12 Things You Had to Do to Get on the Internet in the ’90s

Getting on the Internet in the '90s was a test of patience, involving screeching modems, slow-loading pages, and the constant fear of getting disconnected if someone picked up the phone.

Alyana Aguja
March 10, 2025
5 min read

12 Things You Had to Do to Get on the Internet in the ’90s — Jason Leung from Unsplash

Getting online during the 1990s was a laborious, sometimes agonizing ritual involving patience, perseverance, and a dash of good fortune. From sitting through the ear-piercing screech of a dial-up modem’s handshake to waiting for as long as two minutes for one webpage to download, each session was a foray into technological endurance. With threatening disconnections, pop-up ads, and members of the household requiring the phone, Internet access was far from instant—but to those who were around in the early days, the struggle was all part of the charm.

1. Turn on Your Computer and Wait

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It took time to boot up a computer in the ’90s; Windows 95 or the previous versions might take a few minutes to load. If you had an older machine, you would even have to wait for a DOS-based machine to complete its long startup routine. Frustrated users tended to look at the screen while listening to the whir of their CRT monitors coming online.

2. Make Sure No One Needed the Phone

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Dial-up Internet needed to use a phone line, which meant if a call was due, you needed to compromise on your online usage. If your family member happened to answer the phone while you were online, your session could be terminated right away. Many homes even ended up acquiring a second phone line solely for Internet purposes—if they could handle the cost.

3. Double-Click the Dial-Up Connection Icon

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In Windows, this was usually an AOL, CompuServe, or NetZero icon on your desktop. If you clicked on it, it would open a small window where you had to type in your username and password before clicking “Connect.” This was the time of truth—would the connection work, or would you see an error?

4. Listen to the Screech of the Modem

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A dial-up modem also had a recognizable handshake noise—a combination of beeps, screeches, and static sounds. That was your computer and the ISP’s server talking to one another, agreeing on speeds, and setting up the connection. If you stopped hearing noise too quickly, it generally meant you needed to redial and attempt again.

5. Wait for Authentication

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After the modem completed dialing, you would just have to wait for the ISP to verify your username and password. It would take a few seconds or a minute, depending on how busy the network was. If there was an error, you would have to troubleshoot—perhaps by restarting the modem or re-entering your username and password.

6. Open Your Web Browser (And Hope It Loaded Quickly)

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Everyone used Netscape Navigator or the first versions of Internet Explorer. Opening a browser might take a moment, particularly on a slow computer with limited RAM. If you had a slow box, repeatedly opening the browser icon would lock up the machine, requiring a reboot.

7. Type a URL Manually or Use a Web Directory

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There was no Google during the early ’90s, so searching for websites typically involved typing in URLs directly. If you didn’t know a website address, you were stuck with directories such as Yahoo! or WebCrawler, which categorized sites into categories. Some folks even had lists of favorite sites scribbled on paper.

8. Wait for Pages to Load—Slowly

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Websites in the ’90s were largely text-based with minimal graphics, but they still took forever to load on a 28.8 kbps or 56k modem. If a website contained too many images, you could turn them off in your browser to speed it up. Waiting for an image to appear line by line was a typical experience, putting your patience to the test.

9. Avoid Clicking on Too Many Links

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Because a page could take an entire minute or longer to load, mindless clicking was a bad plan. Having several sites open simultaneously wasn’t convenient, either, as older machines would bog down at having several windows open in their browser. Individuals would begin to load a page, then get up and leave and come back several minutes later to see if it had finished loading.

10. Pray You Didn’t Get Disconnected

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A momentary glitch in your phone line, such as someone answering the receiver, might drop you immediately. Some ISPs would also disconnect you if they sensed inactivity, requiring you to reestablish the connection. If you were downloading a file, losing the connection usually meant starting again from the beginning.

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Most early websites were cluttered with gaudy banner ads and obnoxious pop-up windows. Some ads used misleading “download” buttons, and others played audio like “You’ve won a free prize!” even if you hadn’t clicked on anything. Because no pop-up blockers were built into the browser, users had to close these windows by hand, usually one at a time.

12. Log Off Before Someone Yelled at You

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Since dial-up occupied the phone line, prolonged Internet usage could result in family conflict. Parents would place time constraints, particularly if they were anticipating a call or required phone use themselves. Logging off typically involved listening to the modem and making a final clicking sound before everything went quiet.

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