Who's still using Win9x on the web besides me???

[ZortMcGort11]

Thank you Siria for all the work you put into your replies! You're a gentleman and a scholar!

I should thank Roytam as well! Well, thanks everybody for helping me out here!

I unzipped the package "ns9-nss-update.7z" into my "C:\Program Files\Netscape\Navigator 9\" folder and copied over the DLL files that were older. And that was it, It worked!

I'm now able to read Wikipedia again! Some of the larger wikipedia articles make my computer "freeze," and prevent me from scrolling the page, so I assume they're too big, memory wise, for my computer to handle.

(My system specs, by the way, are: Pentium III, 866 MHz CPU, 384 MB Ram, 32 Gig Hard drive) --- Ancient Crap, I know!

So far I've been able to read a few medium sized, and smaller wikipedia pages, which is awesome!

Tomorrow if I have more time, I'll try downloading the Firefox3.6+TLS1.2 ciphers package.

Well, this is great, thanks everyone!

[ZortMcGort11]

@Wunderbar98

I didn't know about the "updated" versions of these browsers that support TLS 1.2.

I used the "original" versions of them for several years (K-Meleon 1.5.4 in particular).... and that's what I thought you meant. Wasn't aware that somebody had actually updated them.

I stopped visiting this place a few years back because MSFN wouldn't load on my computer.... and so I just stopped visiting and didn't keep up to speed on the current developments. MSFN seems to work again, though, for some odd reason.

Wow, this is like getting a second wind for my computer.

[RainyShadow]

Check if any of these work in your browser:

The Printliminator

PrintWhatYouLike

MyPage

Better Readability (it's n.46 in the list)

Clippable

 

[siria]

ZortMcGort11 said:

Wow, this is like getting a second wind for my computer.

Hehe, yeah, absolutely! If no alternatives available, those cipher-updates really are a lifesaver.
Thanks for confirming it works for you, and how much it really helps

> I'm now able to read Wikipedia again!

Yes! Some sites are just absolutely essential.
But frankly, for wikipedia and many other PUBLIC+harmless sites, it's really a shame such fundamentally important monopoly sites insist on banking-grade crypto and on modern browsers, otherwise just block readers completely :( And IMO it's an equally screaming shame that such sites don't get any pressure on this from media and public anymore, what I feel would have happened some twenty years ago, for this and lots of other scandals. But today everyone still blindly believes what the media tell us, like sheep, never noticing how much the world, society and business have changed. How almost all news now come exclusively from central agencies, which nearly all outlets just spread unchanged to save staff and trouble, incl trouble from their own new owners. And if they publish any commentary at all, it's usually just supporting current myths, e.g. that own country were the best and greatest worldwide, and of course own govs and also global mega monopolies only wanted our best, never mind some incredibly 'dumb', incomprehensible decisions. And never noticing how quickly critical voices get silenced today or their words twisted, if considered influental enough. But I digress, sorry....

ZortMcGort11 said:

Some of the larger wikipedia articles make my computer "freeze," and prevent me from scrolling the page, so I assume they're too big, memory wise, for my computer to handle. So far I've been able to read a few medium sized, and smaller wikipedia pages, which is awesome!

I know exactly what you mean, and Wikipedia is a very special case. Actually the culprit is not directly the "page" size, but CSS-file size, because it becomes FAST again when killing page styles!
In K-Meleon try StyleKiller macro when a page has finished loading.
In Firefox etc. View > Page Style or similar wording. Or addons, like Read Easily.
Or in all Mozilla browsers this hidden, topsecret pref can be created manually on the about:config page:
"permissions.default.stylesheet"=2 (INT)
This pref works automatically, it's not a killer after page load, instead it prevents even loading css-FILES. Although only external ones, not styles embedded in the html page itself. And it works exactly like the well known image toggle too: 1=load all , 2=none, 3=same domain
Of course there are downsides too when messing with styles, some page elements can vanish completely while others may become visible, but often still helpful.

