best browser for Windows 98SE

[Danielx]

Hello guys,

i tried a few browsers on windows 98se, the ones i tried were:

• Internet Explorer 6.01 (lol, not really much of an experience, more the feeling of good ol nostalgia)
• K-Meleon 74 (works acceptable, but don't even think about open URL youtube.com.. :D)
• Opera 12 (same range as K-Meleon, besides less actual)
• RetroZilla (okay, fast, but not much support for newer sites)

well, since these seem already like good choices i srsly wonder about if you were ever able to use youtube or any other services (reddit, etc.) with windows98se. the idea of own apps written for such services is somewhat interesting. but it seems to me a bit of development work (but not impossible thou). secondly, videos i think might be impossible with vbem driver..
 

but, to get back to general question: which browser would you favorize for windows 98se? maybe there are options i didnt know till now.

[awkduck]

7 hours ago, Danielx said:

videos i think might be impossible with vbem driver..

It really just depends on the CPU and the browsers configuration/requirements. Unless you are talking about high resolution video. Then all bets are probably off.

Mplayer (port from Linux) can play videos, with same the compression format as used by Youtube, without Accelerated 3D drivers (Vbemp). I am not sure about MplayerWW (Mplayer with nice GUI). MplayerWW's UI settings panel seems to only support accelerated settings. But I would think the non-accelerated output could still "somehow" be set; provided those outputs were not disabled at build time.

Some Youtube videos include only codecs not likely to play in current Win9x browsers, or even with Win9x supported Mplayer.

For now, that is probably going to be the bigger issue, not video acceleration. With the age of the browsers you listed, it may be the exact issue.

Anyway, most modern browsers presuppose an accelerated video driver. But they tend to provide an option to disable using video acceleration. Depending on your video card, some browsers perform much better with video acceleration disabled. I don't know about K-meleon, this is just a general statement towards all systems/browsers.

There are other ways of obtaining Youtube video streams, without a browser, but the legality of those ways has been highly debated.

[Danielx]

15 hours ago, awkduck said:

It really just depends on the CPU and the browsers configuration/requirements. Unless you are talking about high resolution video. Then all bets are probably off.

Mplayer (port from Linux) can play videos, with same the compression format as used by Youtube, without Accelerated 3D drivers (Vbemp). I am not sure about MplayerWW (Mplayer with nice GUI). MplayerWW's UI settings panel seems to only support accelerated settings. But I would think the non-accelerated output could still "somehow" be set; provided those outputs were not disabled at build time.

Some Youtube videos include only codecs not likely to play in current Win9x browsers, or even with Win9x supported Mplayer.

For now, that is probably going to be the bigger issue, not video acceleration. With the age of the browsers you listed, it may be the exact issue.

Anyway, most modern browsers presuppose an accelerated video driver. But they tend to provide an option to disable using video acceleration. Depending on your video card, some browsers perform much better with video acceleration disabled. I don't know about K-meleon, this is just a general statement towards all systems/browsers.

There are other ways of obtaining Youtube video streams, without a browser, but the legality of those ways has been highly debated.

that makes most sense to me. i can remember very good the mpeg and avi files from the windows 95 cdrom where you could play the infamous "goodtime" and "weezer" video. but the graphic cards at this time around on '99 was an ATI Rage II Pro. I couldn't image that this 2MB Video RAM thing had any 3d acceleration (or does it?). this Video for Windows as it was called was able to play videos even in windows 3.11 where i'm very sure there wouldnt have been any acceleration drivers (maybe explicit vesa driver in config.sys, but that would be a stretch or the scitech display doctor).

okay so the missing codecs might be the problem. and i dont think there are any ports to more recent browsers out for w9x (guess seamonkey is not that up-2-date for windows 9x). and its doubtful if there are any codec ported to w9x, since mplayer wouldnt be able too to do it.

the illegal way of having youtube fun is of course out of question for me.

at the end i guess its not really possible to watch youtube on windows98se, at least without actual browser or codecs. maybe time will show new hopeful ports of some modern browser to windows 9x with the needed codecs.

 

[loblo]

What a lot of nonsense...

[awkduck]

On 3/29/2023 at 10:07 AM, Danielx said:

I couldn't image that this 2MB Video RAM thing had any 3d acceleration (or does it?)

The are some wires to untangle. Vbemp does have 2D acceleration. And that does make a difference.

Some older cards, supporting Win3x, did have 3D acceleration. But those that did not, could still play video. Those old videos you've mentioned, are also encoded is a much less complex codec. They system resources, for playback, are much lower. Also, the quality was pretty low. The redraw demands where much lower.

On 3/29/2023 at 10:07 AM, Danielx said:

and its doubtful if there are any codec ported to w9x

There are modern codecs for Win98+, to a degree. But that does not mean your browser can use them. I "personally" don't know what K-Meleon can and can't do. I know newer versions come with codec downloads. Maybe for systems with different SSE capabilities? But, I don't know if that is of any use to the older version.

There is the Ringo Mplayer builds. They are newer. I have yet to get any of them to run. Not that I have tried very hard. So you might have luck there. So it probably isn't fair for me to say, that the last supported Mplayer can't handle modern codecs.

Edit: The newest Ringo Mplayer build works fine.

Keep in mind, Youtube offers several encode types. Occasionally, I've tried to watch something, with a new low priority encoding(AV-1?), and for whatever reason the typical encode types were not available. In this case, I would have to download the Video/Audio and re-encode it myself. From what I can tell, most videos should still work(h264/AAC-LC).

On 3/29/2023 at 10:07 AM, Danielx said:

the illegal way of having youtube fun is of course out of question for me.

