Opera made an adorably quirky website to celebrate its browser’s 30th anniversary
Source: 9to5Mac
From the dial‑up days to the era of AI‑assisted browsing, Opera’s interactive experience takes users through key milestones that helped shape the web over the past three decades.
“A time machine for the internet’s finest and weirdest moments”
If you’re reading this on your iPhone, you may want to switch to a computer for this one. Opera’s Web Rewind feels like a throwback to the Flash era, packed with animations and keyboard‑driven interactivity.
How to explore
You interact with the site by holding or tapping the space bar (or clicking, depending on the artifact you’re viewing). The experience is divided into 31 “artifacts,” each representing a notable moment in web history.
Highlights
- Dial‑up – complete with modem handshake tones
- Early email – featuring AOL’s “you’ve got mail” and chain emails
- The birth of Google
- Peer‑to‑peer file sharing
- MySpace
- And many more moments from the past three decades
Contest
Opera is running a contest: submit your favorite memory from the last 30 years of the web for a chance to win a trip to Switzerland, where you’ll visit CERN—“the birthplace of the web,” as Opera puts it.
Final thoughts
Opera’s Web Rewind is a nostalgic experiment that evokes a version of the web that is rarely seen anymore. Whether you lived through all, most, or just a few of the last 30 years, you’ll probably have fun playing around on it.