Flamenet
The web the way it used to feel.
About Flamenet
Flamenet is a retro internet portal that recreates the look, feel, and spirit of the early
web — specifically the golden era of Y2K portals like Flamenet, Yahoo, Excite, and AOL.
Dense navigation, scrolling headlines, a directory of links, community forums, instant
messaging, auction listings, and a games arcade: everything you remember from staying
online past midnight on a 56k modem.
It is not a museum. It is a living, working community built on modern infrastructure
but styled and organized the way the web felt in October 2001. Sign up, connect your
AIM client, post in the forum, browse the directory, and bid on something in the listings.
That's Flamenet.
What is FlameNet, and how did it start?
The early web
Internet portals were how people navigated the web. Flamenet indexed billions of pages.
Yahoo organized the entire internet into a directory. AOL Instant Messenger put a
buddy list on every desktop. The web was crowded, colorful, and full of possibility.
What we lost
The portal era gave way to algorithmic feeds, walled gardens, and platforms designed
to keep you scrolling rather than exploring. The web got faster but lost something
— the sense that it was a place you could wander into and discover something unexpected.
What we built
Flamenet is our attempt to bring that era back, not as nostalgia tourism but as a
genuine online community. Every plugin, every pixel, and every feature is designed
to feel like a tab you had open in Internet Explorer 6 — except it works on your
modern browser and your modern computer.
Today
Flamenet is live at flamenet.io with a full suite of community
features, encrypted private messaging, a real AIM server, an auction marketplace,
a job board, Q&A, and a curated link directory. New features ship regularly.
Come join us.
What can you do on FlameNet?
AIM
Classic OSCAR-protocol instant messaging. Connect with a real AIM 5.x client.
ICQ
Classic ICQ sign-in using your UIN. Connect with a real ICQ client via the Flamenet server.
Forum
phpBB-style discussion boards organized by topic. No account required to read.
Groups
Public and private community groups, like Yahoo Groups. Post, discuss, organize.
Messaging
Encrypted private messages between registered users. AES-256-GCM at rest.
Listings
eBay-style auction marketplace. Place bids, win items, or sell your own.
Jobs
A job board with applications, cover letters, and professional profiles.
Answers
Community Q&A in the spirit of Yahoo Answers. Ask and vote on answers.
Events
A community events calendar. Post meetups, online events, and announcements.
Games
Browser-based multiplayer games. Chess with full move validation. More coming.
Link Directory
A hand-curated directory of links organized by category, like the original Yahoo.
Headlines
A scrolling news ticker and headlines list pulled from RSS feeds.
Files
Secure cloud file storage. Upload, download, rename, and share files with time-limited links.
Knowledge Base
Guides and answers to common Flamenet questions, including how to connect AIM.
Is FlameNet safe and private?
Flamenet runs automated security scans every 24 hours and gives administrators tools
to run each scan manually at any time. Here is what is checked and how.
| Check |
What it scans |
How |
Frequency |
| Core integrity |
Every core file |
MD5 checksum compared against the official WordPress.org list for the installed version. Modified or missing core files are flagged and can be repaired in one click. |
Daily |
| Malware patterns |
All PHP and JS files in plugins and themes |
16 regex patterns covering common backdoor techniques: obfuscated eval(), shell execution functions, variable function calls fed by user input, hidden iframes, and long hex- or base64-encoded payloads. |
Daily |
| Uploads directory |
Every uploaded file |
Any PHP file found in the uploads directory is flagged as critical — PHP files have no legitimate reason to be there. |
Daily |
| Post content |
500 most recent published posts and 500 approved comments |
Scans stored content for injected scripts, javascript: URIs, eval(), document.write(), and base64_decode(). |
Daily |
| S3 file scan |
Every user-uploaded file stored in S3 |
Files are streamed to a temporary location in 1 MB chunks (no file-size limit) and checked against the same 16 malware patterns plus 4 HTML-injection patterns: script tags, JavaScript protocol URIs, inline event handlers, and iframes. Pure image, audio, and video files are skipped. The file owner is notified by private message if a match is found. |
Daily |
| Have I Been Pwned — email & username |
Every registered user’s email address and username |
Checked against the Have I Been Pwned breach database. If an account is found in a known breach, the user is notified by private message listing the affected services. |
Daily |
| Have I Been Pwned — password |
Password used at sign-in |
Uses the HIBP k-anonymity API: only the first 5 characters of a SHA-1 hash are sent — the plain-text password never leaves the server. If the password has appeared in a public breach database, the user is notified immediately to change it. |
At login |
Detection is pattern-based and does not use a traditional antivirus engine. Sufficiently
obfuscated code may not match known patterns. Results are reviewed by administrators and
can be dismissed individually if a finding is a false positive.
What does FlameNet stand for?
Privacy first
We collect the minimum data needed to run the site. We don’t sell it, profile you with it, or use it to train AI. Private messages are encrypted.
No ads, no tracking
No third-party ad networks, no tracking pixels, no cross-site surveillance. Our analytics are self-hosted, cookieless, and anonymous.
Open to humans
Flamenet is for people — the content here is made by humans, for humans, with no ads, no tracking pixels and no data resale. Our robots.txt and ai.txt block AI training scrapers, while search engines stay welcome so people can still find the community.
Genuinely retro
This isn’t a skin on top of a modern social platform. Every feature is purpose-built to feel like the web circa 2001, running on solid modern infrastructure.
How do you contact FlameNet?
We are a small team and we read every message. Use the address that matches your topic:
You can also find answers to common questions in the
Knowledge Base,
read our Privacy Policy,
or review the Terms of Use.