Google ad from 1999 has resurfaced and people are saying it ‘aged like milk’
Things were a whole lot simpler on the internet back in the late 90s.
Using the web nowadays can feel like wading through piles of junk, and an ad for Google from 1999 has shown just how much things have changed on the internet.
The ad is in what looks like a tech magazine from the late 1990s, and features a quick snippet advising readers to check out Google for all their web searching needs.
It calls the site a "pure search engine" and boasts that it features "no weather, no news feed, no links to sponsors, no ads, no distractions, no portal litter".
The amazing thing is that if a new search engine ran this ad today, it would probably be just as alluring to users now as it was then - that's how bored everyone is getting of sponsored results in the top spots.
An image of the ad was posted on the Reddit page Damnthatsinteresting recently and got a huge reception, with many people agreeing that it harks back to a time when searching the web was a heck of a lot easier.
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The top comment has over 2,000 upvotes on it in agreement, and sarcastically says: "No ads? No sponsored links? How marvellous. I'll have to try this newfangled thing."
Another popular response linked the post to another Reddit page called AgedLikeMilk, dedicated to things that have aged really badly. It's a pithy way to imply that Google's old commitments to simplicity and quick results haven't particularly aged well.
Some people are more magnanimous, though, and another commenter said: "Oh the early days of Google, so clean and great results. People were actually excited to use it."
This is a worthwhile point to make - Google might now be baked into daily life for millions or even billions of users, but it was once a fresh and disruptive force.
The web was a challenging place to use in the late 90s, with many of the portals that people used to browse it feeling inefficient and bloated with things you didn't care about.
Google arrived as a brand new option that cut through the mud and let you search for exactly what you were in need of, rather than forcing you to filter through feeds on your own.
So, while it's not surprising to see a bunch of negative responses to this quaint little image, it does underline how different the modern Google experience is.
Sponsored results are an accepted part of it, along with websites doing their best to game the search engine to boost their standings.
Plus, Google now has its fingers in hundreds of other pies, from smart home setups to making phones and powering whole offices with Google Drive.