Email on Windows 98, 2022

[Wunderbar98]

GMail's HTML-only via webpage started requiring 'gmail.com' JavaScript domain for login a couple months ago. After login the domain can be disabled via NoScript or similar without loss of function. Before this change GMail worked flawlessly on browsers that do not even support JavaScript, even DOS browsers, oh well.

Don't mean to stray off topic, modern Devuan GNU/Linux, for example, can run >20 year old hardware just fine, user just needs to know what they are doing regarding setup, application selection and tweaks. 3D graphic acceleration support on >20 year old hardware in GNU/Linux, i say multi-boot and run old Windows games in a Windows OS and use GNU/Linux for a modern browser or whatever other newer software is needed.

There are still freshly maintained, 32-bit distributions available for older hardware. The 23 year old hardware used here (32-bit, non-SSE2) runs Firefox v52 and Firefox ESR v78. Of course with SSE2+ support could then run any browser, wish my Windows 98 was on Pentium 4.

[awkduck]

1 hour ago, Wunderbar98 said:

3D graphic acceleration support on >20 year old hardware in GNU/Linux

You are right. And in some cases WINE will even give you better frame rates. But cards without interested devs tend to lose it. Some Via and Ati cards/chipsets for example. I understand that most gamers are gunning for early 2K Nvidia, Radeon, and perhaps Voodoo. But there are cards where the dev efforts are understandably less then stellar. Depending on the level of 3D capability the card has, gaming in WINE may be painful. However, newer cards get great translation to Wined3d.

Video cards that are lower tier now, run on an older 2.6 kernel, X, and something like WINE 0.99 or 1 nicely. Like the S3 chips that comes in a Thinkpad T21/T22. I not sure if that same chip is 3D accelerated at all, by modern X. The Riva TNT isn't (1998). I think its the same dev for old Ati, Via, and TNT. I haven't checked for awhile, but one of his road blocks was not meeting the requirement to get some things accepted into mainline. But for one guy he is/was doing pretty good.

I apologize that I wasn't I entirely thorough in my description.

2 hours ago, Wunderbar98 said:

There are still freshly maintained, 32-bit distributions available for older hardware. The 23 year old hardware used here (32-bit, non-SSE2) runs Firefox v52 and Firefox ESR v78. Of course with SSE2+ support could then run any browser, wish my Windows 98 was on Pentium 4.

Oh yes, I know :) I've custom compiled them and packages for them myself. Not that impressive, in the nix/bsd world. Much of this might be beyond the current scope of the OP. Although, I probably haven't provided any Linux advice, that the OP will find more than mildly useful. At some point that would be better on another forum.

I do also agree, that the user may be better off using Linux for modern tasks. My small aim was at a simple LiveUSB Linux. One less likely needing much configuration, to accomplish the needed tasks. Hopefully, not sluggishly. Maybe PuppyLinux or EasyOS. My personal slant on the topic, is avoiding adding anything to the harddrive. Especially if it is still a real IDE. But with this particular OP, Linux might not carry much of an interest. A USB stick, providing the machine can boot from one, might be less effort for cause.

[retrotrash69]

Really thinking about it again, as I implied in the OP I don't really need full modern web support since as I said I won't be online as often as per the plans. I suppose my thoughts trailed off to a "make 98 as functional as possible" experiment, when the reality is that was not my actual reason for making this thread.. And the reason this thread seems to be veering off topic.

I went into it with the intention of, in the future, using the computer only for basic things like email, occasionally things like IRC, and light browsing, and since I had achieved the latter two, I figured I needed help since I was (and I suppose am) still stuck on the former. My only real intention with this thread is to get email working, not anything else. sorry for letting the thread derail, haha.

[awkduck]

Hope it didn't get on your nerves. I overflow information. I don't know if it is presented well. Every once in a while someone, like Wonderbar98, comes along and turns my overflow into conversation. Its really a wonderful thing. Although, it carried things further from the mark.

I guess you gave opportunity for a kind of survey. You provide nice simple opinions, in response to objects when they are introduce to the thread. Maybe that make me a bit troll like. I hope not. But I certainly take to being fed

 

Edited August 23, 2022 by awkduck

[Gansangriff]

Yahoo Mail is a funny case. If you throw half of the site in the bin, you can actually access the mail without any layout styling at all in your Windows 98 webbrowser (for example Netscape 9.0.0.6), looking perfectly naked (see the image in the attachments). A textbrowser would probably load the site too.

