Text Based Websites..
.…are wonderful! They are easy to read, less bloated, and focused on content. The bloat of a modern website is at best annoying, at worst offensive. Check out this aggregation of text based websites I’ve collected.
Note: the following is a cut/paste from Sijmen Mulder’s website
News
Social
- rawtext.club – “Resist the dazzling spectacle”
- midnight (“networked writing” platform)
- Smol Pub, tiny blogging service (gemini://, gopher://)
Technology
- info.cern.ch – home of the first website
- RFC index
- Connected, an internet encyclopedia.
- Bear Blog, text-first blogging platform
- Mataroa blog, another text-first blogging platform
- Practical UNIX Manuals, on mdoc and history
- The Unix Heritage Society
Misc
- Gopher portal (alternative web protocol)
- Gemini portal (alternative web protocol)
- Gopherpedia (Gopher interface to Wikipedia)
- Usenet Archives by Norman Yarvin
- every.sdf.org, a collection of plain-text files
- Richard Hopp's Unauthorized Historical Biography of the City of Los Angeles
- Wiby, a search engine for these kinds of sites
- Text Mode Google Directions
Blogs & Personal
- Maciej Cegłowski (talks on various topics, not quite text only)
- Erland Sommarskog (mostly SQL)
- Cosma's Home Page
- Fefes Blog (German)
- Tobias Girstmair, blog (hardware & software hacker)
- verisimilitudes.net
- Dan Luu
- Nolan Prescott, or “Idle Thoughts” (tech & thinking)
- Programming in the Twenty-First Century
- Jacob Williams
- Jaruzel’s Home of Retro and Other Curios
- Thomas Jost
- Roman Zolotarev (OpenBSD enthousiast)
- Drew DeVault, creator of SourceHut
- Eric Radman (BSD & SQL)
- Avris
- Kaue’s Way of Life (health, wealth, love, meaning)
- Seirdy
- Paulo Daniel Gonzalez (software, Elixir language)
- Jan “netmeister” Schaumann
- Cal Paterson
- Jeremy Sarber (Christian faith)
- Andy’s working notes – not plain HTML but interesting approach
- The Cheapskate's Guide to Computers and the Internet
Honorable mentions
Note quite as plain, but lightweight and worth visiting nonetheless!
News
- SVT Text (Swedish teletext service)
- ARD Teletext (German)
Social
- Subreply (social network)
- Needgap (“problem validation”)
- Lobsters
- Metafilter and Ask Metafilter
Technology
- Hacker News
- SourceHut (git, mailing lists, etc)
- archive.today (web archiving)
- weloverss (RSS reader)
- Pinboard, “social bookmarking for introverts”
- Low Tech Magazine (hosted on a solar-powered Pi)
- Linux Guide and Hints
Misc
- JimmyR (aggregator)
- Web 0.5 (only for text browsers!)
- Project Gutenberg Australia
- The J.K. Rowling Index
- Copy Paste List
- Textfiles
- McMaster (parts shop)
- wttr (weather)
- rate.sx (crypto rates, same author)
- Electronic Music Calendars
Oddball
- ”The Best Page in the Universe”
- Science Hobbyist (90s design warning!)
- Christian Remnant Now (also about Unix)
Blogs & Personal
- Engineering Blogs, a curated collection
- Welcome to the Jungle (digital garden created with Hyperdraft)
- Armin Ronacher (mostly Rust)
- Gwern Branwen (various topics)
- Hugo Tunius (programming)
- Muhammad Usman
- Stjepan Golemac (JS, React, Node, Rust)
- Law Zava
- hitstartup
- Julia Evans (tech)
- Wingolog (mostly functional programming)
- Matt Might (medicine and computer science)
- mnmlist
- Neil Panchal – “quantum integrated circuits”!
- ImperialViolet by adam Langley (mostly crypto)
- Andrew Stephens
- Fausto
- Noncombatant (tech, music, more)
- Daring Fireball (predominantly Apple)
- Inessential by Brent Simmons, author of NetNewsWire
- Ugly Duck (mostly web development)
- Whalecoiner
- Portable throughts (interesting single-page concept)
- Tom Cooks
- Manuel Moreale
- David Fluck
- Artemix (back end and UX)
- null program by Chris Wellons
- Greg Hendershott (mostly Racket)
- John R. Marks, IV (created with Zim)
- Patrick Collison
- Hund (Linux, plaintext, minimalism)
- Austin Z. Henley (assistant CS professor)
- Techtonic (podcast)
- Kidlat
Businesses
- NearlyFreeSpeech web hosting
- Creative Good – Since 1997
- Town Mouse Coffee (Berlin)