Browsing the web on 98/ME in 2019 and beyond

[jumper]

Investigating...

> ffox10_98SE.thumb.PNG
Haven't seen results like this. I'll retry firefox-10.0.12esr-rayflood-win32-vc8e (it's been a few years).

> ffox10_98FE.thumb.PNG
Looks good--must be something in the SP 2.5.8 water. The missing ellipsis at the end of the first tab (should be: "in 201...") can probably be fixed with a font update.

> kml74olly.thumb.PNG
I think this is the first report of someone trying KG74 on 98fe. Unfortunately, OllyDbg didn't pick up the function names from the Kexbases debug info (GoBug does).

The crash is because LoadLibraryA is called with a null pointer instead of a filename string, resulting in the page fault in LoadLibraryExA. I can update LoadLibraryExA_fix to check that parameter before using it, but that won't solve the underlying problem. Because of 52Ch bytes of local variables, the stack dump doesn't show the return address. It would be nice if the crash dialog also showed the call stack or even an [ebp] dump. (Dr Watson dumps do, but I always have trouble deciphering those or even getting DrW to capture the crash.) OllyDbg probably can display the call stack, but it isn't in the screenshot.

> KM_ApiLog.7z
Call to LoadLibraryA confirmed. Profiling in Depends might also confirm the NULL parameter.

Edited May 8, 2019 by jumper

[FantasyAcquiesce]

19 hours ago, jumper said:

In February 2018 I was able to surf simple websites with KG76 on 98se+Kex..19(pre). The main problem was all menu text truncated to one character (unicode strings not getting converted to ansi). After a few weeks it seemed to get stuck in offline mode--maybe a iphlpapi issue. Only this January (2019) did I start testing KG74. It works pretty well on older websites or with js disabled (and sometimes on newer sites with js enabled). Error console is okay. What are ExExceptions and "xul page"? Have you tried RoyTam's FF3.6+tls1.2 build?
 

Could you link us to roytam1's copy for Firefox 3.6 with TLS 1.2?

[Destro]

Ya i guess I don't find much use for somthing that works in a VM, but wont work on period appropriate hardware.  Since If the hardware is not period appropriate there no benefit to run 9x aside from just wanting to.  But for me personally I cannot be convinced to run 98se on a fast computer that could run XP for wanting to not be able to actually have something that works just because.  Theres actually very few things that wont run on XP better than they run on 98se, aside from period hardware and period drivers, and there is even less software besides DOS based programs that wont run. 

Edited May 8, 2019 by Destro

[jumper]

rtfreesoft.blogspot.com

[siria]

jumper said:

In February 2018 I was able to surf simple websites with KG76 on 98se+Kex..19(pre). The main problem was all menu text truncated to one character (unicode strings not getting converted to ansi). After a few weeks it seemed to get stuck in offline mode--maybe a iphlpapi issue.

KG76 doesn't even run on XP SP2 without OS tweaks, if you got even this far on 98SE that's really sensational!
Edited May 9, 2019 by siria

[siria]

jumper said:

Only this January (2019) did I start testing KG74. It works pretty well on older websites or with js disabled (and sometimes on newer sites with js enabled). Error console is okay. What are ExExceptions and "xul page"? Have you tried RoyTam's FF3.6?+tls1.2?? build?

Yeah on this old computer I always set JS off anyway, except if absolutely needed. Mostly for security, but it's also near impossible, freezing very quickly.
Yeah have tried Fx36-TLS and it runs, but my prob is it's Firefox not KM, that means no macros, can do almost no tweaking with it.

ExExceptions is a great and tiny addon for editing permissions.sqlite, for managing domain exceptions for elements, like JS-files, css-files, images, objects etc. It's just important to know that those domain exceptions work bottom-up (element src domain matters) not top-down (urlbar-domain). Oh well.
An old version from 2013 is already contained in KG74, in menu Tools>ExExPermission (other name due to a slight modification for KM, but still called ExExceptions in extensions folder and prefs). Personally am using a slightly updated version, but just verified now the original one. First it didn't start at all, then added in .../k-meleon/chrome.manifest this line:
manifest extensions/extensions.manifest
Now it starts but seems to behave like my usual version too, the window opens (xul page), but then seems like frozen, no edits possible.

