For many of us, AOL was the homepage of the Internet. Iconic in design and functionality, it was how most of America got on the Internet for more than a decade.
Chat rooms, instant messaging, email, news. AOL sought out, and for years accomplished, being a one-stop shop for all of your online needs in a way that we don’t see with online portals in the 2020s. The closest parallel might be Facebook back in the 2010s, but without it being an internet provider.
Nostalgia for AOL runs deep. From the dial-up screen, the “Welcome, you’ve got mail,” to the old CDs and floppy disks that offered 50+ free trial hours, and of course, the homepage itself. So let’s check out how it looked and how it has changed over the years.
1. August 4, 1999
2. August 3, 2005
3. November 27, 2000
While this screenshot doesn’t have a full date, with this design opting only to show the month and date, we can tell it’s 2000 because of the “Top News” story about then-presidential candidate Al Gore challenging the election Florida election results. Who can forget the hanging chads?
4. April 8, 2007
5. Date unknown
6. Date Unknown
7. November 4, 1999
8. February 17, 2008
This is another instance of the date not being initially totally clear, but the clue here was in the story about Tony Stewart losing at Daytona in the final lap.
9. January 23, 2003
10. October 30, 2008
11. April 8, 2007
