedia.

Back when EVERYTHING PUBLISHED was CANNON!

https://www.theforce.net/swenc/default.asp

I am still salty about the Disney retcon...

I didn't care the retcon that came with the Prequel trilogy, because I liked the new lore and novels, but when they declared all those non-canon too, I got seriously pissed...

[Peelee]

I am still salty about the Disney retcon...

I didn't care the retcon that came with the Prequel trilogy, because I liked the new lore and novels, but when they declared all those non-canon too, I got seriously pissed...

I'm still happy about the Canon wipe, because so many of the books were just so bad.

[Clistenes]

I'm still happy about the Canon wipe, because so many of the books were just so bad.

I dunno... a lot of the stuff before the Prequels was really bad, but the quality rose after the Prequels and the first retcon...

And anyways, the new post-Disney takeover stuff isn't better...

[Peelee]

I dunno... a lot of the stuff before the Prequels was really bad, but the quality rose after the Prequels and the first retcon...

And anyways, the new post-Disney takeover stuff isn't better...

The current Canon books have a significantly better good-to-bad ratio.

[137beth]

Kongregate is another Newgrounds/Armor Games type site

I still visit Kongregate regularly. I'll be sad when a lot of their games become unplayable with the death of Flash.

And had their lives dumped online by their parents before they were capable of doing so themselves.

Remember when anonymity was a significant part of the appeal of the internet? Remember when online anonymity was valued for its role in creating an egalitarian venue for discussion divorced from outside status, because on the internet, no one knows you're a dog? Remember when it was considered common sense to be very selective about what you shared with basically the entire world in a way linked with information that could be used to track you down in real life?

Pepperidge Farm remembers.

The early internet wasn't as private as you are making it sound. If you used the internet in 1995, then everything you did was visible to your internet service provider. SSL/TLS were introduced in part to limit what ISPs can see, and now the widespread use of HTTPS means that more of our online activity is hidden from ISPs than at any time in the past.

Which isn't to say that the internet is more private today. Rather, what changed is who is doing the spying. Your ISP can't see which page on a domain you are visiting, but instead you are spied on by the websites you visit, the third-party javascript libraries in the websites you visit, your DRM-infected media, your browser, your operating system, and in some cases your hardware.

[J-H]

The book, not the movie.

Ender's Game? The movie was a reasonable adaptation, but still not as good. It's been too long to pick out the details, but I know the movie ended up a lot more compressed, and I think the kids were older in the movie than in the book.
They did get the Battle Room right, or at least pretty darn close. I was happy about that.

[DigoDragon]

I remember Yerf being the earliest big name art site for "furry art" stuff that tried to keep the content no riskier than PG or so.

[Hunter Noventa]

I remember villainsupply.com which was a joke site that billed itself as a supplier to Bond-style villains. Secret Lairs, Doomsday Weapons, Minions, they had it all!

[Skydow]

Naturally, I will never forget Newgrounds. Regardless of the fact that I never go there. I can think of my favorite games on there in the back of my head, even though I've forgotten the names of them.

[SquirrellyOtter]

I'm mad that the old music matrix applet iNudge doesn't exist anymore. I recreated Synyster Gate's old signature guitar solo on it, and I'd love to have another crack at it, but apparently iNudge was bought out by Audiotool, scaled down, and made pay-to-play. 0/5.

[Devils_Advocate]

The early internet wasn't as private as you are making it sound. If you used the internet in 1995, then everything you did was visible to your internet service provider. SSL/TLS were introduced in part to limit what ISPs can see, and now the widespread use of HTTPS means that more of our online activity is hidden from ISPs than at any time in the past.

Which isn't to say that the internet is more private today. Rather, what changed is who is doing the spying. Your ISP can't see which page on a domain you are visiting, but instead you are spied on by the websites you visit, the third-party javascript libraries in the websites you visit, your DRM-infected media, your browser, your operating system, and in some cases your hardware.

Huh? I didn't claim that it was easy to keep information completely secret from everyone on the early internet. My point was that internet users in general once placed more value on not making information public. Public figures who make it their business to communicate with the public posted stuff under their real names, but my recollection, at least, is that most people did not, under the understanding that doing that could have negative consequences.

I don't think that I'm just imagining a change in culture where people are much less distrustful of online strangers than they used to be. And while that change isn't by any means all bad, it does seem to have led to the occasional taking of certain risks for basically zero reward, because those risks don't register as risks any more.

[Vinyadan]

I remember a website, Project Playlist, that dug for mp3s all over the net and let you stream them. It doesn't exist any more.