Oops... and now it suddenly started working!! After exchanging it again with my newer version (xpi in subfolder /browser/extensions), just in another unzipped folder. Guess the prob was on my end, sorry!
Edited May 9, 2019 by siria

[FantasyAcquiesce]

On 5/8/2019 at 5:19 PM, jumper said:

rtfreesoft.blogspot.com
 

Where exactly is Firefox 3.6 w/ TLS 1.2? Is it supposed to be the NT4 edition?

Also, KM74 for Windows 9x works fine for me. It's a bit sluggish and clunky (javascript has to be turned off to prevent TONS of crashes) but works when set on Windows 2000 SP4 or Windows XP API. I believe I am also using the first edition roytam1 intended usable on Windows 9x. I used my physical laptop with Windows ME w/ latest kernelex 20 updates installed if that makes any difference (all down to 17 worked fine):

About 50 points higher than Opera 12.02, but the trade-off is speed and stability for better rendering and native TLS 1.2. The browser had also caused my hardware to crash and reset when javascript was not disabled on sites like youtube.

Edited May 10, 2019 by ~♥Aiko♥Chan♥~

[Goodmaneuver]

~♥Aiko♥Chan♥~  I have turned off some settings in the omin.jar of CometBird like accessibility settings. Not all tested settings on HtmlTest are a necessary to have or have enabled. I must point out 12.02 has TLS1.2 just tick the box. Looks like you are missing some fonts.

Opera 12.02 downloads YouTube videos that play, double right click then select Save Video. It is in the form of VP8 + Vorbis. If duolingo.com is opened in Opera 12.02 on winME there is no rendering of the page. If it is opened with CometBird 9, FF9, the home page is still OK. Site has gone though several updates since 2017.

Edited May 10, 2019 by Goodmaneuver
oggdec does work sorry

[FantasyAcquiesce]

5 hours ago, Goodmaneuver said:

~♥Aiko♥Chan♥~  I have turned off some settings in the omin.jar of CometBird like accessibility settings. Not all tested settings on HtmlTest are a necessary to have or have enabled. I must point out 12.02 has TLS1.2 just tick the box. Looks like you are missing some fonts.

Opera 12.02 downloads YouTube videos that play, double right click then select Save Video. It is in the form of VP8 + Vorbis. If duolingo.com is opened in Opera 12.02 on winME there is no rendering of the page. If it is opened with CometBird 9, FF9, the home page is still OK. Site has gone though several updates since 2017.

While KM can't watch youtube (I recall siria got it enabled somehow), it's far better at rendering certain pages like image sites (Pexels is a great example). Both Opera and KM can't access MEGA but only KM74 can access Yandex Disk (but the download button is broken...). Opera lacks a custom user-agent spoofer as well.

If you can link me to a good font pack for Windows 9x, please do so immediately. I'm so sick of files with symbols being unable to transfer onto Windows 9x 

Edited May 10, 2019 by ~♥Aiko♥Chan♥~

[Dave-H]

Opera 12 does have a custom user-agent spoofer, it always had to because so many sites didn't acknowledge it!
Right click>Edit site preferences>Network tab. Set Browser identification.
The default strings offered are very out of date as you can imagine, but it's possible to have whatever string you want by manually editing the site's entry in the override.ini file.

