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Back when the internet was young (circa 1997) I remember meandering through Altavista, Yahoo and AskJeeves or whichever search engines were all the rage, you could meander around the Internet and lose hours on random websites learning about random things.
Nowadays with sponsored listings and searches sorted by popularity, I find myself in a loop of STW, BBC, YouTube and Facebook.
Are there any alternative search engines that help find all the random crap hidden away in the dusty corners?
How much gear are you after?
Ecosia search engine, search being one of the big how does that pay for itself and use so much energy questions it is hard to answer.
Fewer adds, claims green electricity, European based so probably less shinanigans with your data, spend their profits on trees. I've found no disadvantages since swapping from Google a few months back save for price matching when Google shopping is easier but takes only a couple more clicks when you need it.
Reddit. It's hardly a lesser visited part of the internet, but there's no doubt plenty of dusty corners to have a mooch around in, and occasionally genuinely interesting rabbit holes to go down.
But mostly it's just cats and politics so you'll have to wade through that first.
Some starters from my subs:
https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingas****/
https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/
https://www.reddit.com/r/ofcoursethatsathing/
https://www.reddit.com/r/InternetIsBeautiful/
https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/stumbleupon-alternatives/
https://theuselessweb.com
Wikipedia have a random article button that might need pushing a few times, to get past short articles explaining about random plants found in Sierra Leone or a random C14th bishop in Naples (I just tried, they're real examples) but then you find something interesting, with some decent links to follow and you walk away half an hour later knowing something 'interesting' you didn't know before.
I've found myself getting stuck in the same loop of regular websites, news etc and have missed the old internet days of disappearing down information rabbit holes for hours too. The trick is to actively look for random stuff that is mentioned in the usual places you visit and go investigate them. Once you do this then the algorithms can't pigeonhole you so much so they throw up a wider range of topics when you search etc. The Tom Scott YouTube channel (and the ones he recommends and collaborates with) has led me down some interesting paths, especially around industrial sites as the history of them leads to all sorts of social avenues. The Whitewick's channel about forgotten railways and canals is good for this too.
The issue is the algorithms that control what you see in searches, suggestions and recommendations. They just give you more of the same if you only look at a few different sites and subjects, like a lot of people do. If you actively look for random stuff all the time they will just chuck more random stuff at you but if you stick to a single topic or two for a day then all you get is that topic. Actively searching for different stuff is the key.
Don't fight the algorithm, conform or die.
all those broken links 🙁
Ah yes, the WWW. Or 'Internet' as it has come to be known. I think the golden era was the mid to late noughties. Google was useful, and not yet evil. All interests had a busy forum. Social media was in its infancy and still a novelty. The puritans had not yet taken over and there was humour.
Picture of the WWW photographed sometime in the 90's.
I'll second Reddit, but also try Quora.
Right now Reddit is the place to go really.
Ultimately just a big discussion community but with some seriously offbeat subs and plenty of links buried in links.
Try using DuckDuckGo or even TOR for a truly retro browsing experience.
I've just noticed the "I'm feeling lucky" button on the Google home page spins and gives other options "I'm feeling generous" for example.
I'm fed up of the algorithm too.
I'm even noticing the l that YouTube is not highlighting new posts from channels I'm subscribed too. One of the folk I follow even posted up a short on it, suggesting YouTube were hiding his content almost...
YouTube now defaults your home screen to a mix of random stuff and some of your subscribed channels you watched in the last few days, you have to actively click on the Subscriptions tab to see the new videos now. Very frustrating for users and content creators!
"the don't recommend" works well on utube.
b3ta.com for a dose of the "feels like the old internet"
Just noticed they've been sponsored by hebtroco too...
cheesus krist.
have you looked at 4chan, 8kun etc recently? OMG
still stunned that i went to liveleak for sommat recently and thats been binned.
b3ta.com
Heh I'd not been on there for ages some of the photoshops are marvellous.
I use Safari, Brave, Firefox, DuckDuckGo and Ghostery, all using DuckDuckGo as search.
I’ve occasionally used Onion and Tor, but they are slower. I try to avoid using Google if at all possible. Not that I’m searching the murkier corners of the interwebz, and definitely not the Darknet! Not without armed backup, at any rate.
@slowol Ecosia uses Bing search so it isn’t going to find random corners all that well. DOI - trying to persuade IM&T team at work to switch default search to Ecosia.
Someone resurrected dmoz.org as
If you didn't use it in olden times, it's a directory of the internet, organised by category. Many broken links and security flags for your modern browser, but still glorious.
I've tried to get into Reddit a few times but always found it a bit childish. Almost like the Internet of 1997 I guess. Not sure if I'm just looking at the wrong bits.
Thanks for the infor @ratherbeintobago
Makes sense as like you say the Ecosia search algorithm is nothing unusual. Still going to use it in preference to the Google and bing due to there being some hope of their energy use promises making a difference.
There's good content on reddit but the weird threaded replies just don't read nicely for me and I always end up not sticking around on there.
Reddit is a far better experience on mobile with a 3rd party app - I like bacon reader.
If you use it on a desktop, then use old.reddit.com
Ah cheers I did half wonder if there was something like that
Following. Tomorrow, anyway.
I'd forgot about b3ta
STW itself is fair old starting point.
"Here's more of what you like" has a lot to answer for.
Internet of 1994 was where it was at. Webrings! But, argh, the pop ups.