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A list of browsing options for Windows XP


perfecthog05

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Since Windows XP's end of support, and espicially in 2016 I have noticed that people often say that they have trouble loading web pages and have problems browsing and compatibility issues. As a result of this, I have compiled a list of browsers that work fine on Windows XP, and other info.

  1. Internet Explorer If you are using Internet Explorer 6/7 get Internet Explorer 8. While it can only load marginally more web pages than IE 6/7 can, it's a lot more stable and faster than both IE 6/7. I'd say you can load 50-60% of web pages with IE 8.
  2. Firefox The last version that supports Windows XP and Vista was released like, 3 weeks ago, so browsing with Firefox you can load basically everything. You would probably be able to do this until around late 2018, and I reccomend using Firefox on WinXP for this very reason.
  3. Chrome I think the latest version that supports Windows XP was released some time ago- Around a year i'd guess, so loading web pages won't be too hard. I'd guess around 85-95% of web pages load with Chrome, so Chrome isn't a bad option but certainly isn't the best.
  4. Netscape Navigator The latest version (That isn't AOL crap) was released in 1998, so it will almost certainly work but good luck loading any web pages at all.
  5. Opera Latest version supports Windows XP, but I have used Opera in the past (With Windows ME) and it was a bit of pig (no irony intended) to use.

Uncommon/Obscure browsers

  1. AOL Explorer Rather bad browser discontinued in like 2006 but it's latest version does indeed support Windows XP. I'd say around 75-85% of webpages load in AOL.
  2. Avant From a quick bit of research, Avant does still support Windows XP. All webpages load in Avant. My second choice after Firefox.
  3. Safari for Windows No clue.
  4. Vivaldi Earlier than version 1.0 works for XP. Not sure how much browsing you could get down with it
  5. Chromium Same situation as Chrome.
  6. Midori That's for Linux -_.-
  7. SeaMonkey As of now, version 2.46 supports Windows XP, however version 2.49 will be the last version to support Windows XP. Probably my third choice after Avant.
  8. Qupzilla 2.0.1 It's latest version does still work with XP, despite not officially having compatibility.
  9. Waterfox 64-bit web browser for XP, however it hasn't worked on XP for quite some time.
  10. QtWeb A lightweight browser which supports Windows XP as of April 2017.

Hope I helped!

P.S. If I got something wrong, do tell me.

 

Edited by perfecthog05
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Firefox, obviously, will always be the recommended choice. Especially considering that

1. Internet Explorer 8 is a completely outdated (HTML4 only) browser with outdated SSL technologies. At the same time, it will be supported all the way until April 2019 (for a systems with POSReady tweak, of course).

2. Chrome for XP is slightly outdated (49.0.2623.112) but unsupported browser with known security issues, and with outdated SSL technologies (just like IE8 in this aspect).

3. Firefox (current version 52.0.2 ESR) released a week ago and is still the latest version until April 18. Sadly Firefox 53 and later will not work on Windows XP but Firefox 52.X ESR branch will still be supported until June 2018 (hope that for Windows XP too). And, unlike other browsers, it has its own built-in SSL mechanism with certificates management. :yes:

Edited by Bersaglio
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Quote

Opera Latest version supports Windows XP, but I have used Opera in the past (With Windows ME) and it was a bit of pig (no irony intended) to use.

Are you sure the latest version supports Windows XP? While I was looking into free VPN solutions due to recent developments in Congress, I tried checking out Opera's latest browser. Their installer flashes a message about "downloading an XP compatible version" but then immediately closes. News around the net also says that Opera officially removed support for Vista and XP with version 36 (annoying, as it's version 38 that has the built-in VPN).

Is there some finagling you have to do in order to get it to install?

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My favorite was and still is the Google Chrome (with as far as possible manually updated component), here mainly because of the sandbox technology, which is an additional security aspect. Of course, as a second Firefox browser, where a sandbox technology is now implemented, too late for Windows XP users. The Firefox browser because it has its own certificate management and web pages open with modern encryption methods (ECC). The latter problem due to the encryption can now be solved with a local HTTPS proxy, based on Python (now there is an official project at Github for the support of TLS 1.3), which also has its own certificate management, which is also on Google Chrome again open the web pages with more modern encryption methods.

