VirusTotal Goes Retro with New ASCII Site for Older Browsers

Lawrence Abrams

March 23, 2019
02:32 PM
2

VirusTotal

VirusTotal has quietly launched a new retro ASCII site this week that is designed for visitors using older browsers, who want a minimalist experience, or wish to feel the nostalgia of how it felt connecting to a BBS or console in the past. Due to its reduced page size, this new interface is also ideal for mobile browsers who are typically on a slower connection.

The new VirusTotal site is located at https://www.virustotal.com/old-browsers/ and is rendered using only text, without any images. It also uses a minimal amount of JavaScript and 3rd party libraries to reduce its size and load times.

This optimization shows, as according to Pingdom speed tests, the normal page located at https://www.virustotal.com/ has a page size of 947.9 KB, a load time of 425 ms, and contains 35 requests. In comparison, this new user interface only has a page size of 6.1 KB, a load time of 266 ms, and 6 requests.

When visiting the new page, users will still have the normal functionality that they are used to in the full version. Users will still be able to submit files and URLs and search for previous scan results.

An example of a scan results page using this new interface can be seen below.

While the new interface looks great in modern web browsers, it still needs some work to look pretty from the console using a program like lynx.

When BleepingComputer asked why this new interface was created, Bernardo Quintero, the founder of VirusTotal, explained in a conversation that he often joked about wanting to create an ASCII version of the site. A few days ago, VirusTotal frontend software engineer Daniel Vaca surprised him with the new interface.

"I started to program when I was 10 years old with a Sinclair Spectrum, you know, BASIC then ZX80 assembler. So I am a kind of dinosaur in the VT team (I am actually the oldest one). I have sometimes joked about making an ASCII version of the website remembering my old days, and a few days ago, Daniel Vaca (one of our frontend software engineers) showed me this version."

Pick your style

Quintero also shared an Easter egg with BleepingComputer that allows you to change the colors of this new interface. By appending the ?stytle= variable, you can change to various styles that modify the colors used on the minimalist interface.

For example, https://www.virustotal.com/old-browsers/?style=1337 will display colors that look like an old school console.

If you are looking for something a bit more futuristic, you can try https://www.virustotal.com/old-browsers/?style=scifi to give you the following look.