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Browsing the web on 98/ME in 2019 and beyond


Destro

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No, Sourceforge doesn't work with Opera 12.02 on Windows 98.

It's fine with Opera 12.18 on Windows XP.

:)


 

Edited by Dave-H
Remove strikethrough caused by posting on Windows 98!
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Legit future for viewing youtube on 98 is for them to be opened in VLC, however this comes with its own headaches, possibly somthing like this but it needs alot more development.

 

Edited by Destro
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Just a general note regarding cipher quality in old browsers:
on 98SE with kernelex my old main browser always was K-Meleon1.6 (engine FF3.5), which of course is the most horrible regarding ciphers.
Those original old browsers now get kicked out by about half of all websites today, number still growing rapidly, and that means no access at all. It became absolutely disastrous only since 1-2 years, when google used its monopoly to force even the most harmless and public sites to switch to httpS only. And obviously most use only the most modern and strict TLS versions, providing no fallback for older browsers. Result is no access to important tools and resources on sourceforge anymore (except direct download links, if known), no info on dev-mozilla anymore, and MS killed github-access too after buying them, major disaster.

So when a site now is blocked for FF3.5, the best solution used to be Opera12.02 (early TLS1.2) for many years. What I sadly learned far too late. Same for Firefox9. Both needing only basic kernelex for 98SE.

If sites are blocked for Opera12.02 too, the next better browsers with modern TLS1.2 are now roytams old Firefox versions (retrozilla /FF2, Fx36, seamonkey). They even run on original old systems, without KernelEx.

But if even those are blocked, which now slowly happens on a growing number of sites too, the only chance for 98SE I currently know of is roytams TLS-updated PaleMoon26 engine, which I'm using as KG74 (KMeleon-Goanna74 for Win2k)
Definitely the best browser now for today's ciphers.
The big prob is it's meant for Win2000, not 98SE, where it only works partially and often crashing, and also needs a very recent KernelEx version. But today this browser is often the last rescue when all else fails with broken ciphers, luckily.
Just not usable as daily browser yet, crashing on me after a few pageloads, even without any JS. But I do feel it basically WORKS, there's not much missing yet! Just a little glitch somewhere... The engine itself seems to run fine, the prob is rather the browser shell or msvc-dll-stuff. Have zero dev skills, just suspect this because it happens mostly when right-clicking or opening some menus, and the titlebar can only show 1 character.
Then again, am still on KernelEx v16, which is quite buggy itself. Meanwhile KernelEx v20 is out, probably better, just couldn't test it yet.
-----
As for youtube, am mostly downloading them for viewing, with a userscript (gantt) and a macro in KM1.6
Until recently 3gp was among the choices too, great for small files with bearable image quality, but now killed by google too, arghh. Now only bigger mp4 files are available in desktop view.

3gp still exists on youtube's mobile view, but find no size choice there, only tiny "stamp" size.
But unlike desktop view, this 3gp link on mobile view can be clicked to open in VLC and runs as stream.
-----
Just sharing some experiences on 98se, by no means "the best ways" or anything.

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Probably downloading Youtube videos completly on the hard drive is more efficent for your processor than streaming them directly. Depends on the power your computer has for sure!
For those with their very old ones, there is a new website called convert2mp3.net that downloads Youtube videos for you. It works without JavaScript and you can choose between all the quality settings like avi, 3gp and also just mp3 audio. Windows 98 is well supported here.
Still, check out the connections, that your browser does when accessing that website. There are some suspicious links to pages, that are listed in virus lists and spam filters. These suspicious connections don't establish, if you don't activate JavaScript. But all in all, it's better to block them anyway. So this can be put into your Hosts file to clean your internet traffic a bit.

127.0.0.1 pushgaga.com
127.0.0.1 remtoaku.net
127.0.0.1 tharbadir.com
127.0.0.1 baipagid.com
127.0.0.1 deloplen.com
127.0.0.1 pushame.com
127.0.0.1 pushbaddy.com
127.0.0.1 pushdusk.com
127.0.0.1 pushimer.com
127.0.0.1 pushbasic.com
127.0.0.1 wachipho.net
127.0.0.1 apis.google.com
127.0.0.1 platform.twitter.com

Also, if I may speak out my two biggest recommendations for browsing the web with old Windows 98 computers:
1. Disable JavaScript entirely.
2. Build up a hosts file to clear your internet traffic from unnecessary connections. If Google spam is gone there, you will have a faster internet speed.

