---
title: "The internet in 2013"
description: "Snowden, and encryption stops being a niche concern. 672,985,183 websites, 20 Mbps at home, $0.050 for a gigabyte of storage — and what a download actually took."
url: https://atoneplace.net/internet-in/2013/
site: "At One Place"
---

# The internet in 2013

**The internet in 2013: Snowden, and encryption stops being a niche concern.**

672,985,183 hostnames · Broadband at 20 Mbps. 4G in cities.

The Snowden disclosures in June changed the default assumptions of everyone who builds anything on the internet. HTTPS went from something banks did to something everything does, largely within five years; Let's Encrypt, which made certificates free and automatic, was a direct response. Before 2013 a personal blog served over plain HTTP was unremarkable, and after it was a defect.

## The numbers

- **Websites:** 672,985,183 hostnames responding to HTTP
- **Typical connection:** 20 Mbps — Broadband at 20 Mbps. 4G in cities.
- **A gigabyte of storage cost:** $0.050, in 2013 dollars

## How long things took to download

*Assuming the connection ran at its rated speed throughout, which it did not. Real dial-up throughput after protocol overhead was typically 10 to 20 per cent below the modem's rating.*

| What | At 20 Mbps |
| --- | --- |
| A 3 MB song | 1 seconds |
| A 5 MB photo | 2 seconds |
| A 700 MB CD image | 5 minutes |
| A 4 GB film | 28 minutes |
| A 50 GB game | 5 hours 50 minutes |

## What arrived in 2013

- Slack, internally at a failing game company
- Vine

## Against the years around it

| Year | Hostnames | Typical speed | $/GB of storage | A 4 GB film took |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 2012 | 697,089,489 | 15 Mbps | $0.070 | 37 minutes |
| 2013 | 672,985,183 | 20 Mbps | $0.050 | 28 minutes |
| 2015 | 863,105,652 | 30 Mbps | $0.040 | 19 minutes |

Between 2013 and 2020 the typical connection went from 20 Mbps to 100 Mbps, a factor of 5, and a gigabyte of storage fell from $0.050 to $0.020 — a factor of 3. The 4 GB film that took 28 minutes takes 6 minutes.

## Common questions

### What was the internet like in 2013?

Snowden, and encryption stops being a niche concern. A typical home connection was 20 Mbps, there were about 672,985,183 hostnames responding on the web, and a gigabyte of storage cost $0.050.

### How long did it take to download a film in 2013?

A 4 GB film at 20 Mbps would have taken about 28 minutes, assuming the connection held its rated speed the whole way, which it would not have.

### How many websites were there in 2013?

About 672,985,183 hostnames responded to HTTP. That counts hostnames rather than distinct sites, which is why the figure occasionally falls between years without the web shrinking.

## Related pages

- [The internet in 2012](https://atoneplace.net/internet-in/2012/)
- [The internet in 2015](https://atoneplace.net/internet-in/2015/)
- [Every year side by side](https://atoneplace.net/internet-in/)
- [Convert data units](https://atoneplace.net/convert/)

## Sources

- Web Server Survey — Netcraft (https://www.netcraft.com/blog/category/web-server-survey/)
- ICT Facts and Figures / World Telecommunication Indicators — International Telecommunication Union (https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/)
- Historical cost of computer memory and storage — Compiled from contemporaneous retail advertising and manufacturer price lists (/about/)