The World Wide Web is 30 years old.

[hunter]

On the World Wide Web’s 30th birthday, our founder and web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee reflects on how the web has changed our world and what we must do to build a better web that serves all of humanity. Please share using #Web30 #ForTheWeb.

Today, 30 years on from my original proposal for an information management system, half the world is online. It’s a moment to celebrate how far we’ve come, but also an opportunity to reflect on how far we have yet to go.

The web has become a public square, a library, a doctor’s office, a shop, a school, a design studio, an office, a cinema, a bank, and so much more. Of course with every new feature, every new website, the divide between those who are online and those who are not increases, making it all the more imperative to make the web available for everyone.

And while the web has created opportunity, given marginalised groups a voice, and made our daily lives easier, it has also created opportunity for scammers, given a voice to those who spread hatred, and made all kinds of crime easier to commit.

--more--

https://webfoundation.org/2019/03/web-birthday-30/

I used the Lynx web browser for many years. It was text only, but my internet connections were often slow and expensive.

My wife was a student at University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign where the Mosaic web browser was eventually developed. I attended a few lectures about that. I thought the concept was really cool, especially as a scientific tool, but I never imagined anything like the modern World Wide Web.

[sarcasmo]

1. Had a Gateway back in the 90's with good old AOHell dial up.

[hunter]

2. I remember thinking an AOL mail account would be good for business.

That was before Eternal September when AOL connected all its users to the internet.

The DOS version of AOL was based on Geoworks.

Canceling AOL wasn't easy, I eventually had to complain to my credit card company and they stopped the automatic payment.

I'd long had internet accounts from other providers. Generally I'd use a terminal emulator connected to my internet service provider which provided a BSD or Linux shell account.

Any decent terminal software would work, I could use my Apple IIc or Atari to browse the world wide web.

I became a Microsoft Windows user with the release of the Opera web browser. I quit using Windows entirely on my home computers when the Linux version of Opera was released. The last Windows I used on my home computers was 98SE.

In the 'nineties my wife's employer always bought Gateway computers. The cow spot boxes were a familiar sight.

[sarcasmo]

5. I would call AOL every three months and complain about the bad connection

AOL would offer me free months if I stayed on, it was a vicious cycle.

[MineralMan]

3. I started out using Compuserve's internal browser.

In fact, I launched my first website via Compuserve's website builder and OurWorld hosting service. I stuck with that until 1994 or 95, and then abandoned those sites.

[lunatica]

4. My first computer was in the early 1990s

I started teaching myself how to work with Photoshop.