The prob is wikipedia uses a million style rules, their CSS files are giant like printed novel books, completely INSANE. No wonder the poor browser is struggling endlessly, trying to figure out how to STYLE every single element, with those million rules all affecting each other back- and forth and crosswise :(
But additionally, I keep suspecting, it's not just the number of rules, there must additionally be some specific old css-glitch, which has to do with focus/active/hover/clicking stuff.... just what exactly, and how fix?? Because even superlong wikipedia pages first load normally, and scroll bearably when being careful to only touch the scrollbar. The probs only seem to start after first moving the mouse into page content, clicking links etc....

[ZortMcGort11]

I totally agree with you, Siria.

It's pretty impressive what people have been able to do with Win9x in terms of updates, patches, and browser upgrades. And If just a handful of people are capable of extending the life of Win9x... just imagine what could have been possible with more resources and support from a company or institution. It's possible to get more life out of these old operating systems... which were killed back in 2006, yet here we are 14 years later, and despite how they said "you can't use them anymore" we still are.

Of course, the reason why they said we can't use them anymore, is because we're all supposed to buy a new one every 4 or 5 years! We're supposed to pay Microsoft for the same word processor that reached it's peak back in the 90s! Not only that, but instead of getting a physical copy on a floppy disk or CD, now you just pay for the "service." So you don't actually own anything, you're just renting it. And therefore, you're computer becomes hostage to the license terms of their software.... therefore, you don't own your computer anymore either! What good is YOUR computer, if ALL the software on it can be removed, changed or altered at the whims of Microsoft, Apple, Google or whatever.

Thanks for the info!

Thanks Rainyshadow too. I'm gonna download and try some of those things. I just still have a lot to do with all the stuff Siria posted, so I'll get around to it eventually :-)

[RainyShadow]

16 minutes ago, ZortMcGort11 said:

Thanks Rainyshadow too. I'm gonna download and try some of those things. I just still have a lot to do with all the stuff Siria posted, so I'll get around to it eventually :-)

What i love about bookmarklets (vs. addons) is that you don't download or install anything - they just sit idle in your bookmarks without using resources until you activate them

[Wunderbar98]

Hi ZortMcGort11, responding to your query above. These browsers provide TLS v1.2 support and run very stable in vanilla Windows 98. The RetroZilla build used here needs minor extra configuration, outlined in the first post of the link. Personal preference is not to use kernel extensions, trading one old browser for another slightly newer but still old browser. These browsers load Wikipedia fine (with JavaScript disabled), although the site has become quite bloated over the years.

RetroZilla v2.2.
https://msfn.org/board/topic/181416-retrozilla-community-edition/#comments

K-Meleon v1.5.4.
https://msfn.org/board/topic/181726-k-meleon-tls-12-in-vanilla-windows-98-se/#comments

Links for DOS v2.21.
https://msfn.org/board/topic/181853-links-web-browser-community-edition-for-dos-with-tls-12/#comments

*****

ZortMcGort11: (My system specs, by the way, are: Pentium III, 866 MHz CPU, 384 MB Ram, 32 Gig Hard drive) --- Ancient Crap, I know!

You're running hardware similar to mine (800 MHz, 384 MB RAM, 32 MB graphics, 6 GB partition). I realize you are just being lighthearted but to me any hardware that still runs well after 20 years is exceptional actually, just dated. All my day to day computing, even banking, gets done on this hardware using dual-boot Windows 98 and lightweight GNU/Linux. Enjoy your retro computing :)

Edit: RAM typo

Edited September 29, 2020 by Wunderbar98

[siria]

@Wunderbar98
just curious, if you have time, can you test roytam's RT-Firefox2+TLS1.2 in your vanilla system?
https://o.rths.cf/gpc/files1.rt/rzbrowser-tls12-20180504.7z

> K-Meleon v1.5.4
For clueless future readers, to avoid further misunderstandings:
since a little while there are now 2 different KM1.5.4 versions, misleadingly using same name and version
- the ancient original one (2010) from KM main dev Dorian (half the web completely blocked today, missing httpS ciphers)
- the recent FORK by roytam1 (Jan 2020), with TLS1.2 ciphers added (98% of websites loading again, more or less)
Sometimes called "RT-K-Meleon" or "KM1.5.4+TLS1.2"

[Feamane]

On 9/24/2020 at 9:50 PM, ZortMcGort11 said:

I browse forums a lot as well. Can't check my Gmail though, Google says my browser is too old. I don't suppose anybody knows an email service that still works?

