Older Browsers better?

[OldSchool38]

Although I love the expanded abilities that the upcoming 5.2 unoffical pack promises to give, after varying glitches involving antivirus programs-I've settled on using 'plain vanilla' Win2k Sp 4 for now, while I find Qupzilla to be a good browser that is up to date and win2k compatible-I was wanting to know if some of the older versions of browsers like Opera and Mozilla 12 might still be useful for normal surfing, checking e-mail etc. While I know the up-to-date browers are supposedly more secure, after seeing how Outpost Firewall and an older version of Comodo Firewall seem to work better than the nearly 100 meg complete and current Zonealarm-I thought I might ask if those 'up to date' features are actually more bloatware than secure features?

[AnX]

It's your choice.

Personally I use Chrome 27 on my copy of Windows 2000.

Gotta Love UUR.

Anyway, you can use them, as long as you're careful and have a proper AV + FW (avast! + Comodo is nearly unstoppable)

Also, WebKit based browsers (Chrome, Maxthon, Iron, Safari, QupZilla, Opera 15 etc.) are all good choices, since WebKit is lightweight and extremely Windows 2000 friendly (though MOST WebKit browsers require XP APIs or UUR)

[tomasz86]

You're probably going to encounter plenty of website incompatibility issues when using older browsers. As long as it's not a very old computer I'd just use the newest versions of web browsers.

For Windows 2000 I recommend Firefox. If you don't like it then Qupzilla (which you're already using) is fine. Maxthon also works properly. All browsers based on Chromium have the Javascript bug which (at least for me) makes them unusable in 2K.

I've got an older laptop with Pentium III-M 933MHz / 640MB RAM and I use the newest versions of both Firefox and Chrome on it. Even on such a machine they work pretty well and browsing is smooth. The real problem is that the so called "modern" websites themselves use a lot of RAM and the browser can't really do a lot to help in this matter. What helps is to keep only 1-3 tabs open at once and not install extensions which also tend to use a lot of memory. In case of my main PC with 8GB of RAM I can install a dozen of different extensions, browse tens of websites at the same time and still have a lot of RAM left but on the laptop the only extension installed is AdBlock.

[AnX]

All browsers based on Chromium have the Javascript bug which (at least for me) makes them unusable in 2K.

Exactly what kind of bug is this? With Java 7 I got Java bugs in FFox, but not Chrome...

[tomasz86]

I've send you a PM. Try to remove it using Chrome in Windows 2000. The browser tab will freeze once the Javascript window pops up.

[AnX]

I see what you mean. Darn. Guess I'll have to use Maxthon, then.

EDIT: Now on Maxthon, it's a miracle browser. I reccommend this to all Windows 2000 users. So many features, everything works correctly, etc. It's like a dream come true!

Thumbs up to Maxthon!

Edited July 7, 2013 by AnX

[nostaglic98]

Personally, I've found that Firefox 3.6.28 works and is still very usable on all sites - I was even using this on my school computer until a user-privileges error led to the re-installation of Windows XP Pro (Firefox was apparently only "interim" before they made the upgrade in 2012 to IE8 or IE9. Cannot remember).

IE 5.5 SP1 also works surprisingly well for its age, and can display most websites fairly well still. It is also a heck of a lot faster than the newer versions of IE, though Firefox on this machine is a tad sluggish. At this point in time, FF3.6.28 is automatically downloading FF12, the last for Windows 2K - so I'm looking forward to slightly better website display - but there is a speed reduction, I imagine.

[blackwingcat]

How about Opera 12.16 or Firefox ESR 17.0.7 ?

Personally, I've found that Firefox 3.6.28 works and is still very usable on all sites - I was even using this on my school computer until a user-privileges error led to the re-installation of Windows XP Pro (Firefox was apparently only "interim" before they made the upgrade in 2012 to IE8 or IE9. Cannot remember).

IE 5.5 SP1 also works surprisingly well for its age, and can display most websites fairly well still. It is also a heck of a lot faster than the newer versions of IE, though Firefox on this machine is a tad sluggish. At this point in time, FF3.65.28 is automatically downloading FF12, the last for Windows 2K - so I'm looking forward to slightly better website display - but there is a speed reduction, I imagine.

[nostaglic98]

How about Opera 12.16 or Firefox ESR 17.0.7 ?

Personally, I've found that Firefox 3.6.28 works and is still very usable on all sites - I was even using this on my school computer until a user-privileges error led to the re-installation of Windows XP Pro (Firefox was apparently only "interim" before they made the upgrade in 2012 to IE8 or IE9. Cannot remember).

IE 5.5 SP1 also works surprisingly well for its age, and can display most websites fairly well still. It is also a heck of a lot faster than the newer versions of IE, though Firefox on this machine is a tad sluggish. At this point in time, FF3.65.28 is automatically downloading FF12, the last for Windows 2K - so I'm looking forward to slightly better website display - but there is a speed reduction, I imagine.

To be honest, I hadn't considered that, and I didn't realise they actually worked... Although I assume you need some sort of Kernel Extension application, the Windows 2K equivalent of "KernelX"?

Firefox 12 and IE5.5 SP1 work just fine for me :-)

[blackwingcat]

How about Opera 12.16 or Firefox ESR 17.0.7 ?

Personally, I've found that Firefox 3.6.28 works and is still very usable on all sites - I was even using this on my school computer until a user-privileges error led to the re-installation of Windows XP Pro (Firefox was apparently only "interim" before they made the upgrade in 2012 to IE8 or IE9. Cannot remember).

IE 5.5 SP1 also works surprisingly well for its age, and can display most websites fairly well still. It is also a heck of a lot faster than the newer versions of IE, though Firefox on this machine is a tad sluggish. At this point in time, FF3.65.28 is automatically downloading FF12, the last for Windows 2K - so I'm looking forward to slightly better website display - but there is a speed reduction, I imagine.

To be honest, I hadn't considered that, and I didn't realise they actually worked... Although I assume you need some sort of Kernel Extension application, the Windows 2K equivalent of "KernelX"?

Firefox 12 and IE5.5 SP1 work just fine for me :-)

Well.

I think Firefox ESR 10.0.12 (Jan. 2013) is more secure than Firefox 12.0 (Apr. 2012)

But I have question.... Why don't you use IE5.5SP2 but IE5.5SP1 ?

[nostaglic98]

How about Opera 12.16 or Firefox ESR 17.0.7 ?

Personally, I've found that Firefox 3.6.28 works and is still very usable on all sites - I was even using this on my school computer until a user-privileges error led to the re-installation of Windows XP Pro (Firefox was apparently only "interim" before they made the upgrade in 2012 to IE8 or IE9. Cannot remember).

IE 5.5 SP1 also works surprisingly well for its age, and can display most websites fairly well still. It is also a heck of a lot faster than the newer versions of IE, though Firefox on this machine is a tad sluggish. At this point in time, FF3.65.28 is automatically downloading FF12, the last for Windows 2K - so I'm looking forward to slightly better website display - but there is a speed reduction, I imagine.

To be honest, I hadn't considered that, and I didn't realise they actually worked... Although I assume you need some sort of Kernel Extension application, the Windows 2K equivalent of "KernelX"?

Firefox 12 and IE5.5 SP1 work just fine for me :-)

Well.

I think Firefox ESR 10.0.12 (Jan. 2013) is more secure than Firefox 12.0 (Apr. 2012)

But I have question.... Why don't you use IE5.5SP2 but IE5.5SP1 ?

Apologies - I actually do use IE 5.5-SP2... That was an oversight on my behalf. I will look into Firefox ESR, and see where that gets me!