Remember when everything on the web felt...new? Back when "surfing the web" was a common expression, and part of the joy of using the Internet was making random discoveries.

Is that feeling of serendipity gone forever? It doesn't have to be.

Today Cool Websites and Apps offers sites for exploring the web at random. From discovering useful websites to seeing sheep on Google Street View, today we're going to point out five great starting points for exploring the web.

We once told you about The Useless Web, which randomly shows you useless websites – today let's find more websites like that, starting with something a little more...useful.

Random Useful Websites: Discover Your Next Favorite Tool

Remember the first time you found Wunderlist, or Gmail? Services like these eventually became part of your workflow, but before that they were unknown to you. There's a good chance other insanely useful sites are out there, waiting for you to discover them, and this site can help.

random-useful-website

The site itself couldn't be easier: just click a button and you'll be sent to a useful site in a new tab. Explore the new site and see if you like it. If not, just close the tab and click the button again – there's seemingly no end to the recommended sites. I've explored this a great deal and am yet to see the same thing twice – I hope you'll share your discoveries.

RandomStartup: Learn About New Startups

Today they're massive companies, but sites like Google and Dropbox started out as a couple of people with an idea. Have you ever wondered what it's like to be an early user of a site like that? If so, Random Startup is well worth checking out.

random-startup

Open the site and you'll be taken to a random startup right away; click the green button and you'll be taken to another one. It's a quick way to explore sites you almost certainly haven't heart of, and possibly find a site or app you'll eventually not be able to imagine living without. Let us know what you find, okay?

Comic Shuffle: Discover New Web Comics to Read

All these websites and startups, you might be asking...can't we see something fun? Of course you can, and to start we're going to check out some great webcomics. Head over to Comic Shuffle and you'll see a random strip from one of 27 popular webcomics.

comic-shuffle

This is a great way to kill time and potentially find a new favorite webcomic, so dive in! Let us know anything you discover in the comments below.

YouHole: Random YouTube Videos with >500 Views

Hundreds of hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, but I bet you mostly just watch the videos everyone else has already seen. If you'd like to discover something new, before everyone else, check out YouHole. This site shows you a barrage of videos with fewer than 500 views, so you know you're among the first to see something.

youhole-random-youtube-videos

Open the site and a video will start playing; click to skip to the next video. That's it.

If you prefer, you could just check out a random YouTube comment with no context whatsoever. That's fun too.

Google Sheep View: Invade Sheeps' Privacy

It's an important question: where can I find sheep on Google Street view? If you've lost sleep wondering this, good news: you'll be counting sheep in no time. This site serves as a collection of sheep locations on Google Street View, and nothing else.

google-sheep-view

It's simple, sure, but strangely delightful.

If you'd prefer to jump to a random location on Google Street view, regardless of whether there's sheep or not, check out MapCrunch, one of the many sites for virtual globetrotting we've outlined before.

What Will You Discover?

The web is a vast network of seemingly unconnected things. You could spend all day exploring it, refreshing a page like RandomColour.com just so you can pick a color scheme like a pro.

But we want to know which sites you love using to find random things. Maybe you like to explore random subreddits, or chat with strangers. However you use the random web, let's chat about it in the comments below. I can't wait to hear from you.