[8][9][10] Four former Magyar Narancs employees, Péter Nádori, Ferenc Pohly, György Simó and Balázs Weyer[11] decided to start an online news website.

After contacting other media publishers such as Népszabadság,[12] they were eventually given funds for the website by Magyar Telekom (then called MATÁV) in order to popularise internet subscriptions in Hungary.

[11] Although Origo only had one real competitor at the time, Index.hu (then called Internetto), its initial readership was underwhelming due to structural issues with the website.

[13] However, this soon changed as MATÁV's resources weren't as limited as Internetto's,[13] and they also owned the biggest Hungarian search engine at the time, the Altavista-based AltaVizsla.

[16] Origo's financial strength meant that they were able to cover the September 11 attacks without any server problems, while Index was constantly struggling with outages.

[17] In 2006, Origo's owners, Magyar Telekom (then called T-Online), announced that they were purchasing iWiW, Hungary's largest social media site at the time.

In 2011, editor-in-chief Balázs Weyer left the company,[24] and he was eventually replaced by Index's Albert Gazda.

[23] According to some, around this time, officials from the Hungarian government initiated meetings with Magyar Telekom executives in order to pressure the company to take a more pro-government stance.