June 14, 2026
Web drama, now in plain text
Dillo directory – Directory of useful sites that work reasonably well on Dillo
The internet’s anti-bloat fans found a tiny web guide and immediately begged for old-school shopping links
TLDR: The Dillo directory collects simple, lightweight websites that still work without modern web clutter, from news and books to forums and archives. Commenters immediately made it about the real pain point: finding places to actually shop this way, turning the post into a roast of how overcomplicated the web has become.
A charmingly stubborn corner of the internet has dropped the Dillo directory, basically a hand-picked guide to websites that still work on a stripped-down, bare-bones browser. Translation for normal people: it’s a list for anyone exhausted by modern websites that demand pop-ups, scripts, autoplay, and a small piece of your soul just to read an article. The directory rounds up everything from Project Gutenberg and NPR text to indie blogs, archives, forums, and even a marketplace entry that proudly skips the shopping cart circus.
But the real gossip is in the reaction: the community instantly turned this from a cute directory launch into a mini rebellion against the modern web. The loudest mood was part nostalgia, part survivalist panic: people weren’t just saying “nice list,” they were basically crying, where can I still buy stuff online without JavaScript? That became the hot take of the thread — reading is easy, shopping is the final boss. One commenter tossed out Craigslist with a shruggy “probably,” then got distracted by the legendary Best of Craigslist archive, which is honestly the most on-brand possible detour for this crowd.
The vibe? Equal parts digital minimalism, treasure hunt, and low-key roast of today’s bloated internet. The joke underneath it all is brutal: in 2026, finding a simple website is starting to feel like urban exploration.
Key Points
- •The article is a categorized directory of websites that work reasonably well with the Dillo web browser.
- •Its stated focus is on human-crafted content with little or no JavaScript and modest CSS use.
- •The directory spans multiple categories, including archives, blog aggregators, blog platforms, books, forums, magazines, news, marketplaces, and research.
- •Examples of listed resources include Project Gutenberg, Standard Ebooks, NPR text, CBC Lite, arXiv, and dblp.
- •The article explicitly states that the directory has no affiliation.