Internetto quickly rose to popularity, reaching 2000 readers a day by the summer of 1996,[4] largely due to the website's coverage of IT-related news.

[5] The early days of Internetto also saw the launch of the site's own forum called Törzsasztal and several local editions such as iNTeRNeTTo.Szeged.

In 1996, the team behind Internetto launched Internet Expó, a virtual exhibition opened by Gyula Horn who served as the prime minister of Hungary at the time.

This, along with live video interviews with several prominent public figures such as Horn and András Lovasi boosted Internetto's popularity even further.

[6] Because of this, Nyírő, along with his colleagues Gábor Gerényi, Balázs Kéki, András Virág, and Péter Uj launched a company called URL Consulting[8] which offered to buy Internetto for 13[7] or 15[3] million HUF in April 1999.

However, Totalcar became a major success, overtaking Origo's competing automotive column, and even getting its own television show.

[18] This success, combined with a decreased staff size and the continued growth of online advertising markets[19] stabilised the company's finances.

[21] This acquisition resulted in many speculating that the real owner of the company is Zoltán Spéder, the vice president of OTP Bank.

[24][25] This culminated in Péter Uj resigning as editor-in-chief after 11 years in September 2011,[13] later citing the firing of one of Index's employees after an article critical of Viktor Orbán as the cause of his exit.

[25] Several other key figures, such as columnist Árpád Tóta W., journalist Márton Bede,[27] editor Albert Gazda,[28] and László Szily[25] also left Index.

[36] In March 2020, Indamedia was purchased by Miklós Vaszily, a businessman with close ties to the Fidesz political party, and the president of TV2.

[39] These fears were quickly confirmed as Szabolcs Dull announced that Index was in danger of losing its editorial independence in a letter co-signed by most of the website's journalists on 21 June 2020.

The reason for this was reportedly a cost reduction plan authored by Index founder Gábor Gerényi who had left the newspaper in 2012.