Hi there - elder millennial here. I’m trying to read some of my friends’ XF pages from back in the day (I can’t for the life of me remember my own Geocities address but it’ll come to me eventually… lost access to the email linked to it) in the Wayback Machine
How do you get the pictures to appear?
I loooove your blog, right up my alley on the nostalgia! Plus we’ve got to keep those memories alive!!
Hi! I apologize for such a late reply, but I got lost in the sauce attempting to improve my skills and answer this better. Below is the answer I started writing, but hopefully edited with added research:
Hello! this is definitely a difficult game to play. Often, the issue with accessing images on older sites is that the photo is no longer saved to the server that held that data (meaning: the person who had the file deleted it or otherwise removed it), making it irretrievable.
However, that is not always the case. If I am really interested in an image, I will try a few tricks to see if it is an issue instead with either the capture of the site (the way it was archived) or compatibility on a modern browser.
When I use the Wayback Machine, I usually try to pull a different screenshot of the site to see if other captures (archived versions of the site) are more complete. While it's hard to find an example of it working for me from memory, I'm including screenshots of what I mean to help explain my process.
This is a gallery page from EBE-Christine's X-Files Page. These pictures are all visible, but if you were to see a box similar to the one on the right side in place of a picture, you can try looking at the other captures.
In the box at the top, you'll see there are 15 captures of this site over time, as well as a box showing those captures visually (bottom left), and arrows with date of the capture you're on in the center (bottom right).
I find going back to the older captures often shows a better preserved form of the original site, but that's not always true. Clicking around through the captures can help you see more of the images, gifs, and other links of the site.
Compatibility can be harder. One tip is to use a browser like Mozilla Firefox and Opera, which incorporate software to run internet explorer and flash options, so they are beginner friendly when it comes to archive stuff.
Another method I've used is going into the settings of my browser to turn off hardware acceleration. It's usually in advanced options under the settings menu of your browser. It helps with compatibility, but it can slow down the performance of your browser, so make sure to switch it back on when you're done.
I've tried a couple of websites that are supposed to pull archived photos for current browser, even if the wayback machine can't, but I personally haven't had success with them?? Anyway, I hope at least a little bit of this is helpful! Thank you for your patience.
If anyone who is more experienced than myself has more tips, please leave them below!
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