:)

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Add this to the list
-Qupzilla 2.0.1 (Last version that works on XP, not officially supported)
-Waterfox (64 bit web browser for XP, however hasn't been properly worked with XP for a while)

Needs to be tested:
Firefox Clones
-Comondo Dragon

Chromium Clones
-Maxthon (Based off chromium 47 I think)
-UC Browser (Chromium based, unsure which version its based off of though)
-Yandex Browser
-Torch Browser
-Vivaldi <1.0 (Worked on both XP and Vista)

-Pale Moon 26.5.0
-Dooble Browser
-Otter Browser (XP version)

I tried to install Midori on my XP, but it failed.

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9 hours ago, TrevMUN said:

Are you sure the latest version supports Windows XP? While I was looking into free VPN solutions due to recent developments in Congress, I tried checking out Opera's latest browser. Their installer flashes a message about "downloading an XP compatible version" but then immediately closes. News around the net also says that Opera officially removed support for Vista and XP with version 36 (annoying, as it's version 38 that has the built-in VPN).

Is there some finagling you have to do in order to get it to install?

I just checked. Opera 36 was the last version of Opera that supported Windows XP.

What I don't get is why software is dropping support for Windows XP, yet Windows XP has more users than Windows 8.1 (I'll try to find the specific chart, I believe that Windows XP had 8% of usage and Windows 8.1 had 6% of usage). If they drop support for Windows XP, shouldn't they drop it for 8.1 too?

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Curses. I was kind of hoping you found a workaround or something, haha. I'd like to be able to use that built-in VPN ...

42 minutes ago, perfecthog05 said:

What I don't get is why software is dropping support for Windows XP, yet Windows XP has more users than Windows 8.1 (I'll try to find the specific chart, I believe that Windows XP had 8% of usage and Windows 8.1 had 6% of usage). If they drop support for Windows XP, shouldn't they drop it for 8.1 too?

I'm hardly an expert on the subject, but I think the reason they and other software companies are dropping XP support despite the OS still having a considerable amount of users has to do with APIs. This is an issue that never occurred to me until a year or two ago, when I first found out that this issue is what keeps XP users from playing XCOM: Enemy Unknown without doing some tinkering under the hood. That's in spite of XCOM using DirectX 9; up until then I thought the reason game companies stopped supporting XP was because Microsoft purposely withheld new DX releases from XP users. More recently, it was explained to me at Chromium's bugtracker that Google dropped XP support because it can't use APIs that Microsoft put into the newer OSes.

Windows 7 and 8 probably still use all the APIs that 10 does, at least for now; despite being less popular than XP, 8 has some protection from software companies dropping it like a rock by dint of coming after 7. 7 currently enjoys a reputation of being "the new XP" in terms of performance/popularity, so Microsoft will have to get rid of 7 before software developers stop supporting 8. That's probably coming sooner than we think; Microsoft's already trying to prevent 7 and 8 users from getting updates if they're using Kaby Lake/Bristol Ridge/Quaalcomm 8996 CPUs or newer.

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10 hours ago, perfecthog05 said:

I just checked. Opera 36 was the last version of Opera that supported Windows XP.

What I don't get is why software is dropping support for Windows XP, yet Windows XP has more users than Windows 8.1 (I'll try to find the specific chart, I believe that Windows XP had 8% of usage and Windows 8.1 had 6% of usage). If they drop support for Windows XP, shouldn't they drop it for 8.1 too?

Developers don't truly care about market share per se, they care more about moving forward.

Windows XP has more market share than all of the Mac OS X versions COMBINED, but developers have decided to focus on the future. It's that simple.

https://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=0

and

http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share

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15 hours ago, sdfox7 said:

Developers don't truly care about market share per se, they care more about moving forward.

Windows XP has more market share than all of the Mac OS X versions COMBINED, but developers have decided to focus on the future. It's that simple.

https://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=0

and

http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share

It is argueable that Windows 8 and 10 is more backward than forward.

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