5 ms·

Neocities: Create your own free website

103 points by Tomte 3mo ago

spwa4 3mo ago
Does it even properly implement the <blink> tag?
- omoikane 3mo ago
  Not sure about <blink>, but I sampled a few random sites from their gallery[1] and all of them have <marquee>. <marquee> is deprecated[2] and no longer scrolls in Firefox, but still works in Chrome. [1] https://neocities.org/browse https://neocities.org/browse [2] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/marquee https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/...
  - argee 3mo ago
    > <marquee> is deprecated For some reason the Indian government LOVES marquee, to the point where it's almost a hallmark. Looks like marquee...finds a way. [0] https://www.mygov.in/ https://www.mygov.in/ [1] https://www.mea.gov.in/ https://www.mea.gov.in/ [2] https://ociservices.gov.in/onlineOCI/ https://ociservices.gov.in/onlineOCI/ [3] https://www.passportindia.gov.in/psp https://www.passportindia.gov.in/psp
  - Cyberdog 3mo ago
    I don’t think Firefox or its ancestor Netscape Navigator ever supported <marquee>. It’s a non-standard tag that IE introduced and was pretty widely despised at the time (as was <blink> but at least text blighted by the latter stays put).
- Cyberdog 3mo ago
  Neocities just hosts web sites. It's up for the author of the site to write a page with <blink> (if they really want to), then for the browser that visitors use to visit that site to implement its functionality. The web host has nothing to do with it.
alliao 3mo ago
awww geocities how much have world changed since, it was an era of stranger danger don't get in strangers car world. It was about connection online however, no matter who they are, post your corner of the world online for all to see, hoping to strike up some connection. It was about tiny pictures, midi files because we have no bandwidth. We were optimistic, eager, and already had to filter out the paedophiles by pretending to be a 60/f/china. I miss the era for sure, the optimism especially, we truly believed internet would bring so much progress, world peace wasn't even that far away even. To get a hint of the backdrop.. https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/1993-rabin-and-arafat-shake-hands-at-white-house-with-president-clinton-194738757513 https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/1993-rabin-and-ar...
- 6c696e7578 3mo ago
  I remember .mod music files more than midi https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=94097 https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&qu...
  - prmoustache 3mo ago
    Mods were useful to share music mafe with samples, however midi files could be played on a browser and were thus more common as asset for a website although nearly everybody hated it when a website would automatically play a midi file.
    - 6c696e7578 3mo ago
      Yep for the web they worked better. I don't remember midi files getting as close to popular music as mods did. Then mp3 happened and you could download an MP3 in about quarter of an hour in that era. You could hear a midi though in the browser, but mod wasn't as convenient.
cellular 3mo ago
Can i add software for people to download? It seems dropbox is the only free solution but they make it look like you need to register to download (Dark pattern?).
- Cyberdog 3mo ago
  You can host arbitrary files on it but Neocities isn't really intended as a file host along the lines of Dropbox. It's more for hosting general-purpose web sites.
malwrar 3mo ago
One of my personal faves on that site: fauux.neocities.org
- soundworlds 3mo ago
  Hah, I was just deep diving into Serial Experiments Lain. Cool site!
CM30 3mo ago
Have to be honest, while I like the concept of these services, I've never really found the motivation to use them. If I'd came across Neocities in the 90s or 00s I'd have been all over it, but it's hard to justify today when I'm already paying for web hosting elsewhere. It's like, if a more powerful solution exists elsewhere, I struggle to work within the limitations of a more restrictive one.
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
- flyingshelf 3mo ago
  You said it yourself: you're already paying. Lots of people don't want to pay, so they use this for their hobby.
- skrebbel 3mo ago
  You're not the target audience. My son is 13 and has his own website, started to learn HTML when he was 11. All I did was tell him about Neocities (and allow him to sign up) and he figured out the rest.
  - zeeZ 3mo ago
    This is very similar to how I started out almost thirty years ago. Static files, a complicated JavaScript navigation, maybe even entirely flash based! Not everyone needs a hyperscaler!
- j45 3mo ago
  The majority of folks won't be setting up their own web-hosting, and this can fit them. We have to remember that everything doesn't have to be for everyone to be valid or reasonable.
ivan_gammel 3mo ago
It is weird that neither About, nor Terms or Contact pages mention who actually is behind this project. No name, no clear legal status, but collecting money and personal data of users. It may be a well-known service, but the number of users does not make it more trustworthy.
- nicolas_ 3mo ago
  You can find lots of articles online about its founder. He’s even on HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13445181 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13445181
- simoncion 3mo ago
  > It is weird that... Doesn't strike this USian at all as weird. This describes most online entities that I interact with. Plus, there's always the site's contact form that you can use to ask for the information you want. What makes me trust it a whole lot are this triplet of facts 1) AFAICT, neither their privacy policy nor their terms of service have been changed in more than a decade. 2) They do not require you to give up your right to access the courts in order to use their service. 3) The backend code is open source.
soundworlds 3mo ago
Neocities is one of the few websites I go to restore my faith in the future of the internet - it's the healthiest online creative community I've come across!
viccis 3mo ago
If only a cynical Frenchman had written a book critiquing peoples' tendency towards simulating things that don't exist. Neocities is cool, but the medium is the message and we've generally moved on from this (treasured!) past. Any attempt to replicate it tends to wind up hyperreal and forced.
president_zippy 3mo ago
I absolutely love neocities, I use it to host my goatse mirror (goatse.live).
- cryo32 3mo ago
  A friend of mine wanted somewhere to host goatse for random QR codes he’s planning of sticking everywhere. Problem solved :)
  - president_zippy 3mo ago
    By God, that's on another level. I'd be honored to have QR codes stuck to random walls and doors all over major cities linking to my shock site mirror!
    - bilegeek 3mo ago
      At least until a prosecutor tries to charge them with a sex crime, and you get caught in the trouble.
      - president_zippy 3mo ago
        If it says "goatse" on it or it's only in bars (i.e. adults only venues), I don't mind it. As long as nobody is showing this to anyone under 18, IDGAF. California is full of degenerate freaks who do way worse shit like going on naked group bike rides in full public view.
  - president_zippy 3mo ago
    To commemorate this occasion, I updated goatse.live with a slightly-improved copy of the ascii art from the goatse.ru mirror: https://goatse.live/ascii https://goatse.live/ascii
- hoppp 3mo ago
  For a moment I questioned reality and the world...thinking...does the word goatse have another meaning? So I checked your website...nope..it still means the same thing lol
alex1138 3mo ago
The death of Districts kills me. As far as I know this was baked into the origin Geocities (Yahoo, why the fuck did you buy it and then shut it down? albeit, 10 years later, but still). Neocities? It was a page someone made, and it's now a spinning rat image because of one tantrum or another
casey2 3mo ago
https://xkcd.com/1150/ https://xkcd.com/1150/
Jigsy 3mo ago
I do like neocities. Especially when designing KISS principle websites. (Modern web design has become RAM eating garbage...) Ended up stumbling on bsgen-new.neocities.org hosted there last week; which is used for generating blue sphere codes in Sonic. All 128 million of them.
deflator 3mo ago
Love it! My first website was on Angelfire, and I am still at it 30 years later. It made an impression on me. But I can't think of a good play on words for Angelfire either

