It was always bad, it’s just now bad in a slightly different way. I’ve been online since 1994 and, yeah. If anything, it’s a bit easier to avoid malware and scams these days. Even websites from reputable sources were sketch as fuck back then, with seizure-inducing popups and a minefield of JavaScript malware with no real options for VPN or blocking ads.

It’s been getting steadily better over the past 10 years or so, and the AI nonsense is threatening to send us back to the early internet Wild West.

All we need now is for Microsoft to start including 30 very sketchy ‘demos’ and mandatory adware with Windows again and the nostalgia will be complete.

The internet is light years ahead today. What we need is anti-ai filters in our browser to keep our browsing clean of shitty AI nonsense, kinda like ad blocking plugins.

e: I’d do UX, usability, and some dev on such a plugin if anyone wants to do some dev, too.