Opera’s Web Rewind is a fascinating look at the history of the internet

When it comes to companies celebrating their own anniversaries, this is certainly one of the most interesting examples in recent memory.

To commemorate 30 years of being in business, Opera has launched Web Rewind, a digital archive that takes you through the last three decades of the internet.

The interactive tool features dozens of years that you can scroll through to learn more about their respective technical innovations. For instance, 1995 looks at dial-up internet, 1998 unpacks the start of Google, 2007 marked the launch of Twitter, 2013 saw Vine popularize short-form video content and 2025 features AI-powered browsing. All the while, there is narration and sound effects to help further capture the different time periods.

Opera is also running a contest until March 27, 2026, in which you can submit your own “Web Rewind” moment through the site and enter for a chance to win a trip to go to where the World Wide Web was created: the European Organization for Nuclear Research (also known as CERN) in Switzerland.

All in all, it’s a really neat walk through history, and a reminder of how comparatively quaint and innocent things were back then. In particular, it’s refreshing to look at a time without all of the toxicity, misinformation and AI slop that we see online nowadays.

You can check out Opera Web Remind on this dedicated website.

Image credit: Opera