Firefox 24 - 52 for ME and 98

[jumper]

On 1/6/2026 at 4:44 AM, woi said:

No, an exception is the furthest I could get (if SystemFunction036 is disabled, I don't need to touch that) but FineSSE lacks any details. That's why I ask for FineSSE updates.

Seems like Jumper is about to test Mypal68, only time will tell if he manages to figure out the cause of the issue.

I was unable to get any browser later than FF28 to load (and even that crashed at exit), so I wrote a small test app to raise various exceptions. I've added to Finesse basic support for several new continuable exception types, but still need to add detail reporting and make it all more robust.

 

[woi]

1 hour ago, jumper said:

I was unable to get any browser later than FF28 to load (and even that crashed at exit), so I wrote a small test app to raise various exceptions. I've added to Finesse basic support for several new continuable exception types, but still need to add detail reporting and make it all more robust.

 

I created a separate VM for plain KernelEx 2022 (.18 and later updates + Kex22) with no modifications to Kstub and Firefox 29 works there with XP mode. Unsure if it's your non-SSE2 hardware, more likely related to how you setup KernelEX.

Also you might need to take a look at sqlite 3.50.1 issue thats happening on Roytam1 browsers post-2025.05.31, those break "Restore Previous Session, Recently Closed Tabs and Recently Closed Windows" and history (if transferred from XP) on 98/ME.

Edited February 11 by woi

[schwups]

OK, too bad. I can't remember any useful information about testing with hardware from around 2000. Unfortunately, I haven't had such a 370/slot1 motherboard or something similar to test for a long time.
Since there is probably no one here who knows KernelEx better than you jumper, the hardware could probably play a role. Maybe it's more the graphics card and its drivers, which in my experience can be a factor. My oldest boards have chipsets Via P4M800, PT880Ultra or Intel 915 - Graphic cards are NV 5900XT / 6600GT AGP for the VIA boards with drivers 82.16 or 82.69 . RT's browsers work here using these boards, but the browsers are extremely slow with this hardware.
The speed becomes useful by suppressing advertising or deactivating Javascript.

RAM (VRAM)? Mozilla recommended 512MB. This applies to XP. As is well known, it is said to have a more robust memory management than 98SE/ME. I read repeatedly about browser crashes due to low/little memory, that of course also applies to other operating systems. Perhaps we need to define a higher limit?

SSE2 Processors were required since Firefox 49. So I'm assuming that this isn't important here.

 

Edited February 11 by schwups

[schwups]

It's not getting any better. On start latest Serpent 55 causes an error in Kernel32.dll, due to a change in gkmedias.dll. Strangely enough, it affects neither 52.9 (20260314) nor Newmoon (20260314).

[schwups]

I checked latest versions Serpent 55/52 and Newmoon 20260502.

First of all I've no clue to run them with the roll back of Xul.dll and mozsqlite3.dll 20250531 (nss3.dll in case of Serpent 55) without exchanging more files, that doesn't make much sense. So I ran them without changing any files. Of course, I replaced API RaiseException by GetLastError in mozjs.dll.

They run mostly stable with the mentioned additional issues.
I would also like to add that "Verify Integrity" - about:support > Places Database - doesn't work anymore (OK up to version 20250531). I also had a very annoying problem, that images didn't appear. This was a real killjoy! Fortunately, images are displayed in the new versions.

Mentioned again for Newmoon "Restore Previous Session, Recently Closed Tabs and Recently Closed Windows" work, but URL input in the Location bar doesn't. So use the search engine to open the URL. History and Bookmarks don't work at all (Serpent and Newmoon). The only solution I know is PlainOldFavorites.

The password manager is also affected by the sqlite update. The passwords aren't saved anymore. It has to be typed every time.

Edited May 7 by schwups