Awesome Internet

There’s no question that extreme opinions have become more prevalent in recent years, and much of the blame is laid at the feet of social media. Kurzgesagt explores the psychology of online communication and theorizes why it’s making people less empathetic and more divided. They then provide some ideas about how we could make things better.

Want to see what a website looked like on a specific date? You can always go to the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine and type in a URL to find out. Or, you could do what The Science Elf did and build a box that runs the Wayback Proxy and lets him dial in a specific date to surf old versions of websites on vintage web browsers.

These days, we’re used to whipping our phones out and connecting instantly to the internet. But back in the 1990s, it was a much slower task. Gough Lui dusted off an old PC running Windows 98 to walk us slowly down memory lane to surf the web using a 31.2k baud dial-up modem and some vintage web browsers.

In the early 2000s, a website made the rounds that wreaked havoc on many computers, slowing them to a crawl as attempts to close its Flash animated windows only spawned more windows. NationSquid looks back at the story of YouAreAnIdiot and why it drew curious internet users like moths to a flame.

To help deploy high-speed Internet access to rural areas, Facebook Engineering has been developing a robot which can ride along on existing power lines to install fiber optic cables, saving time and money compared to conventional methods such as digging. The system uses with special cables which resist weather damage.

The Dancing Baby was one of the first internet memes, dating back to 1996. Because everything old is new again, JArmstrongArt decided to update the funky CGI baby to run at 60fps and 1080p resolution. Through some serious sleuthing work, he was able to dig up the original 3D model. Oooga-chaka! (Thanks Rob!)

If there’s one thing the Internet is good for, it’s disseminating silly memes. The guys at Know Your Meme and musician Hot Dad look back at the past decade with an animated timeline that illustrates the most popular memes, from Forever Alone to Woman Yelling at a Cat. How many of these do you remember?

Remember when Excite!, Lycos, and Geocities were a thing? In one of its more fascinating moving bar charts, Data Is Beautiful looks back at the history of the Internet over more than two decades, tracking the biggest websites based on monthly visits. Yes, there was a time before Google, Facebook, and YouTube.

Back in the 1990s, the internet was a kinder, gentler, and downright sillier place than it is today. Quartz looks back at some of the primitive and cheesy websites of the era, and pontificates on what may happen to the information and content they housed as these sites gradually go offline.

Simplify was created by Michael Leggett, who used to be the lead designer for Gmail. It’s a browser extension for Chrome and Firefox that rids Gmail of the colors, lines and other distracting clutter. It still lets you use images as backgrounds as well as use a dark theme.

“Anytime you combine 2 billion people in one location, people are gonna exploit that for money, power and influence.” After looking into how YouTube and Twitter are abused, SmarterEveryDay looks at the worst spot of manipulation online: Facebook.

Jumbo is a privacy app that makes it easy to access your social media account’s deletion or security settings. Right now, it lets you delete old tweets and your Google search history, as well as set your Facebook privacy settings. It will soon work with Instagram and Tinder.

After looking at how evildoers mess with YouTube, Destin of Smarter Every Day takes a look at Twitter and its never-ending battle against bots. He spoke with security experts at Twitter and NATO to find out how these bots work, and why they are there.

“The Internet is fake.” Destin of Smarter Every Day got duped into watching an automatically generated video on YouTube about sensationalist politics. So he researched how it was happening and came up with this defense: stop hating and be more considerate.

…more specifically, non-fiction content, and to an extent, documentaries and news. Now You See It looks at how vlogs, podcasts and commentary channels thrive online thanks to being “authentic”, conversational, participatory and lengthy.

It is the distant future. The year 2000. Lazy Game Reviews looks at How to Find Anything on the Internet, a CD-ROM guide from 2000 that’s packed with videos on navigating the Web and the browsers of the time. Prepare to chuckle and dive in.

Instead of a monthly subscription or data packages, Tern is a global wireless hotspot that lets you compare and select plans from the local providers at your destination via its mobile app. It even gives you a local phone number to make and receive calls.

Mental Floss shares a handful of interesting stories and trivia about the Internet during the early 2000’s. Watch and find out about an unlucky music pirate, a brief history of Neopets, why Livejournal is still alive and more.

Skyroam’s 4G LTE hotspot works in over 120 countries around the world. You can buy or rent the device itself, then purchase unlimited data for $9 per day. Up to 5 devices can connect to it at once. It lasts up to 16h per charge, and doubles as a powerbank.

CZNIC’s Turris Mox is a router that you can enhance or optimize at will. The basic unit has dual-band Wi-Fi, Gigabit WAN, USB 3.0, and microSD ports. The other modules add Ethernet LAN ports, a backup LTE modem, fiber and more. You can also get just the circuit boards.

Nerdwriter reminds us to be vigilant and read text before clicking links when we’re browsing online or playing games. He points us to “dark” patterns – bad user experiences that are designed to manipulate an outcome. For more, there’s a helpful awareness website.

The Tenda Nova MW6 is an affordable set of three routers that can each act as a Wi-Fi access point. Install them apart to ensure you get a strong signal in all areas of your home. One set can cover 6,000 sq ft, and you can connect more units for larger areas.

Did you know that “Wi-Fi” doesn’t stand for anything and is actually a trademarked term? Or that using your microwave could slow down wireless Internet connections? All that and more in Nat & Friends’ trivia video about our beloved technology.