Back in 1991 Tim Berners-Lee was working at CERN when he effectively invented the internet. It only took a few years for it to really take off, and by the mid-90s it was booming.
But kids today will never know the sheer joy of spending four hours installing Windows 95 from a tower of floppy disks, only to discover you needed Disk 14. Or the thrill of waiting 20 minutes for a pixelated badger to load, just so you could watch it dance endlessly to a tinny MIDI loop.
The appropriately named Twitter account Nostalgia asked their followers to share images from the early days of the internet and it’s a proper stroll down memory lane. See how many of the following images you recognise.
Without saying anything, show me how long you’ve been on the internet pic.twitter.com/IWUILlMYhX
— Nostalgia (@NostalgiaFolder) July 11, 2025
The digital memories came flooding in…
1.
— Dildor Baggins (@TheGildedGoo) July 12, 2025
2.
— The Notorious J.O.V. (@whotfisjovana) July 11, 2025
3.
— The Sales Bull Follow if you sell B2C or B2B (@TheSalesBull1) July 12, 2025
4.
actually, I downloaded this over the course of a day and a half on dialup pic.twitter.com/VEsek3Of3E
— Zephyr Stardust, III (@greylibertarian) July 12, 2025
5.
— Mike Sudyk (@sudyk) July 12, 2025
6.
— Vegi (@VegiVoorhees) July 11, 2025
7.
— Kuno (@Kuno_Age_17) July 12, 2025
8.
Limewire days pic.twitter.com/9Zro1ycpVQ
— Peggy.hl (@Sakrexer) July 12, 2025
9.
— Joel (@joelgaines) July 12, 2025
10.
— Cali ✨️✨️ (@Cali_Cali_Sue) July 12, 2025
11.
— Kwashiorkor Nakamoto (@kwashn) July 12, 2025
