Browsing the web on 98/ME in 2019 and beyond

[Bruninho]

Quote

<object data="/img/icon/moodle.svg" type="image/svg+xml" class="img-skill img-fluid d-inline-block mx-2 mb-3" data-toggle="tooltip" data-placement="bottom" title="Moodle">
                 <img src="/img/icon/moodle.png" class="img-skill img-fluid d-inline-block mx-2 mb-3" data-toggle="tooltip" data-placement="bottom" alt="Moodle" title="Moodle">
</object>

This is an example how I do the falback for SVG images. As explained here (https://css-tricks.com/a-complete-guide-to-svg-fallbacks/) under "Fallback for SVG as <object>".

Quote

<div .... data-image-src="img/about.jpg" data-bleed="0" data-speed="0.5"> ... </div>

And here is the reason why some "page section" divs do not have background images with JS disabled. I use a data-attribute for Parallax effects. The div should be transparent (no background-image with CSS) for it to work. The only browser that do not support it at the moment is the Safari iOS, and the script has a fallback - not written by me, though - to show them as background images instead on my iPhone.

 

Quote

/* !Preload Background images */
:root:before {
    content:    url('../img/home.jpg')
                url('../img/about.jpg')
                url('../img/portfolio.jpg')
                url('../img/contact.jpg');
    position:   absolute;
    left:         -999em;
    visibility: hidden;
}
 

And here is the reason why for some people page load may be slow even with JS disabled. That's a CSS trick used to pre-load images. so pages don't flash white on load. Here on my macbook the site is lightning fast, thanks to Amazon Web Services. I probably shouldn't preload them like this - but its only an issue on older browsers so no problem. There are only 2 ways to fix it and both will not work for 9x systems: reduce the image size each (and they will still be too big for 9x) or use a CSS media query to detect the resolution (@media (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2), (min-resolution: 192dpi), for example) but these old browsers wouldn't understand it too.

The only things I can do is reduce weight of images and minify both CSS and JS (JS is already minified though). I am currently working on a V3 of my website just to add dark mode support. Not much will change anyway so problems for old devices will persist. Currently the target is Win 7+, macOS 10.1x and iOS 12.x, latest Linux and Android operating systems, Edge Chromium, Safari 12.x, last 10 versions of Firefox and Chrome. No IE/Edge Trident support, no Win XP and below support.

 

Edited April 13, 2020 by Bruninho

[Bruninho]

@ABCDEFG and @schwups: Excellent! Does it give you any problem with the profiles? Try to install an extension, change some settings. The worst case scenario is the address bar not working again if you close it and reopen, forcing you to delete the profile and start over again.

I don't know, but previous Firefox versions had the ability to let you use the tabs below the address bar, not on top. Apparently, around v3x.x they stopped it? That could fix the problem with the rendering of these tabs.

[ABCDEFG]

@Bruninho  No problems with the profiles and address bar. Bookmarks not working.

[schwups]

Issues:

I can't add bookmarks, too and History don't work. The same old problems with versions 4 up to 11. The extension Plain old Favorites 1.3.1 works in 31. HyperBK isn't compatible with version 31 anymore. There should be other bookmark / history extensions compatible to FF31.

Input in adress bar doesn't work on 31, but usually on 24.

Customizing can have missing buttons (31).

Profils of other FF versions can cause a crash on start or FF could be sluggish.

About:config doesn't open via adressbar. But I opened it via Options - General - startpage (31).

Search Engine List is empty (FF31).

 

A ntdll.dll of XP has done the job, too, in a test.

Edited April 25, 2020 by schwups

[schwups]

I've FF35.0.1 portable running. The last version with VS runtimes 2010. 36+ doesn't start here. I see msvcr120/msvcp120.

[Bruninho]

Runing iSH on my iPad Pro 2nd gen, I can sort of have a stunnel set up to allow Gmail working in WFW 3.x Outlook 5.0, so far so good.

Now, I have been trying to set up a squid HTTPS proxy with no success, for the browsers on WFW 3.x (could be used for those who want to use "extreme" vanilla Win 9x solutions). Just to bump HTTP to HTTPS. iSH is based on 32-bit Alpine Linux, and I have installed squid, when I try to run it just complains about squid.pid not  being able to flock, or having a bad file descriptor, or... I have no idea, how to fix it.

