Fast web browser for 98?

[SPX]

Anyone got any ideas on the best web browser to run for Win98? I am currently running the newest Opera on a P166/64 MB. Tabs are definitely preferred, as it's a great feature. I think I'm looking for something like Dillo, but for Windows.

[Peffse]

I'm trying to remember if K-Meleon works on 98. It is the lowest resource modern browser I can recall.

[SPX]

I'm trying to remember if K-Meleon works on 98. It is the lowest resource modern browser I can recall.

And indeed we want something modern. I can do without Flash. I attempted to add Flash 7 to Opera and go to YouTube and either it ran very choppily (the ads, Flash-based) or it didn't run at all (the videos). So Flash support is out. I just want something that will hop nimbly from site to site.

As I mentioned, I know in the Linux world there is Dillo . . . but not sure what exists for Win9X. I will look into your suggestion, though.

[cyberformer]

At one time I had removed IE with the Eradicator prog, then installed an earlier version of K melon.

The earliest versions of Kmelon are very fast, but most likely have a vulnerability or two; but by removing IE, those possible vulnerabilities could not be used to attack the PC using IE as a window--via it's integration with the OS.

Firefox just does not seem so fast as Opera and Kmelon these days, though I still like it.

If only I could get the 4.8 series of Netscape to work these days!

At one time it did, but now comes up with all kinds of Java errors.

The light house Logo they used to have when it started up, how I love it!

But you fancy modern, so I would work with Opera (some kind of tweaking), perhaps.

Sea Monkey might work these days and be fast enough; though I can't get it to delete the cookies, cache, etc.

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Using Opera 9.60.10447 and JRE 1.6 on Win98se. Seems very fast to me. And I do think I see some speed improvement over the 9.5x revisions. I have made a point of keeping all the Opera versions since 2.12 active in separate folders and would always fire up 3.62 whenever I had the need for speed. But lately, the current one seems very fast. If you see something slow in Opera you might want to take a look around your HDD for older JRE conflicts.

Note that in current Opera versions it is as easy as two clicks to kill these features: Tools >> Quick Preferences >> Enable JavaScript, (or Java). The problem is that Java and Javascript are everywhere and disabling them is the proverbial double-edged sword. You will get nimble, but it will be nimble because of all the blank pages.

Opera has most of the old versions up there if you want them. This page here has everything back to 3.21. If you grab any of them do yourself a favor and grab the classic installer whenever available so as to avoid the MSI setup mechanisms. To run many versions in parallel you don't want a bunch of conflicting links in the registry pointing to 3.x or 6.x as the current version. With lots of INI file editing in each versions folder they can be effectively isolated from one another.

Most likely a Mozilla 2.x would be a good choice too. Unfortunately there is more registry to stay on top of to insure that a later version of Firefox doesn't get buggy from finding and using older files pointed to by earlier registry entries.

Edited October 17, 2008 by CharlotteTheHarlot

[herbalist]

Sea Monkey is an excellent tabbed browser for 98. I tried it back when it was called the Mozilla Suite and have stayed with it since. Sea Monkey is a browser suite which includes a mail/newsgroup component, an address book, a webpage composer, and an IRC chat component. Very customizable with many plug-ins, extensions, and themes available. For me, it uses memory much more efficiently than IE6 ever could. IMO, the managers and menus are laid out much better than those on FireFox. It works very well on both versions of 98.

With a 166MHZ processor, you won't get much use out of flash, no matter what browser you use. I have used SeaMonkey on a P5-133 with 32MB. It was slow, but stable. There are versions of FlashBlock and NoScript available that work with SeaMonkey. They help block much of the useless content like ads, which will help speed it up even more.

Rick

[darrelljon]

"Users of Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows NT 4.0 may have to install Vcredist.exe to get the latest run-time components for Visual C++ applications." - K-Meleon FAQ

Support for Windows 95, 98, Me and NT 4 will be dropped in Seamonkey 2.

Which is better, Seamonkey or Opera?

Edited October 17, 2008 by darrelljon

[SPX]

I'm trying to remember if K-Meleon works on 98. It is the lowest resource modern browser I can recall.

I took a look at the K-Meleon site and apparently Win98 is "generally supported with updated Microsoft libraries." I'll give it a shot tonight and see how it runs. From what I can though tell they haven't added tabs as a feature and I think that's a mistake. (I could be wrong on that. I'll go look a little deeper.)

[BenoitRen]

Which is better, Seamonkey or Opera?

It depends. If you like the whole add-ons scene, go with SeaMonkey. If you like all of the options being available via the GUI, go with Opera. There's more to it, but those are two important features.

About one year ago they were going to add tabs, but I don't know what they're up to today. They have this "layers" thing that kind of behaves similarly, though.

[Dude111]

I would say MyIE2 (Last version before name change)

Download: http://dl.downloadhosting.com/download/myie2/m2setup.exe

I have been using it for years and i love it!!

Tabbed browsing,Popup filter and more!!

MyIE2

Edited October 17, 2008 by Dude111

[darrelljon]

I don't know what layers is, but both K-Meleon and SeaMonkey seem to have full tabbed browser functionality when I've used them.

[herbalist]

Support for Windows 95, 98, Me and NT 4 will be dropped in Seamonkey 2.

Eventually, they'll all drop support for 98 and we'll have to use the last compatible versions of the one we prefer. IMO, it's not that much of a problem. We're running operating systems with no "official" support. We've all seen the warnings telling us about insecure 98 will be without support and that we have to "upgrade" to be safe. Most of us know that it's nothing more than propaganda and marketing. When properly configured and secured, the opposite is proving to be true.

With the alternate browsers, staying up to date is far less important than it is for IE users. The alternates are not integrated into the operating system. With a browser that's part of the OS, code that exploits the browser basically exploits the operating system. With the alternate browsers, vulnerabilities that lead to remote code execution are rare when compared to IE6. Many of these can be mitigated or eliminated by good system configuration. A good security package can prevent most malicious code from doing any damage. A web content filter like Proxomitron can remove malicious code before it ever reaches the browser. IMO, the 98 compatible security software that's available now will be sufficient to secure 98 with an alternate browser for several more years.

Running an older version of an alternate browser will be an extension of what we're already doing. In the short term, we'll have to examine vulnerabilities as they're found and see if they can be used against 9X systems. In the long term, we'll see an increasing amount of content that will be challenging to make work on 98. Some of the talented members here have already proven that they're up to that challenge.

Regarding MyIE2, I believe it's a front end for Internet Explorer. It uses the core Internet Explorer components, which makes it vulnerable to many of the same problems as IE6. Since it uses IE6 components, it has the same OS integration problems and the security risks that come from exposing your OS to the internet.

Rick

[galahs]

I think we should support the browsers that still provide Windows 98 support in the hope that if they see the demand, they will keep producing up-to-date compatible browsers for us.

[T.N.G.O.G.]

Firefox 5.0, seamonkey lastest version.

[cannie]

IMO Opera is the fastest and Firefox 2 the best.

In any case, even when using the same HTML rendering engine, Maxthon 1.6 is useful instead of the old IE6.

Taking into account that we are using Windows 98 the probability of viruses is considerably reduced. I've got twice the message "kernelnt.dll not found" and an unactive virus hanged into the Windows folder: the old OS had worked as an antivirus.

This is one of the main reasons why I doubleboot.

HTH

Edited October 18, 2008 by cannie