1998, dial-up connection. The reason: MAME and game ROMs hunting :-P

Before that, I used to visit some BBS with an old friend of mine thanks to his 486+analog modem.

I'm not even sure. It was probably 1996, maybe 1997.

I have been using postal internet from 1999 to 2012 then I got myself a 60mbs connect so I can this is in real time

My earliest memory of using the internet was to download voice packs for the old Worms games. Best feature ever.

how do you guys remember that stuff. at best guess id say mid 90's but actually knowing the exact year is crazy

1994 via the University in Dresden. Mosaic, Email, IRC, usenet.

Really can't say for sure, but I wanna say somewhere in between 1994 and 1996.
edit: Regularly using? Around 2000, 2001

It's usually tied to some event. I remember when I bought my first PC (1994) and second (1996). I remember when I started the second part of my BSc (1992). It's kind of a guesstimate based on that kind of info. (The second PC is when I got a working modem, IIRC.)

I took the first occasional steps into the net around 95/96-ish (internet cafes, school, every single computer with a modem that i could get my hands on), but didn't get my own connection until 2000 when prices had dropped to an affordable level and DSL flatrates were on the horizon if not quite there yet.

I just Googled when Compuserve was first available in the Netherlands ;)
I'm not sure if I had used the internet before that or if it was just BBS', so I just used the first year of Compuserve.
It could've been earlier though since I started using modems back when they were still being expressed in baud, but I have a terrible memory.

Not sure, it was at work and before 1995. I think I downloaded a list of ftp sites from yahoo via ftp but I'm not 100% certain. It was on a 286 machine running dos. First web experience was in the engineering department at night on mosaic (they had the more powerful computers and I had permission). The whole company shared a dial up connection (56K).

I got it at home not long after that but using Netscape. I remember my father visiting and being sure I was going to be hit with a major bill because I accessed sites over sea.

I also used a couple of the free dialups that existed at that time, they'd put a banner with adds on your computer in exchange for internet connection.

Well, as ET3D already said it's usually tied some kind of important personal experience.

For me, I remember friends who had 28.8k/33.6k modems and being totally hyped by new super-mega-ultra-fast 56.6k modems becoming available. So that places it before 1998. And Netscape Navigator was the browser of choice at the time, so we're definitely around 1996 before the Browser Wars started going Microsoft's way. On the other hand I got my first computer (well, my father did) in 1994 and definitely didn't know about the internet then, so 95/96-ish is a fairly educated guess for my First Contact(TM).

To know when I got internet myself (well, my mom did) is even easier: brand-spanking new ISDN connection, pay-by-the-minute, The Smashing Pumpkins - Machina II double album download, 300 dollar phone bill, one suddenly very broadband-flatrate eager mom.

1999 - dial-up modem 33k. And it was like $6/6 hours/month. :( Damn that was expensive...

95 at University, Then 28.8 at home shortly after. And yes, it was AOL...