Also, since iSH is 32-bit linux, there's no way to run the Web Rendering Proxy script (since it needs Google Chrome). Back to square one. WRP is great for those who want to use their favorite browser without being arsed to look for newer browsers or hacking them (non-vanilla). It just renders a PNG/GIF browsable version of the websites. It's a bit difficult to use first time, but when you get used, makes for easier browsing in older devices. It just does not render animations or videos.

I'll just put it aside for a while and check some things on Windows 9x now.

Edited April 14, 2020 by Bruninho

[cc333]

Just now, Bruninho said:

...iSH is 32-bit linux...

Just now, Bruninho said:

...there's no way to run the Web Rendering Proxy script (since it needs Google Chrome)

This is a potentially cumbersome solution, but what about getting an older PC, such as something from the Core2 Duo era (or even something like a Raspberry Pi or some other similar embedded-like device), and installing a pair of VMs on it, one for WRP+Chrome, and one for iSH?  Then, in theory, all you'd have to do is chain them together (which, as I said, could potentially be rather cumbersome) and set it up so the computer running WFW3.xx and/or Win9x accesses it as it does your iPad now, except it'd be a one-stop-shop that incorporates both solutions into one package.

Thoughts?

c

Edited April 14, 2020 by cc333

[Bruninho]

Just now, cc333 said:

This is a potentially cumbersome solution, but what about getting an older PC, such as something from the Core2 Duo era*, and installing a pair of VMs on it, one for WRP+Chrome, and one for iSH?  Then, in theory, all you'd have to do is chain them together (which, as I said, could potentially be rather cumbersome) and set it up so the computer running WFW3.xx and/or Win9x accesses it as it does your iPad now, except it'd be a one-stop-shop that incorporates both solutions into one package.

*In theory, this could even work on something like a Raspberry Pi or some other similar embedded-like device.

Thoughts?

c

No, just, no. I want something 100% portable, so without a "man in the middle". That's why I ditched the Rasperry Pi - I did not want to carry with me the iPad + rPi3 wherever I go.

I can just run stunnel + wrp from my mac when I am at home and run the VM, wrp and stunnel on my mac when I am not.

[Goodmaneuver]

These 5 ciphers are the recommended ones for TLS1.3

TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384

TLS_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256

TLS_AES_128_GCM_SHA256

TLS_AES_128_CCM_8_SHA256

TLS_AES_128_CCM_SHA256

It was the 128 that made me think it was not highly encrypted I thought I saw 128 on the end of an encryption cipher when connected with TLS1.3. RSA is out with TLS1.3 and TLS1.3 is about 20% of the most visited sites of about 100000, it supposed to have no fallback in its protocol.

TransparentBit function is in Msimg32 for ME/98 when using fade affect, the menu goes transparent for a short while.

Edited April 25, 2020 by Goodmaneuver

[schwups]

I would like to come back to K-Meleon 76.x. I think it could or should be possible to use it. It is an option to see youtube videos again. I believe there is only a small step necessary.
I can start it (exe and xul to XPSP2+) and the shell/UI doesn't seem to be as buggy as of KM74, as far as I can judge that in offline mode and as far as I can test, it is even possible to save bookmarks without the runtime error - But not readable. Jumper is able to get online and I guess roytam has the knowlege and skills to fix the mainly garbaged KM menus on ME/98. The menus are unreadable since KM75.1.  You can argue about the KM's beauty. To play youtube videos FF 43 is required and it is currently more apart than KM76.

 

 

I don't know, if it has already been said somewhere, skin dbTango is a good choice for KM74.

Edited May 14, 2020 by schwups

[loblo]

Edited July 19, 2020 by loblo

[cc333]

@loblo How'd you accomplish this?!

c

[Tardisusers21]

So what browsers at the moment currently supoort Windows 98?

[loblo]

9 hours ago, cc333 said:

@loblo How'd you accomplish this?!

c

In short, by using Burp Suite Community Edition as an HTTPS proxy for Opera running on Azul OpenJDK 8 Update 262.
 

[Dave-H]

I'd appreciate being talked through exactly how to do this!