A free, interactive trip back to the 2000s. Press play on the 9XM era and hear a hundred songs back to back, play gully cricket, Snake and Minesweeper, make your old school ID card, write a letter to your younger self, and see how much of a childhood you share with a friend. Six things, each about a minute. No login, no payment.
This is an interactive experience and needs JavaScript switched on. Everything below describes what is waiting for you once it is.
- What is The Internet We Miss?
- It is a free set of small things you can actually do about your own childhood, made to feel like the 2000s and early 2010s. Press play on the songs that were on all day, play gully cricket and Snake, make your old school ID card, write a letter to your younger self, and compare childhoods with a friend. Nothing to sign into, and everything you make you can download.
- Is it free? Do I need an account?
- The entire thing is completely free, with no signup, no login and no payment. Every activity is open from the moment the page loads. Adverts pay for it: banners at the foot of the pages, and one floating unit that can be closed. Neither they nor the support link unlock anything, because nothing is locked, and nothing opens a new window on its own. The privacy page names who serves the adverts and what they can see.
- What can I actually do on it?
- Six things, each about a minute. Press play on the 9XM era — a hundred-odd songs, the Hindi side then the English side, back to back with nothing repeated. Play ten balls of gully cricket, where over the wall is out. Play Snake, Minesweeper, Solitaire, Pairs and Paint. Make your old school ID card. Write a letter to your younger self. Send a friend a link and see how much of a childhood you shared. There were thirteen of these once, which turned out to be more than anybody wanted to choose from.
- Can I really listen to the old songs?
- Yes. The songs play through YouTube’s official embedded player, using uploads from the rights holders’ own channels — labels like T-Series, Sony Music India, Saregama, YRF, Zee Music, Tips and Speed. We do not host any audio, so artists and labels keep every play. If a video does not allow embedding, the player hands you a link to open it on YouTube Music instead.
- Does it work on a phone?
- Yes, and it is built for one first. Every activity opens as a full-screen sheet, the games are played with a thumb, the music player docks small in the corner and folds away when it is in your way, and the picture you make saves straight to your camera roll or opens the normal share sheet.
- What happens to my photos and my voice?
- They stay on your device. There is no upload endpoint in this application — photos are read into a local object URL, and recordings are held in browser memory only. The finished picture is drawn on a canvas in your browser and saved by you. Nothing you record or add is ever sent to us, and none of it is written to local storage.
- Do you host any copyrighted songs, artwork or clips?
- No. Music streams from YouTube’s official player using the rights holders’ own uploads — nothing is hosted here. Every interface sound is synthesised live in your browser with the Web Audio API. There are no image assets in this project at all: every illustration, texture and exported card is drawn in code. Song, show and product names are used descriptively and belong to their owners.
Your childhood is still online.