Meet Wander, a StumbleUpon-inspired tool for discovering the “microweb”

As AI briefs and commercial content increasingly dominate search, people are experimenting and inventing ways to make the web seem more human like it used to, by building everything from “mini-web” search engines to decentralized social networks.

One of the more recent efforts in this direction is the Wander Console, an open source, self-hosted web console that provides website visitors a way to explore other interesting sites and web pages recommended by the community of independent website owners.

Sosam Pal, the project’s London-based developer, says he was inspired to build this small, decentralized tool after seeing Kagi’s “small web” search tool that limits searches to specific types of content, such as blogs, webcomics, and YouTube channels.

But this still doesn’t show the kind of small websites run by independent developers like Pal himself, nor web projects, widgets, or games. This led Pal to create Wander, which puts website recommendations back into the hands of users.

“Not everyone is aware of this beautiful part of the Internet, which is a weird part, where we have all kinds of weird sites, where people express their personalities, etc.,” he said.

Wander has its roots in older ideas, like webrings that linked independent websites and blogs, or website discovery tools like StumbleUpon, which provided serendipitous recommendations when you clicked “Stumble!” button to discover new locations. It also has elements of blogging, where site owners can recommend other websites.

To use Wander, simply upload two files to your website: a Index.html The file that points to the Wander console, and Wander.js (a plain JavaScript file) that you use to link to other Wander controllers you recommend. There’s no server-side code or database involved, and the console can even be hosted on GitHub or Codeberg Pages, Pal said.

Once downloaded, you can add a “Wander” link to your website that allows visitors to jump into the discovery experience. (For example, here’s the Pal’s Wander controller demo.)

The console has a “Wander” button at the top of the page which you can click to load a random website. You can also click the Controller button to see information about that person’s Wander setup, including a list of other people’s Wander controllers they recommend. Wander calls the recommended controllers “neighbors.”

Some of these Wander controllers are very clever and funny. A guy named Josh created a Wander console that recommends all other websites created by people named Josh. Another person customized their controller to turn the cursor into a little creature; Another takes you through different pages on Neocities, a web hosting platform focused on recreating the web, like what existed on Geocities (hence the name). Many others have changed the color scheme of their console to match their own location or to give it a nostalgic look.

Pal said it’s easy to customize the console with CSS or JavaScript without changing the original Wander Console. (If you don’t know how, you can probably enlist AI to help you with this part.) That way, when Wander ships a new version, that part of the file can be updated with a simple copy and paste.

Pal introduced the project to the Hacker News community this spring, and recently shared it on Reddit and elsewhere, receiving a lot of positive feedback and support. Since those early introductions, Wander has been adopted by over 60 people who now use it to recommend over 1,500 websites.

“I don’t think everyone needs to know about the Small Web — some people use the Web as a utility, and I think that’s totally fine for them. But people who are creative, they might want to learn about the Small Web,” Pal explained.

He said that many Internet users seem to miss StumbleUpon and think of it with a sense of nostalgia. “It’s the element of surprise, you never know what you’re going to find when you click the button,” he added.