About the museum

Obscure Internet is a museum of the lost web. It’s for people who were there, and for anyone who never saw it and wonders what the early internet felt like: the homepages, messengers, games and communities of roughly 1994 to 2016.

The three wings

• The Dial-up Years (1994 to 2001)
• The Messenger Years (2002 to 2008)
• The Playground Years (2007 to 2016)

How it works

Exhibits are long reads about one corner of the old web. “Do you remember?” cards are quick single memories you can share. Surprise Me takes you to a hand-picked, living corner of the web today. The sites are chosen by a person and checked every day, but we can’t promise anything about a site once you leave, so use the same good sense you’d use anywhere online.

The museum is made for grown-ups who remember the web of their youth. Younger visitors are very welcome to look around, but it isn’t a children’s site. We keep the links and the guestbook clean: the sites are checked every day, and guestbook messages are read before they appear.

Who is behind it

Obscure Internet is an independent museum, run by one person for love of the subject. It isn’t affiliated with any company shown. Logos and pictures appear only to talk about history, always with their source, and all marks belong to their owners. If something shouldn’t be here, the takedown route is on the Contact page.

Say hello

Sign the guestbook, or write to us from the Contact page. You can read what we store about you (very little) on the Privacy page, and find out why a visitor named ObscureInternetBot might have called on your website.