I was looking for old homesteading forums last week and stumbled onto a webring from 1998 that still works. The links are all to sites that haven't been updated since like 2003, but the ring script still cycles through them. What blew my mind is one of the sites in the ring had a guestbook from 2002 with real people asking questions about canning green beans. Has anyone else found a webring that's still technically alive? I saved the URL but I'm not sure if I should share it or let it rest.
My friend Dave told me last week that homestarrunner dot net still loads perfectly in a old browser. I didn't believe him so I dusted off my old laptop with Firefox 3 and yep, Teen Girl Squad plays all choppy and beautiful. What weird forgotten sites have you guys pulled up lately that still run?
Been using the same hex color picker since high school, it was just a plain page with clickable swatches. Went to pull it up for a client project in Portland and got nothing but a white screen. Anyone else got a backup for those ancient tools that still worked until they didn't?
I was showing my niece how I used to type 'coolclicks.com' into a browser bar and hope it loaded, now she just yells 'hey siri' at her phone. Does anyone else miss the mystery of not knowing if a site would even work today?
I stumbled on this old Flash portal from like 2003 last night (the one with the dancing stick figures and bad MIDI music). The guestbook is still accepting comments, and someone actually posted last month asking if anyone remembered a specific cartoon about a sad potato. It was weird seeing that little time capsule still ticking. Has anyone else found a forgotten site with a working guestbook or forum?
I stumbled on a Homestead page last night that someone built to track local rainfall in my town. The data stops at 2004 but it's still there, all the numbers and charts loading up in a browser. I was skeptical because I figured those old free hosts would be long dead, but this one is still chugging along with no ads or anything. Anyone else find a forgotten site that still serves up real info from decades ago?
I was hunting for old fan sites about that weird cartoon from 2003. Stumbled on one that hasn't been updated in 19 years. The owner posted in 2004 saying they'd 'be back soon.' Guestbook still works. I left a comment and someone replied 3 days later. Turns out the owner checks it every year just for laughs. Anyone else find a site that's basically a time capsule with a pulse?
I spent last Sunday clicking through a web ring from 1998 about obscure knitting patterns, and every link still worked but the ring itself was dead, no traffic. It got me thinking, are these things a fun time capsule that should be kept alive or just digital clutter taking up server space? What do you all think, worth preserving or better left in the past?
I found this old forum dedicated to discussing dial-up modems, and it's still running but completely dead. I spent 2 hours reading old threads about 56k connection speeds before realizing I was the only living person there lol. Has anyone else wandered into a digital ghost town like this?
I run a small blog about fixing old computers from the 90s. For years it was just me and maybe 10 people a month looking at it. Then out of nowhere I checked my stats in November and saw 500 hits in 30 days. Turns out someone on a retro computing forum linked to my page about fixing a dead IBM 5150. Has anyone else had a random backlink revive their forgotten site like that?
Was looking for a old game called "Burger Run" I used to play in computer lab around 2003. Figured it was gone forever but I dug up this site that looks like it hasn't been touched since 2005. Every single flash file still loads and there is a guestbook with posts from 2002 thanking the guy for making it. Got to play the game for about 10 minutes before my browser warned me about Flash being unsupported. Anybody know a good way to run these old .swf files without Chrome blocking them?
I stumbled on this forum last week where one guy named Dave still replies to old posts about fixing 1970s Honda CBs. He told me he's been the only active user since 2005 and keeps it up because 'someone has to keep the knowledge alive.' Has anyone else run into a one-person community like that?
I stumbled on SomaFM last week after forgetting about it for maybe 15 years, and I was sure it would be dead or full of ads by now. Turns out it's still running exactly like it did back in college, just playing weird ambient and electronic stuff without any popups or signups. Has anyone else found a site you thought was long gone that just kept chugging along?
A few days ago I saw a comment in here recommending PointlessSites.com for when you're bored. I clicked it and it's just page after page of weird interactive nonsense. There's a button that makes a whale noise every time you press it. Another page has a digital pet rock that just sits there. I ended up clicking through maybe 30 pages before I realized it was 2 AM. The site still works fine but the last update was 2013. Anyone else get stuck on a forgotten site from a random recommendation?
