K-Meleon TLS 1.2 in vanilla Windows 98 SE

[siria]

Wunderbar98 said:
Someone coming to this post fresh with a vanilla system should attempt the unzip only method first, then just update the thread, probably will work, it will be better confirmation.

Sure that might be "best", there's just a tiny little catch: That wait may take forever...
It's the year 2020 now. How many regular posters here still have a real Win98 system, not just a VM?
And how many of those, despite being on this tweaker forum, still have a 100% vanilla system?
And still of the rest (if there's any), how many never tried KM yet, which is often recommended for older systems?
Or perhaps a stranger, a passing reader with matching requirements may discover this topic in a few months or years, but doesn't have an account and will not reply. Provided he even cares enough to test diligently and report. And also provided he CAN get an account at all (I'd not be able to join anymore either, long since expired email accounts, thanks to pesky ciphers again)
That is, if such vanilla users even have READ access to this httpS forum, and not only IE5-6 and never find this. They'd first need to have an old Firefox on their system.

Therefore am afraid your own system is still the best vanilla chance by far in the foreseeable future.
In my opinion better a 99% reliable result now as a 100% sure result but perhaps never.
(Frankly, I also just don't imagine KM as a prog that does some mysterious behind-the-scenes stuff ;-) If I read you right, it didn't even copy the msvc-dlls into the Win system folder. Am not a dev but always had the impression it works very basic and oldfashioned, probably just looks up the needed dll's in either own folder or system folder, if global plugins are available, then checks if profile.ini exists to decide if profile folders are inside or out, and that's about it)

The K-Meleon loader was not installed or active, don't like these features. Figured out the issue creating program backups in the same Program Files directory, not a K-Meleon bug but a Windows Quick Launch "feature",

YIKES - never noticed! But you're right, just did a quick test by renaming a random program folder (have a few irfanview version folders), and bingo: the QuickStart shortcut updates the path itself when clicking it! Without any notice. Without rebooting even.
But you said your KM even starts itself automatically after reboot...?

Profiling firefox.exe with Dependency Walker, nice program, flags GDI32.DLL and KERNEL32.DLL. This probably makes sense, stock Firefox v3.6 never ran in vanilla Windows 98, stopped at Firefox v2. Failed launch of firefox.exe from a command.com window or click gets an illegal operation popup, stack fault in module KERNEL32.DLL.

Thanks for testing. And major pity. So RT-Fox3.6 still requires KernelEx for Win98 :-(
It doesn't mean much though that stock-FF3.6 never ran on vanilla98 either, since RT has tweaked this build not only to add TLS1.2, but also to work on older systems too. As he also does with a bunch of semi-modern browser builds backported for XP.
Edited August 3, 2020 by siria

[dencorso]

3 hours ago, siria said:

1.) How many regular posters here still have a real Win98 system, not just a VM?
2.) And how many of those, despite being on this tweaker forum, still have a 100% vanilla system?

1.) I'd say probably about 10.
2.) Probably nobody. In case of day-to-day use plain vanilla is not viable anymore. Some members here, however, still use extensive updated and patched versions of 9x/Me on bare iron as day-to-day machines.
I'm not one of them anymore, having migrated fully to XP SP3 about five years ago.

[Wunderbar98]

Hi siria. K-Meleon launches after copying both MSVCP71.DLL (v7.10.3077.0) and MSVCR71.DLL (v7.10.3052.4) from the formal K-Meleon v1.5.4 installer into @roytam1's extracted K-Meleon1.5.4en-US.tls12.7z directory, running k-meleonW9x.exe. It creates a new profile in C:\WINDOWS\Application Data. New unzip test with the two DLLs added plus a new empty file named 'profile.ini' launches the browser and creates the new profile in the extracted browser's directory.

Please note this is not considered a proper test, may be false positive, interference from the formal intall. Still best for a fresh system tester to provide confirmation. With a retro resurgence, there are probably visitors here daily with fresh installs looking for information, just maybe not so many willing to test and provide feedback.

So end-user can move the DLLs themselves or maybe @roytam1 can repack the browser, adding the DLLs and possibly the profile.ini file.

My K-Meleon doesn't start itself automatically, that would be scary. The issue was starting from Quick Launch even after the installation directory was renamed DISABLED, problem resolved it's a Quick Launch issue. Actually my K-Meleon is running well, very happy. End up using both RetroZilla and K-Meleon during sessions, can't decide yet which one i like better, both wonderful.

If @roytam1's Firefox v3.6 worked in vanilla Windows 98 that would be magic. Loved that browser back in the day, fondly remember a discussion with a deceased cousin whether to upgrade to v3.6. He was old school and didn't want the update. Enjoy life it passes very quickly.

