12 years of intenet in the Philippines and a lot has changed since then…
Might first encounter with the internet was in my freshmen years in Ateneo. Students are issued their own university emails in the form of 950854@balut.admu.edu.ph. We use pine to access our emails and we were given computer cards worth around 50 hours of internet use in the Faura computer labs.
Google wasn’t born yet so I guess I was more familiar with the likes of Yahoo & MSN. Hence my oldest existing email was from Yahoo and I started to using emails to reach my high school friends.
In the following years, fewer and fewer mails arrive in the mail box and most of the birthday greetings I get are thru my email already. I thought that was the end of the pen and paper.
While Migs reminisce “Blast from the 2000 Past” and the Filipino millionaires of Web 1.0, Marc is currently at PICS party talking about SEM.



























In 1995, Yahoo was a directory, and MSN was not on the Internet - Microsoft wanted to build its own online service, much like AOL and Compuserve at that time.
For a search index, the players at that time were AltaVista, Lycos, and maybe Excite.
I’ll be doing more reminiscing on my blog about pieces of Internet history that have never been published. Some bits came out in the recent PLUG thread, The Role of Linux/Open Source in Bringing Internet to the Philippines.
Check out yet another one of my blasts from the past:
http://jangelo.i.ph/blogs/jangelo/index.php?item=blast-from-the-past-the-alpha-centauri-web-pages
12 yrs na pala ang internet sa Pinas. Honestly, ngayon ko lang nalaman ito.
Interestingly enough. The Ateneo (among) many other schools were one of the first to get Internet access. Of course, the original one was email relaying via dial-up to an Australian University with an Internet pipe at that time.
Of course, the hardware of the time was mostly DOST-donated DEC Alpha machines (Balut, Pusit, etc …) running OSF Unix. Open source software packages being used at that time were Sendmail, Bind, wu-ftpd and Apache. Of course, as yuga mentions, the not-so-open-source pine email client.
I remember PC Magazine’s BBS site years ago. That was around 1992 or so witha 14.4kpbs dial up modem . Although I guess everyone jumped on the wagon with those 33or so kbpses…
As for the internet here…. hmmm… that was around 1994 or 95? No wait… that was before Windows 95 so I’d say 94. I remember downloading Win95 from Webquest. Wow. 12 years…
I forgot the ISP it was Phil something… Afterwards, I used Webquest, Infocom then Pacific.
My first 5 years experience with the internet was exclusive to the confines of AdMU. My first IM was ICQ, my first email was Yahoo, and IRC was the best place to download mp3 for the ubercool WinAmp. Uy, Sonique player rocks too!
I didn’t even know it started 12 years ago. I started in 1995 so that means my online existence is 11 years. I wrote about it here
Speaking of Ateneo, I am so disappointed that their computer technology is not in par with other top schools like UP and La Salle. I pay so much tuition (at least 50thousand a sem) for my daughter and still they haven’t fixed their online registration. Buti pa ang UP, they enlist online and just go to school to pay their tuition (only 6-7th a sem).
Hmm….. never thought the internet started in 1994. My first taste of surfing the web was the time I’m in 2nd year high school…. that was way back in 1997. I’m using netscape that time.
Oh yeah, I’m making a term paper for our english class. This article helps me a lot, so I give my thanks to the blogger.
Umm…. can you guys help me find websites regarding internet cafe history in the philippines? Thanks in advance.
Wow!!!!! That long? Thanks for the info guys… Well, my first stint on internet was i think 1995… On a 386 machine. My first e-mail then was Edsa Mail; what ever happened to them? Then of course Yahoo. I don’t seem to remember the server, but, hey! Now is DSL and Broadband!!!!
I think it’s on MAy 1994 that the internet here at the Philippines occured..