My first computer video games were Putt Putt and Doom. I eventually wanted to make video games and thought that learning Visual Basic 3.0 would lead the way, and although I never did create actual video games, this would definitely be the pivotal moment that would help me 15+ years later in my life and career.
Later I had a machine running Netscape Communicator, with 8Mb of RAM, and lauching was so much faster if you started up with "-no-java" that I remember it even now. Would have been RedHat 3.9/4.0, or so? Just after I tried out Slakware, and just before I moved to Debian.
(Of course all the home usage would have been on dialup, in the UK. I still remember the different noises of the modem negotiation. You could tell if it was going to be super-fast 28k, or 14k just from listening to the negotiation-noises. Almost as memorable and distinctive sounds as those from the ZX Spectrum tape-loader, if you're the same age as me!)
I didn't imagine it would have much use and was already annoyed by the guys that used FTP to download porn images. They would use terminals in the computer labs to amas collections that you could look at one by one with xv. The browser seemed to speed up the effort of downloading index files, manually typing in filenames, switching to binary mode, then back, etc.
In fact you could randomly dial the 'telephone number range' of "large institutions" to find their modems then from there it was relatively easy to work out how to log in, and get access to other externally connected "institutions".