There are a couple of webcomics which I enjoyed and aren't on line anymore. One was the sitcomesque Out At Home, the other one was Dungeon Crawl Inc., a fantasy comedy based on D&D and one of the old D&D videogames.

[Bohandas]

I still visit Kongregate regularly. I'll be sad when a lot of their games become unplayable with the death of Flash.

You need to keep an old browser around (and possibly also save some local copies of the games by grabbing them out of your browser's cache folder)

I still don't get why flash is being discontinued.

I would be on Newgrounds right now if I could get a proper copy of flash for my phone browser.

DRM-infected media

That sort of thing is why I prefer to buy discs and rip them to my mp3 player. I've only ever bought a couple of things from digital music stores and they were all from Bandcamp, never from iTunes. I won't buy anything from Apple.

Similarly, if I can get a game on GOG.com I'll buy it there instead of on Steam.

Youtube has killed many content-heavy sites. Why would someone write a 2000 word article on how to do something, when you can just look up a 10 minute video on Youtube?

I actually prefer prose, it's faster than watching a video.

Seconded. I hate those freakin videos.

[Wardog]

On the other hand the quotient of outright shouting of mindless abuse (which has sadly come to supersede the older definition of "troll(ing)" in general vernacular) seems to have increased significantly.

Speaking of which: http://www.flamewarriorsguide.com/ still exists, but I don't think its been updated in a long time.

Other websites I've suddenly remembered, and are apparently still active:
http://www.rinkworks.com/
http://progressquest.com/

The Discworld MUD is still going (and my main char is still there), and I keep meaning to go back to it but never have the time.

Oh, and www.wtfcomics.com/ (Everquest webcomic) is still active.

Unfortunately, the website that was nothing more than a page full of animated flaming spinning skulls is no more. (Or at any rate, I haven't been able to find it with google).

[Xyril]

The current Canon books have a significantly better good-to-bad ratio.

What about the current Canon movies?

[Xyril]

I still don't get why flash is being discontinued.

Security flaws plus alternatives. Flash is great and accessible, but by its nature exposes vulnerabilities. They've arguably done a decent job patching these and keeping the risks manageable. I don't know whether it's possible to overhaul Flash in a way that eliminates these concerns and maintains backwards compatibility with old content, but even if there is, it seems like there's not enough demand (or at least, not enough demand you can profit from) that would justify that level of work.

If you want to publish a simple game, there are too many viable alternative platforms nowadays. Also, the sheer number of competent programmers takes away from one of Flash's big advantages, which is that it was pretty user friendly for beginners.

[TrashTrash]

Akinator! People still visit, but it's nowhere near as crowded as he first time I saw someone playing it in the library in the early 2010s.
Yes, I know it's not "old" to most of the people on here, but I'm new to this "existence" thing.

[No brains]

I would be on Newgrounds right now if I could get a proper copy of flash for my phone browser.

Supposedly Newgrounds working on a flash emulator you can download from them. Does that not work well on your phone?

I used to play a few games on there. Toss the Turtle was a fun one.

[Bohandas]

I actually didn;t hear about that. Thanks for the heads up.

[137beth]

Huh? I didn't claim that it was easy to keep information completely secret from everyone on the early internet. My point was that internet users in general once placed more value on not making information public. Public figures who make it their business to communicate with the public posted stuff under their real names, but my recollection, at least, is that most people did not, under the understanding that doing that could have negative consequences.

I don't think that I'm just imagining a change in culture where people are much less distrustful of online strangers than they used to be. And while that change isn't by any means all bad, it does seem to have led to the occasional taking of certain risks for basically zero reward, because those risks don't register as risks any more.

Okay, I think I misread what your post was about. Now that I have reread it and read your response, I agree with you. I remember in the early 2000s, someone said I was crazy for using a username with "Ben" in it, because "OMG, you revealed your real name on the internet! That's dangerous!" I had thought it was an acceptably low risk at the time, because "Ben" is a common first name (you won't see me reveal my last name on a forum).

Now, though, Facebook and Google do everything in their power to convince you to use your real first and last name for everything you post. The anonymity of old internet forums is gone.

[Bohandas]

Okay, I think I misread what your post was about. Now that I have reread it and read your response, I agree with you. I remember in the early 2000s, someone said I was crazy for using a username with "Ben" in it, because "OMG, you revealed your real name on the internet! That's dangerous!" I had thought it was an acceptably low risk at the time, because "Ben" is a common first name (you won't see me reveal my last name on a forum).

Now, though, Facebook and Google do everything in their power to convince you to use your real first and last name for everything you post. The anonymity of old internet forums is gone.