103 points by Tomte 3mo ago

spwa4 3mo ago

Does it even properly implement the <blink> tag?

omoikane 3mo ago
Not sure about <blink>, but I sampled a few random sites from their gallery[1] and all of them have <marquee>. <marquee> is deprecated[2] and no longer scrolls in Firefox, but still works in Chrome. [1] https://neocities.org/browse https://neocities.org/browse [2] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/marquee https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/...
- argee 3mo ago
  > <marquee> is deprecated For some reason the Indian government LOVES marquee, to the point where it's almost a hallmark. Looks like marquee...finds a way. [0] https://www.mygov.in/ https://www.mygov.in/ [1] https://www.mea.gov.in/ https://www.mea.gov.in/ [2] https://ociservices.gov.in/onlineOCI/ https://ociservices.gov.in/onlineOCI/ [3] https://www.passportindia.gov.in/psp https://www.passportindia.gov.in/psp
- Cyberdog 3mo ago
  I don’t think Firefox or its ancestor Netscape Navigator ever supported <marquee>. It’s a non-standard tag that IE introduced and was pretty widely despised at the time (as was <blink> but at least text blighted by the latter stays put).
Cyberdog 3mo ago
Neocities just hosts web sites. It's up for the author of the site to write a page with <blink> (if they really want to), then for the browser that visitors use to visit that site to implement its functionality. The web host has nothing to do with it.

alliao 3mo ago

awww geocities how much have world changed since, it was an era of stranger danger don't get in strangers car world. It was about connection online however, no matter who they are, post your corner of the world online for all to see, hoping to strike up some connection. It was about tiny pictures, midi files because we have no bandwidth. We were optimistic, eager, and already had to filter out the paedophiles by pretending to be a 60/f/china. I miss the era for sure, the optimism especially, we truly believed internet would bring so much progress, world peace wasn't even that far away even. To get a hint of the backdrop.. https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/1993-rabin-and-arafat-shake-hands-at-white-house-with-president-clinton-194738757513 https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/1993-rabin-and-ar...