A lot of great info on this thread.  I had given up browsing with Win98 and have been using XP.  But of course now Firefox stopped updating for XP.  I will have to try this stuff and see how it goes.

The only thing I can add is that sometimes you can just change what version your browser reports itself as and sites that say that your browser is too old will work anyway.  For example, I ran into a problem where Captcha would not work on my Firefox on XP because it said my browser was too old.  It's annoying how it seems Captcha is starting to show up everywhere!  But I was able to change the config general.useragent.override to report my browser as a newer one and now Captcha works without any problem.  So I didn't need to change my browser as I feared, I just had to disguise my browser as a newer one.

Pretty stupid that they tell you your browser is too old to work with their junk, but if you tell them your old browser is really a newer browser: it works just fine.

Not sure about doing this on other browsers but might be worth looking into.

Check the site: http://www.useragentstring.com

Regards,

DJ

[siria]

Feamane said:

A lot of great info on this thread. I had given up browsing with Win98 and have been using XP. But of course now Firefox stopped updating for XP. I will have to try this stuff and see how it goes.

The only thing I can add is that sometimes you can just change what version your browser reports itself as and sites that say that your browser is too old will work anyway.

By all means, if you have XP, do yourself a favor and forget about this Win9x topic and Firefox2 stuff, it would only be a useless downgrade and waste of your time! Still endless page display probs in such stoneage browsers due to outdated css+js engines. Only useful if no other chance at all.
And yes, useragent addons and macros are well known and necessary too if running a browsers older as just 1-2 years.

On XP you can run 10x better browsers when having SP2, or much better SP3.
For example MyPal is very popular and still runs on XP SP2. And in this forum we're mainly focussed on roytam1 forks of Mozilla type browsers, fixed to run again in old/older/ancient or prehistoric systems, plus adding modern ciphers. He made quite a bunch, for starters, head over here:
https://msfn.org/board/topic/180462-my-browser-builds-part-2/

[Wunderbar98]

Hi siria. Unfortunately we already trialed Firefox v3.6 in vanilla, it does not work requiring newer GDI32.DLL and KERNEL32.DL, confirmed with Dependency Walker. Due to nostalgia this may be the only 'newer' browser (aka non-vanilla) i would trial with a kernel extension, although seeing what Firefox morphed into is killing the nostalgia.
https://msfn.org/board/topic/181726-k-meleon-tls-12-in-vanilla-windows-98-se/?tab=comments#comment-1185275

The K-Meleon v1.5.4 thread link i posted above has the necessary download links and information to get it running nicely. This includes installing @siria's StyleKILL macro, often essential for displaying all web page content.

Agree Windows XP browsers are far more functional. Although these old Windows 98 browsers still connect to sites fine they are not functional for proper rendering and JavaScript processing. Using a site 'Captcha' will probably fail with vanilla Windows 98 browsers, as they need to run with JavaScript disabled to prevent crashes, not sure about kernel extension browsers. FYI you can log in to this forum by disabling JavaScript, which kills the Captcha, the only way i can log in from vanilla Windows 98 or DOS!

Edited September 29, 2020 by Wunderbar98

[siria]

Wunderbar98 said:
> Unfortunately we already trialed Firefox v3.6 in vanilla

Yes I know, which is a major pity, since the engine is indeed backported for older systems, but obviously just NT, not vanilla Win98. Only runs with KernelEx installed. But still have a bit hope it may run in vanilla WinME, if anyone who still has that could test. Or perhaps setting ME-compat to disabled, but have a dim memory Kex automatically sets all xul.dll to a compat, which could be misleading.

But what you haven't tested so far yet, due to completely messy RZ-versions-chaos, is RT-Firefox2 (not 3.6) (linked above). FF2 has always been for vanilla98, no further tricks needed. If I got it right roytam just added modern ciphers to it.

Sadly reCaptcha is completely dead for me too now :( Still a tiny hope maybe I'm just missing some trick yet, but recently had no luck even with KG74. ARRRGH.
.

Edited September 29, 2020 by siria

[ZortMcGort11]

Update:

I got Retrozilla working and was able to load wikipedia! yay!

