Browsing the web on 98/ME in 2019 and beyond

[schwups]

8 hours ago, Dave-H said:

I had better luck with K-Meleon 74. The newer version definitely seems to be more stable.
It still freezes on the Trend Micro page though.
If I run it in XP, it loads the page fine.
Again, I have kmeleion.exe set to Windows 2000 SP4 in KernelEx.

Set XP mode, if it is better on your system. And set Msvcr80.dll (Program Folder) to Base (Kexbases,Kexbasen). It should avoid runtime errors.

 

8 hours ago, Dave-H said:

I didn't have any luck with the later version of Firefox 3.6.
For some reason, it won't run at all. When I run it, nothing happens.
I tried it on Windows XP, and nothing happens when I run it there either.
I have firefox.exe set to Windows 2000 SP4 mode in KernelEx, I assume that's correct.

Windows 2000 SP4 mode is the normal and envisaged setting on the firefox 3 exe. Does the fresh profile make a difference?

I can hardly contribute to this at the moment, because I have not dealt with this further.

[jumper]

Try setting the mode to XP.

Is there any activity in the KernelEx ApiLog Console when it freezes?

 

[Goodmaneuver]

11 hours ago, Dave-H said:

I didn't have any luck with the later version of Firefox 3.6.
For some reason, it won't run at all. When I run it, nothing happens.

I would try profiling it with Depends, that might show up the issue. I have my FF3.6 and FF9 executable set to Base and XUL plus XPCOM on NT4 setting. The individual FF upgraded files like Freebl3 I have in follower mode so they will be theoretically Base as they were not loaded prior to loading FF. I am operating KernelEx enabled and I have set disabled Shell32, USP10, WS2_32, WS2help, Wsock32, Winspool.drv, Winmm, Version, User32, Tapi32, Rpcrt4, Rnr20, Rasapi32, Ole32, Ntdll, Mswsock, Msvfw32, Mspwl32, Msimg32, Mpr, Kernel32, Iphlpapi, Imm32, Icmp, Gdi32, Ctras, ComDlg32, Comctl32, Advapi32 and IE6 module Shlwapi. Now I may have got carried away with disabling modules when KernelEx got more complex and all may not be necessary at all but disabling some of the big ones like Shlwapi and Shell32 may speed up the system some what. The CRT modules in use are set all to BaseNoheap which includes (MozJS.dll - not applicable to FF3.6 though.); thus they are using using KEX STD heap settings. Try Wyzo browser it is FF3.6 but a little better in that it will not share the same Application Data with other FF versions.

Edited May 25, 2022 by Goodmaneuver

[Dave-H]

Thanks guys, I'll chew over all that and get back to you.
I've been using KernelEx for many years now, but I'm no expert on its complexities, especially since jumper's great work over the last few years in keeping it going.
I'll try and get my head around it!
Cheers, Dave.

[mina7601]

I agree here too, actually. Even despite my usage of KernelEx wasn't long enough (it's only for several months, and I only used normal KernelEx), I'm still thankful that also the great work has reached to the point that FF 52, and several apps run on 98/ME.

[schwups]

I was inquisitive and did some tests with RT'S Firefox 3.6newnss. Probably the crashes on download are Win ME/js3250.dll specific and are independent of the KernelEX version or Kext.
A Workaround, but not checked further: I took JS3250.DLL and MOZCRT19.DLL from original Firefox 3.6.28 (2012) and inserted them into RT'S Firefox 3.6newnss with the result that
I was able to download files without crash. Interestingly the older version of 2017 10 25 gives no crashes on download, but bookmark and history functions
don't work here (Win ME). I also ran Firefox 3.6 newnss on Win98SE and it didn't freeze on this trendmicro page or crashed on download. I think RoyTam has never tested this
program on WinME.

[Dave-H]

14 hours ago, schwups said:

Set XP mode, if it is better on your system. And set Msvcr80.dll (Program Folder) to Base (Kexbases,Kexbasen). It should avoid runtime errors.

 

Windows 2000 SP4 mode is the normal and envisaged setting on the firefox 3 exe. Does the fresh profile make a difference?

I can hardly contribute to this at the moment, because I have not dealt with this further.

I changed the KernelEx settings.
I hope this is right.

No difference with the freezing.
It is actually doing it on some other sites as well, loading the page but then saying it's downloading something else but never completes.
It isn't apparently completely frozen as the animation top right of the window is still running, but it won't respond to any mouse clicks anywhere and has to be forcibly closed down.

14 hours ago, jumper said:

Try setting the mode to XP.

Is there any activity in the KernelEx ApiLog Console when it freezes?

 

Where is this log?
Sorry but I'm not familiar with this part of KernelEx.

