Mahanyok: Only scientists used Internet at first
Google employee Ihar Mihanyok describes the early World Wide Web in Belarus.
Euroradio: The first website appeared 20 years ago. We would like to talk about the way it was 20 years ago and what the Internet was like. What was it?
Mahanyok: "There was only one website. And there was only e-mail before that website. I know it from history because I did not have access to the Internet in 1991. It is known that the Internet had been used for sending text messages and files by e-mail and so on before Timothy John Berners-Lee invented HTML and hypertext links. It was only used by scientists for serious scientific purposes. Websites appeared after Timothy John Berners-Lee had created a server – less “serious” purposes of using the Internet emerged back then”.
Euroradio: What was the first Belarusian website?
Mahanyok: "As far as I know, it is not clear what Belarusian website appeared first. The first Internet node appeared in Belarus in 1991 and the domain zone .by appeared in 1994-1995. One of its first websites was beltelecom.by where “Beltelecom” offered hosting services and where numerous commercial organizations’ websites were hosted”.
Euroradio: Looking back on the history, how did people get on the Internet at the very beginning?
Mahanyok: "The very first Internet was available in scientific institutions and it used telephone or some other special networks. As far as I know, the Belarusian Internet started in the Academy of Sciences. People connected with the help of modems by dialing providers’ phone numbers. You had to pay Beltelecom for every minute of telephone connection and you also paid your ISP for every minute spent on the Internet”.
Euroradio: What the first web browsers were like? How did they appear?
Mahanyok: "It looked very simplistic and it was used both for browsing and editing. It did not last long. The famous browser Netscape Navigator appeared later and it was the main browser used on the Internet for a long time. More than 90% of Internet users used it in the 90s. Then Internet Explorer 1, 2 and 3 appeared - they looked like modern browsers but were rather slow”.