I gave Google a fake name and try not to log on for anything I can do logged off. I don't use facebook at all.

EDIT:
Sometimes I even worry about the fact that I've given the same fake name to multiple websites when perhaps I should have given them different fake names

[Tyrant]

I gave Google a fake name and try not to log on for anything I can do logged off. I don't use facebook at all.

EDIT:
Sometimes I even worry about the fact that I've given the same fake name to multiple websites when perhaps I should have given them different fake names

My email address that I have had for 17 years had a fake name on it until about 2 years ago. My back up email for other uses still has a fake name. The fact I have several email addresses is a relic from the desire to stay anonymous because it allowed me to keep things separate. Possibly overkill, but it seemed logical at the time. I still don't give out my name if I don't have to.

There was a sight that I recall (though I can't find it in a search now so it's probably gone) that was a series of write ups of lame Marvel supervillains. Heroes as well, I believe, but the focus seemed to be the villains. It was quite expansive as I recall.

One thing I really miss is the forums on IMDB. Each movie had it's own forum. Sure some discussions lead to utterly pointless arguments but being able to discuss any movie with a broad mix of people (I assume, I suppose they might've been the same people) was nice.

I definitely agree with the earlier sentiment that in a lot of ways the internet seems smaller than it used to.

[PopeLinus1]

Poptropica.

[Aedilred]

My email address that I have had for 17 years had a fake name on it until about 2 years ago. My back up email for other uses still has a fake name. The fact I have several email addresses is a relic from the desire to stay anonymous because it allowed me to keep things separate. Possibly overkill, but it seemed logical at the time. I still don't give out my name if I don't have to.

There was a sight that I recall (though I can't find it in a search now so it's probably gone) that was a series of write ups of lame Marvel supervillains. Heroes as well, I believe, but the focus seemed to be the villains. It was quite expansive as I recall.

One thing I really miss is the forums on IMDB. Each movie had it's own forum. Sure some discussions lead to utterly pointless arguments but being able to discuss any movie with a broad mix of people (I assume, I suppose they might've been the same people) was nice.

I definitely agree with the earlier sentiment that in a lot of ways the internet seems smaller than it used to.

I think in most measurable ways it's probably bigger, but I think it's certainly narrower. The way we experience online activity has been channelled into an increasingly small number of sites each of which has an unassailable amount of content, but because of their very size, no specificity.

Some of that is down to survival of the fittest. Google supplanted all those other search engines because it was the best. Facebook in its early days ousted other networking sites and personal website-hosts through streamlining, (relative) elegance and ease of use. Wikipedia basically took over the role of "where you go to look for general information" from all those sites that might otherwise have popped up after a search, because of its accessibility and range. But after a while successful enterprises developed their own gravity wells for users, and have been ruthless at exterminating or absorbing potential rivals, which might have come to offer a better product.

I've got about fifty tabs open at the moment and the majority of them are from just three services, because that's where the stuff is.

The days of everyone having their own personalised website, catered to their interests, has passed. The blog site has also largely bitten the dust. Forums are dying, in favour of comment sections and live chat. Because why go to the trouble of setting up and maintaining your own site that's perfectly catered to your interests, when you can use Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? They'll never be perfect for you, but they're fine, easier to share, and hassle-free. They also act as walled gardens which mean you have to make an active effort to go offsite. A service like Stumble most likely wouldn't work now because there isn't the same proportion of interesting independent content out there to "stumble upon".

In the last few years I have been occasionally surprised by discovering a live niche site (often a wiki) on a particular interest, but other than independent shops selling niche products they have been very few in number.

[J-H]

I think in most measurable ways it's probably bigger, but I think it's certainly narrower. The way we experience online activity has been channelled into an increasingly small number of sites each of which has an unassailable amount of content, but because of their very size, no specificity.

Some of that is down to survival of the fittest. Google supplanted all those other search engines because it was the best. Facebook in its early days ousted other networking sites and personal website-hosts through streamlining, (relative) elegance and ease of use. Wikipedia basically took over the role of "where you go to look for general information" from all those sites that might otherwise have popped up after a search, because of its accessibility and range. But after a while successful enterprises developed their own gravity wells for users, and have been ruthless at exterminating or absorbing potential rivals, which might have come to offer a better product.

I've got about fifty tabs open at the moment and the majority of them are from just three services, because that's where the stuff is.

The days of everyone having their own personalised website, catered to their interests, has passed. The blog site has also largely bitten the dust. Forums are dying, in favour of comment sections and live chat. Because why go to the trouble of setting up and maintaining your own site that's perfectly catered to your interests, when you can use Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? They'll never be perfect for you, but they're fine, easier to share, and hassle-free. They also act as walled gardens which mean you have to make an active effort to go offsite. A service like Stumble most likely wouldn't work now because there isn't the same proportion of interesting independent content out there to "stumble upon".

