Jump to content

Browsing the web on 98/ME in 2019 and beyond


Destro

Recommended Posts

>>I tried logging onto eBay.com, which mostly works, but the sign in page is broken

eBay.com USA can log in but eBay.com.au Australia can not.

I can confirm the IPS Theme fixes width issue in Opera and Mozilla cannot reply although Jumper said KM76 could.

When I tried some latter FireFox's it said XPCOM.dll could not load (was missing) and previous versions are incompatible. SeaMonkey equivalent for FF13 2.9.1 was still compiled with VC80.CRT.
 

Link to comment
Share on other sites


First April s over. I tried to disable Javascript in Prefs.js  (user_pref("javascript.enabled", false);). And I still can't start FF 24esr (portable). Message: Couldn't load XPCOM. I'm sure there must be more to do than set Kex to XPSP3.
 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No april I think ;-)
Okay can't remember that anyone got FIREFOX running, but the engine inside worked since years, wrapped into KM-shell.
So perhaps modern KernelEx versions are now able to run pure Firefox too? No idea, but who knows.

As jumper mentioned above, he had gecko31 already running in 2014 too, with the same result:
it's running, but very slowly:

https://msfn.org/board/topic/172801-new-k-meleon-74-version-now-listed-at-various-download-sites/?do=findComment&comment=1088397

Although the KM-number 74 normally indicates gecko24, this special KM74_31 was an early experimental build with gecko31 inside.

And of course we also have roytam's special KM-Goanna74 (with engine 24 inside) build for Win2000, with updated TLS1.2 inside. Running in Win98 with a modern KernelEx and compat set to Win2000

https://msfn.org/board/topic/177485-backporting-newer-browsers-to-win9x-with-kernelex/?do=findComment&comment=1175954
http://rtfreesoft.blogspot.com/2020/01/

THIS would basically be very much usable on 98 with modern Kex, if only it weren't so very buggy yet. Am sure that's only partly due to the system, but partly just general and fixable browser bugs, already contained in the original builds.

Hmm.... could almost bet someone (jumper??) has posted awhile back that he even managed to get KMG76 (with engine PM27/generation mozilla38) running too on 98, with modern KernelEx! Just where was this, can't find it at the moment....
HERE!
Just a few pages back here, on page 8, last October:
jumper said:
> I now have KG76 working again. Pages render much faster than KG74, but scrolling lags and menu text is mainly garbage.
https://msfn.org/board/topic/178283-how-you-really-browse-the-web-on-98me-in-2019/?do=findComment&comment=1171276

Edited by siria
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On Mittwoch, 1. April 2020 at 10:58 PM, cc333 said:

This is no joke!

I'll get screenshots shortly.

By the way, I've got 31.8 ESR working too!  There's some weird artifacts around the tabs (probably due to Windows 98's lack of proper transparency support), but as with 24.8.1, it works with JS disabled!

c

:thumbupWhat 2K/XP/Vista/ReactOS dll files and versions do you have in the system or system32 folders? Have you registered any? Or only a ServicePack?  Is there anything that could be different in your system in contrast to others? A special Kexstub.ini? No ideas?:dubbio:
 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't really like the UI of newer firefoxes, it was when they started to follow Google Chrome's trend of ugly browser UI, but if there's a way to make it look a lot more like older versions, while still being able to browse the web on Windows 98, I'm all for it. A newer SeaMonkey would be enough for me (currently running 2.49.5 on Windows 2000, I couldn't run the latest one because they dropped XP support on it).

But browsing without JS support and without Youtube too? I'd rather stick to Windows 2000, where it all works well.

Anyway, I hope the guys can find a way to improve the situation for better browsing options. I know I've tried a lot of tests with several versions and tweaks months ago and many lost sleepy nights as well... I never managed to get these versions of Firefox to work on my Windows 98SE VM (although I use a VMware Fusion virtual machine instead of a proper real thing)

Tell him to run dependency walker and see which dlls he needed to make it work maybe?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Its not KernelEx that has a problem. It would be registry settings IMO and I do not think that having original installation of 98 as a test is going to work as you have trouble. In about 2012 I grabbed an old drive having ME installed and KEX 4.5.1 or I installed 4.5.1. I started with Opera and installed Wyzo - Mozilla 3.6.4. Opera speed up after installing Mozilla. I was using a Duron 1800 VIA Mercury board. Then I steadily upped the versions of FireFox in the interim I must have installed KEX4.5.2. If stalling exit and then reboot but best to exit when browsing full page download success and then reboot to lock in setting changes in registry and the browser profile. I found CometBird and switched to that. Originally 9 would stall but if exiting before stall happened as per previous sentence that got it to work. ThunderBird 11 looked as though it was going to work but if too many downloads at once or under certain page rendering it would stall. I used ThunderBird 9 until TLS 1.0 could not talk to some servers. I then used Opera 12.02 for an email client.
 

Edited by Goodmaneuver
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 4/3/2020 at 2:02 PM, schwups said:

:thumbupWhat 2K/XP/Vista/ReactOS dll files and versions do you have in the system or system32 folders? Have you registered any? Or only a ServicePack?

None, other than whatever the unofficial Service Pack 3.64 package installs.

On 4/3/2020 at 2:02 PM, schwups said:

Is there anything that could be different in your system in contrast to others? A special Kexstub.ini?

I don't think so?  All I did was install Windows 98 SE, all the regular drivers for my hardware, IE6 and WMP9, the unofficial Service Pack, and the unofficial universal USB package for mass storage support.  Then I installed to that the old KernelEx 4.5.2 package, and then I updated it using the 2019.24 update package.  That was the key, as I only can run up to Firefox 10 with the old KernelEx.

On 4/3/2020 at 2:02 PM, schwups said:

No ideas?:dubbio:

I'm afraid not -_-

c

Link to comment
Share on other sites

>>no registry setting is going to change that.

I was referring to CometBird 9 or FireFox 9. There is a narrow blue line above your post Loblo viewed in IPS -theme. No gone now.

If you go straight to the web address it is easier on the browser than going through Google. cc333, MSFN forum is an easy site to load what other sites work, have you had any stalling? The proper install of the Service Pack seems to be the way to go, but with ME changing to a different machine; it would not happen.

Edited by Goodmaneuver
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have devised a cheat, which I recall has been mentioned before.

I am "running" roytam1's build of Firefox 45 ESR on Windows 98 by accessing a Windows XP VM on my MacBook Pro via Remote Desktop.

Fonts are weird looking, and it's kinda slow and choppy, but it works!

c

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Accessing XP remotely though does not count as working with 98/ME operating system although I understand now that you access Win98 from within the VM. It also says something about VMs compared to a real machine.  :)
 

Edited by Goodmaneuver
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hate to say, but I did try to run FX 24.x esr, it did install and run, but only without JS. Not good enough for me, plus it crashed a lot often for me. I couldn’t access vogons forums because of ciphers anyway. Haven’t tried msfn forums but I suppose it would be the same problem. I ditched the snapshot later anyway

Edited by Bruninho
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...