I know everyone in this community loves digging up forgotten sites, but I threw 50 bucks at renewing a domain for a personal page I built back in 1998. It was this weird shrine to dial-up modems with a MIDI file that looped nonstop. The site still works but nobody visits it anymore, lol. I thought it would be cool to keep it alive for nostalgia, but honestly, it just sits there like a digital ghost town. The traffic analytics show zero visits in six months, not even bots. It was a lesson for me that some things are better left as memories than maintained with real cash. Has anyone else thrown money at a relic and regretted it?
I was cleaning out my old laptop bookmarks last night and stumbled on this site called BubbleWrapFun.com or something like that. It's just rows of virtual bubble wrap that you click to pop, and there are like 20 different color options. The crazy thing is I remember using this in my high school library during study hall way back in 2009, and when I clicked it yesterday it still worked perfectly. No broken scripts or flash errors or anything. The counter at the bottom showed over 4 million pops total which is wild. It's one of those sites that clearly nobody updates or visits anymore but someone is still paying for the domain. Has anyone else found a completely useless but functional website from like a decade ago that they can't believe is still online?
I used to check this site back in 2008 to kill time during long breaks. It still works but the video quality is so grainy you can barely tell if it's a bird or a leaf. Anyone else have a forgotten live feed they still visit once in a while?
I dug up my old personal homepage on GeoCities tonight, the one I built in Notepad back in high school. The guestbook still works and someone actually left a message in 2022 asking if I was still alive. The GIFs are broken but the basic layout is there, took about 4 hours of digging through old floppy disks to find the original files. So do I polish it up for modern browsers or keep the 56k modem era look for archival purposes?
My buddy Mike said archived dead sites lose their charm once they're cleaned up, but I found a 1998 shrine to Tamagotchis that felt more alive than any museum. Do you preserve the janky mess or let forgotten pages rot naturally?
I found a link to an old NOAA weather satellite composite that some guy named Ron in Ohio coded into a Geocities page back when dialup was king. For years I figured it would 404 or just show a broken image, but I checked it last Tuesday and that thing refreshes like clockwork with real data. The whole page is just blue text on a gray background with a single image, but it works perfectly on my phone in 2024. Has anyone else stumbled on a relic like this that somehow keeps running with zero maintenance?
Back around 2018, I used to just type random keywords into Google to find forgotten sites from the late 90s. But around 2020, I noticed all the results were just top 10 listicles or dead link roundups from blogs. So now I dig through the Wayback Machine's top 25 lists from 2002 or browse old Geocities directories hosted on places like Neocities. The change happened when I tried finding a site called 'The Cheeseburger Network' that listed every fast food joint in Ohio from 1998. Google showed zero results, but the Wayback Machine had it cached with all 47 pages still working. Now I use text files saved from old forum posts that mention direct URLs. Has anyone else found that the big search engines basically ignore these older, smaller sites now?
I've been job hunting for a graphic design gig for about 6 weeks now. I made a nice polished portfolio on Squarespace with all the fancy animations and whatnot. But then I remembered that old Geocities page I made back in 2003 for a school project - it was all pixelated backgrounds and blinking text. I put that same chaotic energy into a raw HTML portfolio hosted on a free server. Sent both links out. The old-school one got me 3 callbacks in a week, the Squarespace one got nothing. Something about the janky charm maybe? Or recruiters are just sick of the same template look. What do you all think - does the weird old web stuff actually work better now?
Was talking to my buddy Dave last weekend, he's an electrician in Portland. He mentioned starting his career by reading posts on a forum called "Electro Tech" that basically nobody visits anymore. Said he learned more from some guy named "Sparky215" in their troubleshooting section than he did in six months of trade school. Made me rethink how many old niche forums are still out there with goldmine info just sitting untouched. Anyone else ever find a dead forum that actually taught you something?
I was looking for old Flash games from a show called The Drinky Crow Show that used to be on Adult Swim. I found this site that looked like it was made in GeoCities with a starry background and comic sans everywhere. One of the links on the page was broken, but instead of a 404 it redirected me to a subpage with a ton of mp3 files. I clicked on one and it was the full soundtrack for the series that nobody ever put on YouTube. The guy who ran the site must have ripped it from the DVDs back in 2008. Now I check every broken link on old sites for hidden files. Has anyone else stumbled on a secret cache like that from a dead show?