Hosts file entries will kill connections to the listed sites (look at C:\Windows\hosts):
127.0.0.1    ads.yahoo.com
127.0.0.1    geo.yahoo.com
127.0.0.1    yahoo.ivwbox.de
127.0.0.1    csc.beap.bc.yahoo.com
127.0.0.1    beap-bc.yahoo.com
127.0.0.1    geo.yahoo.com
127.0.0.1    y.analytics.yahoo.com
127.0.0.1    ad.yieldmanager.com
127.0.0.1    ivwbox.de
127.0.0.1    yui.yahooapis.com
127.0.0.1    ir2.beap.gemini.yahoo.com
127.0.0.1    eu-central-1.onemobile.yahoo.com
(I probably missed some servers, that need to be blocked.)

I've some old trash account there, when phone verification didn't exist. It keeps asking for a phone number since 10 years or so, but that can be skipped and access was always possible without phone number.

Actually, this Seamonkey-Retrozilla has a very good mail client onboard, that supports some newer ciphers. You can start it with "retrozilla.exe -mail" (use the command line or create a starter for this). Version 2.2 works for my Posteo account on an ancient Windows 98 machine.

However with that password loop that you're getting, it seems that your settings (outgoing mail and incoming mail need to be configured seperately) are wrong. Although your provider could be an a** too and have shut the option for unencrypted, SSL3, TLS1.0, TLS1.1... hope you get at least TLS1.2!
Play around with the ports too. Although setting it to what your mail providers says in the documentation, should do the job. However in some cases, there is more than one port possible.

[awkduck]

3 hours ago, Gansangriff said:

However with that password loop that you're getting, it seems that your settings (outgoing mail and incoming mail need to be configured seperately) are wrong. Although your provider could be an a** too and have shut the option for unencrypted, SSL3, TLS1.0, TLS1.1... hope you get at least TLS1.2!

If I remember correctly, VFEmail does a pretty good job with this. Their free account is a bit limited. I think 10 emails a day, auto deletion after 90 days of no use, and not encrypted. But I remember trying all kinds of different email clients with them. If a person can afford the onetime price, the offering is pretty good. But I am not a fan of the Webmail. They use the standard Roundcube/Horde5 stuff. But there is a no-javascript mode.

[XPerceniol]

9 hours ago, Gansangriff said:

Yahoo Mail is a funny case. If you throw half of the site in the bin, you can actually access the mail without any layout styling at all in your Windows 98 webbrowser (for example Netscape 9.0.0.6), looking perfectly naked (see the image in the attachments). A textbrowser would probably load the site too.

Hosts file entries will kill connections to the listed sites (look at C:\Windows\hosts):
127.0.0.1    ads.yahoo.com
127.0.0.1    geo.yahoo.com
127.0.0.1    yahoo.ivwbox.de
127.0.0.1    csc.beap.bc.yahoo.com
127.0.0.1    beap-bc.yahoo.com
127.0.0.1    geo.yahoo.com
127.0.0.1    y.analytics.yahoo.com
127.0.0.1    ad.yieldmanager.com
127.0.0.1    ivwbox.de
127.0.0.1    yui.yahooapis.com
127.0.0.1    ir2.beap.gemini.yahoo.com
127.0.0.1    eu-central-1.onemobile.yahoo.com
(I probably missed some servers, that need to be blocked.)

I've some old trash account there, when phone verification didn't exist. It keeps asking for a phone number since 10 years or so, but that can be skipped and access was always possible without phone number.

Actually, this Seamonkey-Retrozilla has a very good mail client onboard, that supports some newer ciphers. You can start it with "retrozilla.exe -mail" (use the command line or create a starter for this). Version 2.2 works for my Posteo account on an ancient Windows 98 machine.

However with that password loop that you're getting, it seems that your settings (outgoing mail and incoming mail need to be configured seperately) are wrong. Although your provider could be an a** too and have shut the option for unencrypted, SSL3, TLS1.0, TLS1.1... hope you get at least TLS1.2!
Play around with the ports too. Although setting it to what your mail providers says in the documentation, should do the job. However in some cases, there is more than one port possible.

<OT>

Good to see you again - been a while and hope you've been well.

<OT>

[xpandvistafan]

On 8/21/2022 at 8:10 PM, Wunderbar98 said:

GMail's HTML-only via webpage started requiring 'gmail.com' JavaScript domain for login a couple months ago. After login the domain can be disabled via NoScript or similar without loss of function. Before this change GMail worked flawlessly on browsers that do not even support JavaScript, even DOS browsers, oh well.