 

[Goodmaneuver]

For Javascript pages we need a Mozilla based browser for win9x and KM74 is. Yandex Disk works fine with CometBird 9 buttons and the like work and looks good, I did not use download though. I chose TTF fonts from win7 win8 and ReactOS. Boot up with boot log text to see if font installed or failed. Also opening font can give clue if it will work and charmap.exe from win2k or similar OS can be an upgrade if getuname.dll and C_G18030.DLL is copied across as well; needs also msvcr90.dll. Check files with DW before running. Marlett cannot be updated as it will be incompatible with the OS. I am using a 2003 version though, it is essentially the same and same as XP, compare with WinMerge, (NOHEAP best, with no tool bar), some TTFs have no copyright signings. Fonts that are in use cannot be updated so use WinMerge to copy across off-line otherwise only fonts that are installed on the booted drive will show on the off-line drive and opening font folder of other drive is not safe, can modify reg due to the auto functioning of font folder. WinMerge will need mfc90U with NT40 minimum setting. I cannot pin down the exact fonts that Html5test uses but Wingdings contain ticks. I have 3 versions of Wingdings named Wingdings Wingdings2 and Wingdings3 they have different font mappings. Latest Webdings vs 5.00. I think you meant 'both Opera and KM can access MEGA', is that correct? because Opera views mega.com good.

Edited August 30, 2019 by Goodmaneuver
Renaming Wingdings was OK working fine

[ABCDEFG]

@jumper

I found that ServicePack for WIN98SE corrupts the Uniscribe, and that's why my browser can not display text.

[Goodmaneuver]

~♥Aiko♥Chan♥~ If Html5Test shows ticks and crosses etcetera in Opera 12 or FF9 then it is not for lack of fonts but more of a out of memory error. Later versions of Mozilla beyond 9 operated faster adding more resources to video driver but also froze screen. Best I had in the day for CometBird 11 was able to view up to 4 min approx Youtube videos on auto play any longer video and it froze. This was experimenting with a combination of vs 9 and vs 11 files within omni.ja. The XUL.dll created an overload in memory allocation somewhere to do with hardware driving in my estimation. Some people had trouble with FF10 (in win2K I assume) and likened it to a memory leak.
 
ABCDEFG Did you read my post on https://msfn.org/board/topic/173233-kernelex-45-core-updates-45201617/?do=findComment&comment=1163422  about this. There are 2 posts starting about 3/4 down on page.
 

Edited May 12, 2019 by Goodmaneuver

[ABCDEFG]

^Goodmaneuver which post? Can you link it please?

I see now, but disabling Kex on Usp10.dll do not help. 

I installed 98se to another VM but without SP and there it works.

Edited May 11, 2019 by ABCDEFG
edit

[siria]

FONTS with special characters for win98se:
a must have are SYMBOLA and UNIDINGS from here:
http://users.teilar.gr/~g1951d/

Tons of additional characters, incl. emojis in Symbola, yet bearable filesize.
Frankly their latin looks horrible, but doesn't matter because they are not used as main font. The browser only uses their special characters if no other font contains them :-)

Have read this pref matters for exotic stuff, someone used it to get rid of "colored emojis" by declaring a simpler font:
font.name-list.serif.x-unicode
(mine is set to "Microsoft Sans Serif, Segoe UI Emoji, Symbola, OpenSansEmoji" - only as syntax example)

Have struggled a lot with that exotic font stuff every once in a while, and last year with emojis due to instagram, but meanwhile forgotten details. The few other emoji-fonts I found had nicer looking icons, but just too many characters missing.
Working in 98 are also "Source Sans Pro" (but no cyrillic) and "Source Code Pro", from github "adobe-fonts". Others I installed too were "Segoe UI Emoji" and "OpenSansEmoji"

But another huge prob is simply file SIZE! IIRC Arial Unicode was the most perfect and most complete package, just FAR TOO HUGE for old machines with tiny RAM.

And a MUST HAVE TOOL for looking up missing characters and compare different font looks:
BABELMAP :)
Just great. My version on 98se is older, 8.0.0.2, because at the time the newer version 9 didn't work anymore on 98. But when I checked again last year even the NEWEST version was working again! Just sticking to my old one because it fits all my needs and must save space.