Getting Started On The Small Web

What is the small web?

• The small web refers to an ongoing movement to return to the form of the web before consolidated platforms really took over, such as Facebook, X/Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and others.
• Brave AI says “The Small Web is a movement and set of practices centered on personal, non-commercial websites that prioritize simplicity, privacy, and user control over the dominant, ad-driven, algorithmic web.” (link)
• For millennials, the small web is the web you first grew up with, the simple and gaudy websites, where style hadn’t solidified and standardized on some brand of stale aesthetics. Think bright colours, animated gifs, under construction signs, over the top background images. Think sincerity, think authenticity. That’s the web some of us are trying to get back to.

Why the small web?

• Are you sick of the internet yet?
• Most of us are, I would say, even the most very online and internet savvy of us
• My whole life was computers, electronics, and the internet. My life was setup from very early on to go down that road. But what I see has become of computers and the internet bothers me more and more.
• If you feel like something is missing, something has gone wrong along the way, and that the web should be much lighter, brighter, friendlier, and more exciting than it is now then the small web is for you.

Where should I start?

• I’ve started a page documenting the small web
• I’ve started a page documenting alternatives on the small web
• I started with a web search: the small web
• You might ask an AI about it
• You might try some related videos:
  • The Internet Used to Be a Place [Video]
  • Why Gen Z Misses a Time They Never Knew [Video]
  • Gen z, anemoia, and lost identity [Video]
• You could read some key blogs about it:
  • The small web is beautiful [Blog]
  • What is the Small Web? [Blog]
  • Rediscovering the Small Web [Blog]

Web services that still have a feel for the small web

• Discord – Modern IRC
• WordPress – Blogs never aged
• MediaWiki – The wiki that powers Wikipedia makes for a great personal website or knowledge base
• Websites – Basic HTML/CSS/JS websites still work. A couple of lines of HTML and you’ll be up and running.
• FileZilla/WinSCP – Modern security with old web FTP feel for updating your custom website
• Neocities/Nekoweb/RedRival – Free web hosting

What’s next?

• Find some websites you like visiting on the small web to replace your social media
• Maybe signup on a free web host somewhere and put up a website like we used to do in the early days of the internet
• Try some older feeling tech like IRC, forums, blogs, or wikis.
• Connect with others. That’s the main thing about the old web. People were so eager to connect over forums.