According to Wikipedia, Firefox v3.6 was actually Mozilla's longest supported browser:

Mozilla discontinued support for Firefox 3.6 on April 24, 2012, which at over 27 months of support made it the longest supported version of Firefox, even longer than Firefox 2 which had over 26 months of total support itself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_3.6

[siria]

RT-KM1.5.4+TLS1.2:

Wunderbar98 said: K-Meleon launches after copying both MSVCP71.DLL (v7.10.3077.0) and MSVCR71.DLL (v7.10.3052.4) from the formal K-Meleon v1.5.4 installer into @roytam1's extracted K-Meleon1.5.4en-US.tls12.7z directory, running k-meleonW9x.exe. It creates a new profile in C:\WINDOWS\Application Data. New unzip test with the two DLLs added plus a new empty file named 'profile.ini' launches the browser and creates the new profile in the extracted browser's directory.

Thank you for testing! Sounds great, to me like a 99,99% chance that a previous setup-version (impossible to download without unknown direct mirror link) is only necessary due to missing VB files.
So RT-KM154 could be made to work out-of-box if roytam1 would include those 2 dll's in the package.
And 2) make it portable with the ini-file, which all portable 7z KM-builds had since KM1.6.
And 3) if he'd compress it with an old zip-format that vanilla win98 users could uncompress without needing inaccessible SF-downloads, or better make it a self-extracting exe (which people like me who don't like exe's and already have a younger zip-tool could probably just unzip too)

I think it's really necessary that there's at least 1 of his browser builds (RZ-SM, RZ-FF2, RT-KM154) as "starter build" for vanilla98+IE5 users, needing no other resources of any kind. Which can then be used to further download otherwise blocked stuff from Sourceforge, github etc, needed for all further updates. Like KernelEx, or a younger 7-zip (v9.20 for Win98) which is necessary to unzip all his other browser builds.

End up using both RetroZilla and K-Meleon during sessions, can't decide yet which one i like better, both wonderful. If @roytam1's Firefox v3.6 worked in vanilla Windows 98 that would be magic. Loved that browser back in the day

FF3.6 (and current RT-build too) runs with basic KernelEx - you hinted somewhere considering it ;-)
It's really quite a generation leap from FF2 to FF3.6, and from KM154 to KM1.6.
For me most important, there sure are a lot more Firefox3.6 ADDONS as for FF2, let alone for Retrozilla-Seamonkey.
And in KM the slightly younger JS-engine matters too, for macros. While I hardly ever use javascript for websites, it's still needed for lots of site-tweaks and old-engine workarounds using little macro scripts, which very often use e.g. "querySelectorAll" which just didn't exist yet in FF2/KM154. Workarounds may be possible in many cases, but very bothersome. Just today struggled yet again several hours on amazon, grmpf, dabbling with a little macro script for article pages, to get those stupid links to other "colors" working again. Which are usually not about colors at all but for all sorts of product variations. Finally works now in KM1.6, but now wasting yet more time trying to add workarounds-of-workarounds for KM154? Ouf, grmpf, no thanks, took far too much time already...

By the way I finally realized I can test stuff again with "basic" KernelEx! Have a decade old version on my second disk, ancient backup, which actually still boots. It was even pre-release, KernelEx RC4, but don't dare to touch it anymore to upgrade. At any rate the crucial point about "basic" KernelEx is that it was much more stable, never gave me trouble with native Win98 apps, and was by default "off".

So did a few little tests now with RT-fx36.
Turned out it *does* start with basic old KernelEx compat set to "Win98"! But there's a catch, or rather two:
1) If explicitely set to "disabled", it crashes at start
2) xul.dll needs compat "Win2000", which KernelEx has automatically predefined.
Otherwise display is completely messed. Toolbars invisible and transparent, pages almost empty and no text either. Typical look for missing KernelEx.

[Wunderbar98]

Hi siria. Unless mistaken Windows 98 has no ability to unzip even a *.zip file extension after fresh install, an *.exe installer may be best. Kernel extensions may be trialed on a future system, probably just for a browser, nothing else needed here. Lots of time can be spent configuring K-Meleon but in the end i'm only using the StyleKILL macro, privacy bar, minor keyboard binding and toolbar tweaks, good enough. The K-Meleon site and wiki has lots of information, this link may help other new users.
http://kmeleonbrowser.org/wiki/ConfigFiles

[Wunderbar98]

Updated hyperlinks for browser download on page one:
https://msfn.org/board/topic/181726-k-meleon-tls-12-in-vanilla-windows-98-se/?tab=comments#comment-1185084

Updated hyperlink for screenshot on page one:
https://msfn.org/board/topic/181726-k-meleon-tls-12-in-vanilla-windows-98-se/?tab=comments#comment-1185208

[Wunderbar98]

The download link for @Siria's 'stylekiller.kmm' on page one no longer works, direct download link below. K-Meleon is more functional with it as many web pages don't render properly. IMHO StyleKiller combined with PDFCreator v0.8.0 is presently the best combo in vanilla Windows 98 for creating PDF documents from web pages. Though it takes extra effort to configure, this K-Meleon is arguably the best technical browser for vanilla Windows 98 at present too.
http://kmeleonbrowser.org/forum/file.php?9,file=1767,filename=stylekiller.kmm