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What happens when all supported web browsers for a Windows OS no longer display certain webpages and changing the UA string fails? Can that computer never access those webpages? What if they can't display any webpages. Would that computer never be allowed to connect to the Internet again, which would probably make the computer useless and force it to be retired. Do the Windows 98 and ME diehards have these problems with much older IE6 or older browsers? Will they ever face a problem in the future where their ancient systems can no longer use the Internet because all webpages no longer display? Do you guys have a plan or workaround in place?

A few months ago, I tried using Retrozilla and SeaMonkey 1.1 on a Pentium III-500 machine running Windows 95 OSR 2.5. This site rendered poorly but I think I was still able to read threads. I was able to access most of my weather and news sites OK, albeit slowly.

However, the board supports up to 1 GB of PC100 RAM so it would be theoretically possible to get W7 on there with the SSE NM27. Even with considerably less RAM I could still use Windows 2000 with extended kernel (which now has a non-SSE2 option) to browse.

But no, I'm never going to willingly throw out that machine for lack of usefulness online. Office 2000 works nicely, and I do have some software with race conditions which cause them to crash on my higher-clocked CPUs.

Alternatively, I've got a Xeon X5670 workstation running Windows 2000 and XP x64; very overpowered for both OSes and could very well be useful for browsing after NT 5.x loses its browsing support. It runs W7 very nicely; though up-to-date Linux distros would also be available for years to come, and if I stick to 2000/XP I could do my browsing in VMs. VMware Workstation 10 (last version for XP) can run Windows 10!

> What happens when all web browsers for an OS no longer display webpages?
Either we won't know it happened because nobody will be able to post about it, or we will know it happened because someone found a workaround. We will adapt.

> What happens when all supported web browsers for a Windows OS no longer display certain webpages and changing the UA string fails?
I visit my local library and use another OS.

> Can that computer never access those webpages?
Displaying and accessing are two different things, so it depends on many factors.

> What if they can't display any webpages. Would that computer never be allowed to connect to the Internet again, ...
Find an ISP that supports IP4 (most still do) and this will never happen.

> ...which would probably make the computer useless and force it to be retired.
Too many good comebacks here, so I'll leave this for others. :)

> Do the Windows 98 and ME diehards have these problems with much older IE6 or older browsers?
I don't know of any IE6 diehards. I'm still on IE5.0 and even use it online occasionally, but usually use Mozilla-based browsers on Win98se+kex.

> Will they ever face a problem in the future where their ancient systems can no longer use the Internet because all webpages no longer display?
No. There will always be some sites that don't require superfluous formatting and "security".

> Do you guys have a plan or workaround in place?
Keep adapting.

7 hours ago, jumper said:

> What happens when all web browsers for an OS no longer display webpages?
Either we won't know it happened because nobody will be able to post about it, or we will know it happened because someone found a workaround. We will adapt.

> What happens when all supported web browsers for a Windows OS no longer display certain webpages and changing the UA string fails?
I visit my local library and use another OS.

> Can that computer never access those webpages?
Displaying and accessing are two different things, so it depends on many factors.

> What if they can't display any webpages. Would that computer never be allowed to connect to the Internet again, ...
Find an ISP that supports IP4 (most still do) and this will never happen.

> ...which would probably make the computer useless and force it to be retired.
Too many good comebacks here, so I'll leave this for others.

> Do the Windows 98 and ME diehards have these problems with much older IE6 or older browsers?
I don't know of any IE6 diehards. I'm still on IE5.0 and even use it online occasionally, but usually use Mozilla-based browsers on Win98se+kex.

> Will they ever face a problem in the future where their ancient systems can no longer use the Internet because all webpages no longer display?
No. There will always be some sites that don't require superfluous formatting and "security".

> Do you guys have a plan or workaround in place?
Keep adapting.
 

That's not completely true. Yes, some people may be stranded without any way to let the world know about the problem because that's their only OS, but others will have a smartphone capable of connecting or find another desktop or laptop computer to use to get us the message so we can start working on a fix. I'm pretty sure nobody here would ever want to use the public library on a daily basis with no privacy to access the Internet, so that's not a good idea. Displaying and accessing are the same here. But what happens if your favorite sites, say YouTube for example, can no longer display the page. How would you workaround something like that? Would it be possible to still use YouTube or some other favorite site?

We switch to gopher

I mean is most of the modern web even worth reading though, which is more fat than function? I saw one idea from someone here who ran a web browser on another machine and connected to it remotely, which was pretty damn smart of an idea :P