In the last few years I have been occasionally surprised by discovering a live niche site (often a wiki) on a particular interest, but other than independent shops selling niche products they have been very few in number.

Those niche websites and blogs are the only place to get long-form prose explanations, instructions, and viewpoints. The social media sites are rarely easy to find actual information on when researching a topic or problem. Old forum posts (ie for tractor issues, handyman work, etc.) are sometimes valid, but often a decade old and may or may not contain enough information to solve the issue.

There's basically two internets for private use:
1) Social media streams based on popularity, pithy comments, cat videos, views, and dopamine-hits from instant feedback/gratification
2) Actual webpages and forums with a limited userbase, information that lasts more than 3 days, and writing longer than 5 paragraphs in length.

Youtube sits somewhere at the boundary between 1 & 2 simply because there's a good deal of informative how-to content on it that is harder to replicate in writing.

Then there's all the corporate websites, stores, etc., that the creeps the spies Google gatekeeps for.

Search engines are good for discovering a specific topic, but the old style blogrolls, webrings (remember those?), and the like were better for discovering good websites that were related to whatever you were reading/looking at, but which are just a bit too distant to show up otherwise. That networked discovery of information has been mostly killed.

[Tyrant]

I think in most measurable ways it's probably bigger, but I think it's certainly narrower. The way we experience online activity has been channelled into an increasingly small number of sites each of which has an unassailable amount of content, but because of their very size, no specificity.

Some of that is down to survival of the fittest. Google supplanted all those other search engines because it was the best. Facebook in its early days ousted other networking sites and personal website-hosts through streamlining, (relative) elegance and ease of use. Wikipedia basically took over the role of "where you go to look for general information" from all those sites that might otherwise have popped up after a search, because of its accessibility and range. But after a while successful enterprises developed their own gravity wells for users, and have been ruthless at exterminating or absorbing potential rivals, which might have come to offer a better product.

Oh I'm sure the internet is several times larger than it used to be. But I agree that it seems to have been narrowed (never thought about it like that, honestly). Looking at it like that I suppose it might be similar to big box retailers replacing local stores. Or maybe Amazon replacing everybody. 1 place has everything instead of lots of little places having their own part of the whole. I do wonder if, like in the retailer example, we will eventually see a push by some people to revive the smaller, more specialized sites?

I've got about fifty tabs open at the moment and the majority of them are from just three services, because that's where the stuff is.

Someone else who has way too many tabs open. Glad to see I'm not alone.

The days of everyone having their own personalised website, catered to their interests, has passed. The blog site has also largely bitten the dust. Forums are dying, in favour of comment sections and live chat. Because why go to the trouble of setting up and maintaining your own site that's perfectly catered to your interests, when you can use Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? They'll never be perfect for you, but they're fine, easier to share, and hassle-free. They also act as walled gardens which mean you have to make an active effort to go offsite. A service like Stumble most likely wouldn't work now because there isn't the same proportion of interesting independent content out there to "stumble upon".

In the last few years I have been occasionally surprised by discovering a live niche site (often a wiki) on a particular interest, but other than independent shops selling niche products they have been very few in number.

I honestly value this site because of the forums. I used to spend a lot of time on IMDB for their forums. Most of the websites I still visit are because of their forums now that I really consider it. Comment sections seem to only be good for flame wars.

[tomandtish]

I gave Google a fake name and try not to log on for anything I can do logged off. I don't use facebook at all.

EDIT:
Sometimes I even worry about the fact that I've given the same fake name to multiple websites when perhaps I should have given them different fake names

Interestingly, when I got married my wife and I took each others names. So I am "First Name" "Her last name"-"My last name".

Because my "maiden" name is extremely common, I just tend to use it online. It's not technically illegal, and it allows me to blend in.

Someone else who has way too many tabs open. Glad to see I'm not alone.

My wife told me she might need a new ipad, because she's having battery issues. She asked me to take a look at it. I checked a few things, then went to her browser.....

458 open tabs! (Or as I started saying, the entire internet).

And she didn't realize that just closing the browser (swiping up) didn't close all the tabs.

[farothel]

Other websites I've suddenly remembered, and are apparently still active:
http://www.rinkworks.com/

Speaking of which, I love their computer stupidities website: http://www.rinkworks.com/stupid/
If you feel some nostalgia about computer issues involving floppy disks or dial-up internet.