The version I downloaded was this:
"retrozilla-suite-tls12-20200131.7z"

I just have one question though, wonder if anybody knows how to change the user agent in Retrozilla to Firefox 3.6.

Google search results look better when the user agent is changed to Firefox 3.6.... just saying.

Well, I appreciate all the helpful replies in this thread. thanks everybody!

[Gansangriff]

When you use a Windows 98 to browse the web, you still have endless possibilities to explore! I'd say only the good and friendly programmed sites are working with it, not the big bloated ones. Every time the scroll bar at the right becomes just some pixels small (indicating, that the visited website is huge), I immediately press ESC and try to escape the site literally, before the poor old machine hangs up. Sounds inconvenient, but probably it's as inconvenient as driving a noisy oldtimer around the streets, letting you feel every bump of the roads (or the web so to speak).
Recently I had a voice chat over an open Teamspeak 2 server with a mate, who used a modern Windows 10 laptop! What a bridge between technology, gapping 20 years! If you know your old tools well since plenty of years, you're very powerful with old computers.

It look like here we have, how the user agent strings looked like in the past versions of Firefox:
http://www.useragentstring.com/pages/useragentstring.php?name=Firefox

To change the user agent, type in "about:config" in the adress bar (without ""). There are all the settings hiding! Search for "agent" and you will find the place of the user agent.

[siria]

Gansangriff said:
> Sounds inconvenient, but probably it's as inconvenient as driving a noisy
> oldtimer (car) around the streets, letting you feel every bump of the roads

Very fitting comparison, like it
"endless possibilities" is not exactly my personal impression though ;-) Although a few here will agree.
"If you know your old tools well since plenty of years" - yeah, just one of the catches...

USERAGENTS - HowTo and TRAP:
As Feamane above mentioned too, this pref can be used for overriding the GLOBAL User Agent string:
general.useragent.override (STRING)
It works in all Mozilla type browsers I've seen so far or heard of, just not sure about most "modern" versions, since Mozilla chiefs since some years kill off all userfriendly features, one after another (have read they get most of their money from evil Google, no wonder)

The trap is, this pref does not exist on about:config until a user or an UA-extension creates it!
Then just right-click and create a NEW pref, name as above, type STRING, and fill it with something like
"Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:24.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/24.0"

If that pref is created, but with an empty string, old browsers will send NO useragent to servers at all.
If that pref does not exist at all, browsers send the automatic, real UA string, with real system etc.
(attention: access to K-Meleon forum is BLOCKED by hoster SourceForge if "Win98" found in UA string!)

Tip: if anyone likes a reminder for that pref name, a handy trick is to create a free pref:
general.useragent.override__INFO = "INFO: create manually, as STRING, example Mozilla/5..."

Of course handling this is a lot easer with UA extensions or KM-macro with a menu, since different strings are needed for different sites. For example the classic addon by Pederick is a very good one. Older K-Meleon versions had a macro included already, for younger versions (or old ones too) I recommand my updated useragents2018 (see previous page)

Lucky those whose engine version is younger as Firefox20 (for Win98 e.g. KMG74), then it includes a native method for site-specific useragents. They can automatically send different UA strings to different sites. Just by setting prefs, nothing else needed to do. Pref example:
general.useragent.override.msfn.org = "Mozilla....."
In original K-Meleons sadly there was an old bug for this site-function, in KM74-76 gecko, so it only works with roytams fixed versions (KM-Goanna74+76), or hacking omni.ja manually, by adding 2-3 lines.

Additional prob in KM-PRO versions where maintaner disabled this handy native pref-method by embedding a very 'special' ancient UA-addon, so deeply it can't be removed anymore, argh. He loves it as much as I hate it ;-) Because NO clue how to remove that thing again cleanly, AND it disables GLOBAL UA overrides. Hmm, well possible this 'special' addon comes also included in KMG74, since roytam based this on a heavily customized old fork too, but not sure anymore... Only figured out a trick to put that thing sleeping, to get the native pref system working again:
If this pref already exists on about:config: "kmeleon.privacy.useragent.Count" then it's probably installed, then set its value to 0 and replace file ..KM/macros/useragent.kmm with useragents2018.kmm)
.

Edited September 30, 2020 by siria