I think I do use a similar phrase for aimless online time wasting: ‘Surfing the web.’
“I’m considering buying a new Chromebook instead of a PC since I mostly only use it to surf the web.”
“XYZ browser works OK for general web surfing but blanky dot com doesn’t work right so I keep Blah browser installed, too.”
Cruising the tubes.
With Mosaic
I’m content to receive the latest periodicals and pamphlets from the weekly mail coach.
This. Sayeth an IT geezer.
I like to get on the CompuServe.
My parents, in their 70s, say it and it sounds weird to me. I’m trying to think about what I do say, and it’ll either be something specific like “looking at news,” or the name of a specific site, or if I really am just noodling around I think I say “looking at the internet.”
Lynx, Bitches!
Also I remember Fido Net and even the before times when BBSes didn’t even think about networking. Though, I wish I hadn’t got 72747,1753 tattooed on my forearm. That proved to be shortsighted.
I was 73547,3210 but I just remembered it 
and didn’t get it tattooed anywhere. Those were the days!
I remember using Lynx. I remember using dial-up to get on the net so I could use slrn to check on newsgroups.
I still wouldn’t say “surf the net”.
Sometimes it feels as though “drowning in the net” might be a better way of putting it these days.
I think it’s not the term so much that’s antiquated, as the activity. The shape of the Web has changed. It used to be that you mostly got to websites by following links from other websites. So you could spend an arbitrarily-long time just jumping from page to page, and the destination was the journey. Nowadays, though, most Web use goes through only two pages: Google, and whatever you’re looking for. And if, after that, you want to go somewhere else, you start over from Google, instead of navigating there through other pages.
If you want that old-school, surfing the web feeling, just spend some time at TV Tropes.
I’d imagine the frequency of references to “clickbait” is an indicator of what happened to “surfing”.
Exactly. In YE OLDEN DAYS you had no idea what was out there. So if you found a website, it might have links to other websites that might be interesting, so you followed those links to see where they went and what was there.
Nowadays, you have your main social media site, you have your main news site, you have wikipedia, and you just google for the rest rather than blindly following links.
But I do actually still do that, sometimes. It’s not how I normally use the web, but it happens. Usually on sites like Wikipedia or TVTropes, but I’ve also done it with news sites, going from one page to another, and, yes, winding up on other pages.
It’s not nearly as common as back in my Lynx or Netscape Navigator days (never used Mosaic–Netscape was out by the time I had SLIP access.) But I still do it.
I mean, just because I use Reddit to get it started doesn’t mean I don’t keep it going.
Actually, I suppose I still do it following up the contacts and commenters from blogs I follow.
These days, I do hear people talking about “Surfing Wikipedia”, so maybe the term has migrated to hyperlinked websites.
By “other pages,” I mean, “other sites,” if that wasn’t clear.
But, yeah, I’ve of surfing a particular site, too.
I used Lynx not that many months ago. On a headless Pi Zero to get some software on it so it could be more generally usable. ([del]It[/del] They are now.)
Got all nostalgic and looked up Mosaic. Last release is now more than 20 years ago.
It was beautiful.
Anyway, I downloaded the MS-Windows executable and installed it on a Win-7 box. It starts up!
Problem: It can’t handle just about anything. Not even XKCD.org which is the goto for a simplish web page. After some tries I thought “Lynx”, hmm. It works on the Lynx homepage (lynx.browser.org).
It is ugly.
The main difference from what I see now and what I saw then is the one I originally used was for Sun OS and so the layout was very good. The MS-Windows one uses extremely simplistic buttons and such.
I thought it was an issue with graphics but displaying just a gif or jpeg works. Just about anything remotely nontrivial gives a server error or crash.
Time to party like it’s nineteen ninety … seven.
I do that quite frequently, when I’m bored. I think up something weird, wiki it (is that the right verb?) and then start following the links.