[Goodmaneuver]

Swapping JS3250 did not change anything for me. Dave H said it did not work in 98SE and WinXP for him. I get a stack overflow in kernel32 at BFF64277. BFF64000 is the start address for Kernel32. I have uploaded the Fault Log for DW profiling and there is no Fault Log produced without profiling. I have also uploaded the KernelEx Apilog. My K-Meleon74 does not produce any text but displays pictures OK. It is like VLC3 when I increase the font enlargement too far. I just get straight lines like a continuous underscore where the text should be. If Wyzo is used or any other FF vs up to 8, the new files for TLS2 that Roytam1 sent in here on page 12 for FF8 can be used. Just check that everything works out with DW.

1 hour ago, Dave-H said:

Where is this log?
Sorry but I'm not familiar with this part of KernelEx.

Select Enable API logging then you open Apilog and just run the program you selected to log. The KernelEx log will then be displayed in the APIlog.exe window. You need to download the APIhook from first page of KernelEx Core Updates https://msfn.org/board/index.php?app=core&module=attach&section=attach&attach_id=39308 Rename ApiMon.exe to ApiLog.exe and place both files in a mapped location like the System folder.

FF3.6crt71.zip

Edited May 25, 2022 by Goodmaneuver
Server said upload did not work 1st time. I had 2 uploads of the same thing.

[schwups]

RT'sFirefox3.6/ Win98SE: I still can't reproduce freezing on Trendmicro. The versions without newnss 20171014/20171025/20171108 give known message "Secure connection failed...", due to the "old" nss files. Did you try to run without extensions and with plugins disabled?

Edited May 26, 2022 by schwups

[Dave-H]

It's not Firefox 3.6 that's freezing, it's K-Meleon 74.
Is it worth trying just replacing the nss files in the old version with the ones in the newer version, which I can't get to run at all?
Is it just the five files with names beginning 'nss' in the program folder, or are there others?

[schwups]

Yes, you said K-Meleon freezes on Tuesday.

You can replace files. I rename the original file mostly with an "o" as Backup and then I paste the ones of the other version. nss files are also free...dll and soft...dll.

[Goodmaneuver]

51 minutes ago, Dave-H said:

Is it just the five files with names beginning 'nss' in the program folder, or are there others?

Definitely more essential files that were found here in this topic but now the links are not correct. A correctly chosen Roytam1 browser would contain compatible files. I know the Classilla browser works and the bookmarks work. It is called Pheonix and is old but has new TLS2 files. It uses Msvcrt instead of Msvcr71 but will not contain FF3.6 compatible files. Retrozilla files will work with FF3.6 but I may have had to mix it up a bit with some other browser files to get it to work. I have included some of the files in use in HTM format so it will display in your browser. See the Basic ECC files, these are the ones to update and any with version 3.21.4. I am not sure though if this is the latest Roytam1's version but it must be close.

51 minutes ago, Dave-H said:

Is it worth trying just replacing the nss files in the old version with the ones in the newer version

No I would not do that because I don't think it will work but worth a try.

Wyzo.htm

[winxpi]

K-Meleon, Retrozilla Are best first choices. You might also want to try the Opera 12.01 with spdy 3.0 (https 2.0 predecessor).

 

Original page with link (ofcourse not available anymore the files):

https://dev.opera.com/articles/opera-spdy-build/

Via web.archive download will work nonetheless: 

https://web.archive.org/web/20130719134524/http://snapshot.opera.com/labs/spdy/Opera-Labs-SPDY-12.01-1495.i386.exe

It seems to support the spdy test: http://www.httpvshttps.com even in 2022.

Thats not to say that msfn.org/board can be displayed with it...For that rather stick to Firefox(Mozilla based) browsers.

I havent tested youtube in a while. And only can report that html5 with integrated graphics card with over 20 years age was laggy and slow compared to flash.

With an modern graphics(e.g. 2004/2005) card it might work ok.

A few years ago even IE supported msfn.org/board

Edited May 26, 2022 by winxpi

[Dave-H]

I tried substituting the nine freexxxx.xxx nssxxxx.xxx and softxxxx.xxx files from the newer version of Firefox 3.6 to the older version.
It still works, but it has made no difference to the security error on the Trend Micro download link.
The DLLs are all significantly later versions than I had before, so I guess it would make sense to keep them there.

[schwups]

A suggestion from me: Download Firefox 3.6.28 portable, install it somewhere, delete the firefox files in the Firefox subfolder (...\3.6 RoyTam\App\Firefox) of that installation and insert the (test) program files of e.g. fx36vc71-20171108_newnss.7z into it. In my opinion Portables are much better for testing. Then you get a fresh profile here. Of course you also can swap whole profiles or single files.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/portableapps/files/Mozilla Firefox%2C Portable Ed./Mozilla Firefox%2C Portable Edition 3.6.28/FirefoxPortableLegacy36_3.6.28_EnglishGB.paf.exe/download

I see these nss files here:

FREEBL3.CHK
FREEBL3.DLL
NSS3.DLL
NSSCKBI.DLL
NSSDBM3.CHK  has an old date 2012
NSSDBM3.DLL
NSSUTIL3.DLL
SMIME3.DLL
SOFTOKN3.CHK
SOFTOKN3.DLL
SSL3.DLL

Edited May 26, 2022 by schwups