6c696e7578 3mo ago
I remember .mod music files more than midi https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=94097 https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&qu...
- prmoustache 3mo ago
  Mods were useful to share music mafe with samples, however midi files could be played on a browser and were thus more common as asset for a website although nearly everybody hated it when a website would automatically play a midi file.
  - 6c696e7578 3mo ago
    Yep for the web they worked better. I don't remember midi files getting as close to popular music as mods did. Then mp3 happened and you could download an MP3 in about quarter of an hour in that era. You could hear a midi though in the browser, but mod wasn't as convenient.

cellular 3mo ago

Can i add software for people to download? It seems dropbox is the only free solution but they make it look like you need to register to download (Dark pattern?).

Cyberdog 3mo ago
You can host arbitrary files on it but Neocities isn't really intended as a file host along the lines of Dropbox. It's more for hosting general-purpose web sites.

malwrar 3mo ago

One of my personal faves on that site: fauux.neocities.org

soundworlds 3mo ago
Hah, I was just deep diving into Serial Experiments Lain. Cool site!

CM30 3mo ago

Have to be honest, while I like the concept of these services, I've never really found the motivation to use them. If I'd came across Neocities in the 90s or 00s I'd have been all over it, but it's hard to justify today when I'm already paying for web hosting elsewhere. It's like, if a more powerful solution exists elsewhere, I struggle to work within the limitations of a more restrictive one.

deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
flyingshelf 3mo ago
You said it yourself: you're already paying. Lots of people don't want to pay, so they use this for their hobby.
skrebbel 3mo ago
You're not the target audience. My son is 13 and has his own website, started to learn HTML when he was 11. All I did was tell him about Neocities (and allow him to sign up) and he figured out the rest.
- zeeZ 3mo ago
  This is very similar to how I started out almost thirty years ago. Static files, a complicated JavaScript navigation, maybe even entirely flash based! Not everyone needs a hyperscaler!
j45 3mo ago
The majority of folks won't be setting up their own web-hosting, and this can fit them. We have to remember that everything doesn't have to be for everyone to be valid or reasonable.

ivan_gammel 3mo ago

It is weird that neither About, nor Terms or Contact pages mention who actually is behind this project. No name, no clear legal status, but collecting money and personal data of users. It may be a well-known service, but the number of users does not make it more trustworthy.

nicolas_ 3mo ago
You can find lots of articles online about its founder. He’s even on HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13445181 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13445181
simoncion 3mo ago
> It is weird that... Doesn't strike this USian at all as weird. This describes most online entities that I interact with. Plus, there's always the site's contact form that you can use to ask for the information you want. What makes me trust it a whole lot are this triplet of facts 1) AFAICT, neither their privacy policy nor their terms of service have been changed in more than a decade. 2) They do not require you to give up your right to access the courts in order to use their service. 3) The backend code is open source.

soundworlds 3mo ago

Neocities is one of the few websites I go to restore my faith in the future of the internet - it's the healthiest online creative community I've come across!

viccis 3mo ago

If only a cynical Frenchman had written a book critiquing peoples' tendency towards simulating things that don't exist. Neocities is cool, but the medium is the message and we've generally moved on from this (treasured!) past. Any attempt to replicate it tends to wind up hyperreal and forced.

president_zippy 3mo ago

I absolutely love neocities, I use it to host my goatse mirror (goatse.live).

cryo32 3mo ago
A friend of mine wanted somewhere to host goatse for random QR codes he’s planning of sticking everywhere. Problem solved :)
- president_zippy 3mo ago
  By God, that's on another level. I'd be honored to have QR codes stuck to random walls and doors all over major cities linking to my shock site mirror!
  - bilegeek 3mo ago
    At least until a prosecutor tries to charge them with a sex crime, and you get caught in the trouble.
    - president_zippy 3mo ago
      If it says "goatse" on it or it's only in bars (i.e. adults only venues), I don't mind it. As long as nobody is showing this to anyone under 18, IDGAF. California is full of degenerate freaks who do way worse shit like going on naked group bike rides in full public view.
- president_zippy 3mo ago
  To commemorate this occasion, I updated goatse.live with a slightly-improved copy of the ascii art from the goatse.ru mirror: https://goatse.live/ascii https://goatse.live/ascii
hoppp 3mo ago
For a moment I questioned reality and the world...thinking...does the word goatse have another meaning? So I checked your website...nope..it still means the same thing lol

alex1138 3mo ago

The death of Districts kills me. As far as I know this was baked into the origin Geocities (Yahoo, why the fuck did you buy it and then shut it down? albeit, 10 years later, but still). Neocities? It was a page someone made, and it's now a spinning rat image because of one tantrum or another

casey2 3mo ago

https://xkcd.com/1150/ https://xkcd.com/1150/

Jigsy 3mo ago

I do like neocities. Especially when designing KISS principle websites. (Modern web design has become RAM eating garbage...) Ended up stumbling on bsgen-new.neocities.org hosted there last week; which is used for generating blue sphere codes in Sonic. All 128 million of them.

deflator 3mo ago

Love it! My first website was on Angelfire, and I am still at it 30 years later. It made an impression on me. But I can't think of a good play on words for Angelfire either