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On 4/20/2019 at 4:41 PM, siria said:

Those original old browsers now get kicked out by about half of all websites today, number still growing rapidly, and that means no access at all. It became absolutely disastrous only since 1-2 years, when google used its monopoly to force even the most harmless and public sites to switch to httpS only. And obviously most use only the most modern and strict TLS versions, providing no fallback for older browsers. Result is no access to important tools and resources on sourceforge anymore (except direct download links, if known), no info on dev-mozilla anymore, and MS killed github-access too after buying them, major disaster.

Of course Siria is right, but luckily the situation is much better on Windows 3.1 browsers with a webproxy as workaround. :w00t:

1429889704_Sourceforge.neton16-bitInternetExplorer5_01.jpg.4302f7efc7b4cb709f6db2d984eaf6b6.jpg

Although I must admit that IE2.0 didn't work and with IE5.0 downloads are not possible.

Just checked situation with Opera 12.02 on Windows 98se:

920196029_Sourceforge.netonOpera12_02.thumb.jpg.0242cbf71e86661a3188035114e19165.jpg


205721714_Github.comSearchonOpera12_02.thumb.jpg.91c9c037820b0ff716bf5dd2e344db65.jpg

12249857_Github.comDownloadonOpera12_02.thumb.jpg.5d65a53f63795caf8f7ef402aada717b.jpg

 

Edited by deomsh
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   K-Meleon may not be able to decode VP9 as with other earlier Mozilla web browsers. VLC downloads Icecast but I have had no success with YouTube on WinME. Flash used to pick up system codecs as I had the DIVX splash screen enabled on their H264 decoder and one day it showed on a video from YouTube. Divxs' beginings were triggered from not being able to play ASF v 7 in WMP in later OSs. The sample video in WinME used this format and I found an ASF decoder from klmcodec159.exe which allowed playback in later OSs. (It was not this file earlier than this and earlier than 3.45)
   H264 and H265 are not free for software distributors this is why there is only Theora and Webm video decoders located within most older free browsers. AC1 is the newest free codec that is slightly more efficient than H265 but is early days.
   Security settings do not stop malware being downloaded and do not protect servers from malware or cyber attacks but do protect data in transit between server and client. TLS 1.2 was defined in 2008 and TLS 1.3 in Aug 2018. Servers choose the highest server/client mutual TSL protocol available and the best mutual cypher. SSL2 and SSL3 are depreciated so I untick SSL3. About SourceForge with 12.18 on XP the cypher chosen is TLS v1.2 128 bit AES GCM ([256, 2048] bit ECDHE_ECDSA/SHA-256).
   Some sites rely on JavaScript for page displaying eg Duolingo. FF9 had better compatibility with this site than prior Mozilla versions.
   Mozilla XUL driver is just that with over 2000 functions. The code was in the jar file and did not work uncompressed. Use jar.exe in Java JDK to compress back to jar (-cf ..\\omni.jar *) FF9 was the last one to use jar later vs used ja which is associated with Java 1.7 and above. Renaming ja to jar or visa versa is not compatible. The update idea copying 12.18 to 12.02 may not be fully functioning though I do not see why RC4 cannot be prevented with the old opera.dll. The SSL3/TLS1 options are the same. There are not many sites not working.
   Siria your one character only view in right click menu will probably be to do with the registry. Try saving a file with WinWord if you can. It may have stemmed from a buffer over-run with the icon cache. The only solution I have is to go back to a reg save that was prior to the incidence. I open WinME to safe mode on a roughly monthly basis to reset icon and font caches. This will mitigate icon errors that can eventually occur.  I have just found out that the one character right click menu may stem from clear type. Once the registry gets around to clear typing the context menus. I went back 2 weeks as the WinWord save as (1 character error) had crept in. It is OK now but the message windows and context menus etcetera are not clear typed just yet. *EDIT: this was a error caused with riched20.dll; 5.50.99.2070 OK but Maxthon 2.5 needs 5.40.11.2220*

Edited by Goodmaneuver
Opera 12.02 using HTML5 provides support for JavaScript to run in the background. Could have been misleading what I wrote before.
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  • 2 weeks later...

ya I managed to get KM74-g22 working as well, but it really did not work well at all.  I don't mean to diminish the achievement to get it running.  I just meant to say in the original post that nothing beat just using VNC to another computer that had a web browser that actually worked.  Even Getting Opera working the best it can will not beat that.