Don't mean to stray off topic, modern Devuan GNU/Linux, for example, can run >20 year old hardware just fine, user just needs to know what they are doing regarding setup, application selection and tweaks. 3D graphic acceleration support on >20 year old hardware in GNU/Linux, i say multi-boot and run old Windows games in a Windows OS and use GNU/Linux for a modern browser or whatever other newer software is needed.

There are still freshly maintained, 32-bit distributions available for older hardware. The 23 year old hardware used here (32-bit, non-SSE2) runs Firefox v52 and Firefox ESR v78. Of course with SSE2+ support could then run any browser, wish my Windows 98 was on Pentium 4.

https://accounts.google.com/ServiceLogin?service=mail&continue=https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/&followup=https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/&emr=1&nojavascript=1 You can still access the no javascript login page by adding ?nojavascript=1 to the url or using the URL above. It might give you a browser unsupported message on older browsers, but if you spoof your user agent just for the login it will work.

Edited August 25, 2022 by xpandvistafan

[Wunderbar98]

You got me excited @xpandvistafan, unfortunately your Gmail URL didn't work without JavaScript. After entering username, all browsers tested were prompted with a JavaScript not enabled or supported in your browser message without a password prompt to continue the login process. Also trialed the HTML only URL used here, with the no JavaScript request.

https://mail[dot]google[dot]com/mail/u/0/h/&nojavascipt=1

Failed with DOS 7.1 (Windows 98) using Links.

Failed with Windows 98 SE using RetroZilla.

Failed with Devuan GNU/Linux using Links, older SeaMonkey and Firefox 52, including Firefox user agent switcher testing Android, Opera, Windows, GNU/Linux, etc. No unsupported browser notice received, couldn't even get passed the JavaScript message.

The JavaScript change was a long time coming, amazing it still worked without it up to a couple months ago.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-wont-let-you-sign-in-if-you-disabled-javascript-in-your-browser/

[Drugwash]

I believe it's about WebComponents. A lot of sites are making use of that and as such older browsers became doomed. Even Pale Moon which is constantly being developed has difficulties implementing that. Strangely, the old version 9 of Midori does have at least partly implemented WebComponents, which allows log in and operations in WordPress blogs. For e-mail I am now using ClawsMail natively instead of POP Peeper which was used with Wine until about a month or so ago.

That is in Linux. Win9x probably has much dimmer chances of getting something usable with respect to browsing and e-mail.

[retrotrash69]

On Yahoo Mail:

Yeah I was aware of it working on 98 browsers, but as I mentioned before my old account is locked due to inactivity and to create a new one requires a phone number. I see no way of getting out of that, unfortunately.

Again I have no need or desire to use Linux, very basic web browsing provided by browsers like RetroZilla are sufficient with the exception of only email, and do not want to learn a new Os.

I did get Gmail to work and logged in successfully within Firefox, I believe it's version 10. Can't get a higher version to work due to the probably bugged KernelEx, but its more functional than 9 at least. Palemoon works amazing for almost everything on Win 2000 (including ProtonMail, interestingly enough) but I'm not sure about 98, I'll have to give it a try assuming it will run.

[schwups]

44 minutes ago, retrotrash69 said:

logged in successfully within Firefox, I believe it's version 10. Can't get a higher version to work due to the probably bugged KernelEx,

You can't run higher versions than Firefox 10 with KernelEX 4.5.2!

[xpandvistafan]

On 8/26/2022 at 9:32 AM, Wunderbar98 said:

You got me excited @xpandvistafan, unfortunately your Gmail URL didn't work without JavaScript. After entering username, all browsers tested were prompted with a JavaScript not enabled or supported in your browser message without a password prompt to continue the login process. Also trialed the HTML only URL used here, with the no JavaScript request.

https://mail[dot]google[dot]com/mail/u/0/h/&nojavascipt=1

Failed with DOS 7.1 (Windows 98) using Links.

Failed with Windows 98 SE using RetroZilla.

Failed with Devuan GNU/Linux using Links, older SeaMonkey and Firefox 52, including Firefox user agent switcher testing Android, Opera, Windows, GNU/Linux, etc. No unsupported browser notice received, couldn't even get passed the JavaScript message.

The JavaScript change was a long time coming, amazing it still worked without it up to a couple months ago.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-wont-let-you-sign-in-if-you-disabled-javascript-in-your-browser/

You can still do it, but it's extremely complicated and required me to replace requests and responses using proxies to actually get it to login. I got it to login on Opera 10 on Windows 98. This shows it's still possible, although it's a tedious process. 

Edited September 4, 2022 by xpandvistafan