Youtube just simply isn't an option either not because you couldn't view it but because older computer can never be fast enough to playback MP4, my T43 even struggles with that.  I don't see how a P3 or even a P4 would do better. That being said even if you manually download the Mp4 from youtube to play in like VLC it will not be watchable in a way that doesn't stutter and drop frames because Old computers cannot offload decoding of MP4.

On one of my old computers I managed to used adapters, to get a boradcom crystalHD mini PCI express to a expresscard slot on a laptop and only on windows XP that made youtube watchable with potplayer.  I fail to see how 98 could ever be acceptable on that level.  Since you cannot even install a crystalHD on 98.

Edited by Destro
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@ABCDEF: verify that you really have set KernelEx compat to Win2000? The settings get lost after renaming a file or folder path.

Destro said:


Youtube just simply isn't an option either not because you couldn't view it but because older computer can never be fast enough to playback MP4, my T43 even struggles with that. I don't see how a P3 or even a P4 would do better. That being said even if you manually download the Mp4 from youtube to play in like VLC it will not be watchable in a way that doesn't stutter and drop frames because Old computers cannot offload decoding of MP4.


Not that bad here (P3, 256mb). Depending on quality needs of course. My occasional little youtube videos in 320p size work fine in MPClassic, no stuttering at all. Just of course more or less fuzzy, but so far okay for my needs. Haven't tried bigger sizes yet because the worse issue is download traffic and disk space.

But KG74 (Win2k browser) is far from being a main browser for 98SE too yet, far too buggy GUI. Aside from crashing all the time with old KernelEx16, even stuff like the ExExceptions GUI has some strange prob: the xul page opens and looks fine first, but then isn't usable somehow. Similar happened with the errorconsole, but now works again. Probably also due to some system prob here. Anyway, hope this will be better one day with a newer KernelEx.

But for NOW I'm really in need of a K-Meleon 1.6 or 1.7 (FF3.5/3.6) with TLS1.2, it's an extreme pain having to open second browsers for half the web pages just because they don't want the ciphers! :(
Edited by siria
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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?

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^^^Destro, this is on modern computer in virtual machine for testing purpose, I would not even dare to try it on PIII hardware.
I have a collection of 9x dedicated machines and a collection of 9x compatible graphics cards, some of these machines are strong enough
to do all the things you mentioned.

^^siria
It is Kex 20 and it is set to "Alias for Base enhancements (old)", if i set compatibility to win2k it just show blank page and cannot load any page.
No crashes at all, but can not display text.

^jumper,
I think this is some sort of configuration issue because the same thing happens to Aurora 7.0 and Firefox 10 if they are set to
"Alias for Base enhancements (old)", if is set to any other mode it crashes during startup.

ffox10_98SE.thumb.PNG.ba2cc6e7563e4a5bf3a67e916179b5ab.PNG

 

But on another VM where i have installed Win98Fe + SP 2.5.8 + Kex 20 both Aurora 7.0 and Firefox 10 work correctly if it is set to
"Windows 2000 SP4 (Multi-Threaded)", if other mode is set it can not display text.

ffox10_98FE.thumb.PNG.9f5ae8a0638b19e8cb21b05fa58b03f6.PNG

On that installation KM 74 can not be started at all, it crashes during startup.

K-MELEON caused an invalid page fault in
module KEXBASES.DLL at 015f:bfa4b9c9.
Registers:
EAX=00000000 CS=015f EIP=bfa4b9c9 EFLGS=00010216
EBX=00000000 SS=0167 ESP=008cdb24 EBP=008ce050
ECX=80007878 DS=0167 ESI=044fa3a0 FS=0f0f
EDX=80004f68 ES=0167 EDI=7d00fe86 GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
0f b7 00 3d 5c 5c 00 00 74 1e 8b 45 08 0f be 40 
Stack dump:
000016d7 014f2737 12a70000 014f2737 3d76ab94 000416f7 10e90000 00000903 
ab9416d7 db563da6 0000008c 00470000 04700470 00000000 00000000 00000000

kml74olly.thumb.PNG.4013d3fec74d7338a31b9d666fad8014.PNG

KM_ApiLog.7z

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