As it is for all of us, that post on upstanding forums. The legality changes from country to country, and more concerns the tool(s) creators and their hosting providers. I haven't heard of a person getting in trouble, for using those tools. But I haven't been looking either. The issue with those tools, is that ads are not included. Additionally, content under copyright can be stored locally.

On 3/29/2023 at 10:07 AM, Danielx said:

at the end i guess its not really possible to watch youtube on windows98se, at least without actual browser or codecs. maybe time will show new hopeful ports of some modern browser to windows 9x with the needed codecs.

I can not say this is true. I haven't tried. What I can say, is that Vbemp may not be your problem. I can say this, since I've had no problem playing most modern encode types. The issues I have had, are when I cannot select less complex video outputs (like SDL). And that "is" related to Vbemp. If a browser has no option to disable accelerated video, or has no updated codecs, that can be a problem. But my experience here, is related to Chrome/Firefox types on modern systems. I don't know what K-Meleon is doing.

Edited April 6, 2023 by awkduck

[awkduck]

2 hours ago, loblo said:

What a lot of nonsense...

I respect your opinion. If you want to expound on your intrigue, no invitation is required. Not that you have to. As is, it is still amusing.

[schwups]

Danielx, you are able to run K-Meleon74, so you have KernelEx with core update 18 or higher installed. This opens up further possibilities. Then you also can run Firefox 31.8. It usually renders the pages better, e.g. msfn/board much better than KM74 Goanna. On the other hand, KM74 G has newer nss files.
Probably Firefox 31+ isn't tested with the Vbemp driver here until now. I'm not sure.
To play youtube videos, you need at least Firefox 43. That is what my last tests showed. Of course, this may have already changed again.

But yesterday, I also tested Firefox, here 52, out of curiosity with the Vbemp driver (Feb 2014 32MB). System: Real machine, Win98SE, CPU Intel P4 Northwood, 1 GB RAM, chip Via P4M800, Board MS7104. Basically I was able to play Youtube videos with Firefox 52. However, an extreme amount of patience is required until the youtube page is loaded. It's a horror. The resolution is low and it's a bit choppy. In terms of sound, I had done something wrong. 98 didn't recognise the card correctly or the card is somehow blocked. I haven't investigated this further.
YT loads slowly anyway and especially with this old hardware. Test it on your system and see, if it works and tell us what you found out.

Note for sound: Perhaps one Problem more Firefox 15 and higher requires a WDM Sound driver. HD Audio (Audio driver for Realtek HD Audio Hardware? [Testing thread]) not tested with Firefox yet. Vxd drivers are possible up to version 10 (14) only.

- K-Meleon74: instead of www.reddit.com  use old.reddit.com

Edited March 30, 2023 by schwups

[Danielx]

1 hour ago, schwups said:

Danielx, you are able to run K-Meleon74, so you have KernelEx with core update 18 or higher installed. This opens up further possibilities. Then you also can run Firefox 31.8. It usually renders the pages better, e.g. msfn/board much better than KM74 Goanna. On the other hand, KM74 G has newer nss files.
Probably Firefox 31+ isn't testest with the Vbemp driver here until now. I'm not sure.
To play youtube videos, you need at least Firefox 43. That is what my last tests showed. Of course, this may have already changed again.

But yesterday, I also tested Firefox, here 52, out of curiosity with the Vbemp driver. System: Real machine, Win98SE, CPU Intel P4 Northwood, 1 GB RAM, chip Via P4M800, Board MS7104. Basically I was able to play Youtube videos with Firefox 52. However, an extreme amount of patience is required until the youtube page is loaded. It's a horror. The resolution is low and it's a bit choppy. In terms of sound, I had done something wrong. 98 didn't recognise the card correctly or the card is somehow blocked. I haven't investigated this further.
YT loads slowly anyway and especially with this old hardware. Test it on your system and see, if it works and tell us what you found out.

Note for sound: Perhaps one Problem more Firefox 15 and higher requires a WDM Sound driver. HD Audio (Audio driver for Realtek HD Audio Hardware? [Testing thread]) not tested with Firefox yet. Vxd drivers are possible up to version 10 (14) only.

- K-Meleon74: instead of www.reddit.com  use old.reddit.com

very well i will try firefox 52. but currently i use the hdalaudio driver that works with hdatsr. so basically im not sure if that would work. the thing is, i could easily plug in some usb speakers or my usb headset. for that i already know safe that it works without any trouble. 

since im using a much newer machine from 2014 with windows 98se i have an intel core i7 with 512MB useable RAM (originally 8GB). most of the instructions should work for the cpu, at least i hope. the vbem driver is active as you already know, but for the intel hd graphics (not the second nvidia card that is integrated too). 

 

is there anything i need to check on to run firefox 52? not sure if there are special dependencies kernelex based or anything

[schwups]

See my topic Windows 9x Member Projects "Firefox 24 - 52 for ME and 98".

[Danielx]

4 hours ago, schwups said:

See my topic Windows 9x Member Projects "Firefox 24 - 52 for ME and 98".

so i just did. i downloaded firefox 52.8, followed all steps deliberately with all the DLLs, kextensions and whatelse not.
but, guess what. @awkduckseems to be a very clever duck indeed, since he or she was right!
youtube indeed *does* work with firefox 52.8 in this situation. maybe work is not the right word for it, it tries to do its work, almost. 
well what happens if i try to open youtube.com? it loads like forever, than it draws correctly. fascinating sight to see, youtube.com in 2023 on a windows98se, still wonderous and marvelous!
the best experience you could probably get with firefox 52.8 on w98se is disabling all cache, disable hardware acc (at my case with vbem), disable all site prefetching in about:config and such.  then you use google to search a certain video and strangely enough it never can remember any of your cookie settings and you get more advertisements thrown at than on any other device and it is slow. but..

it works! you even see the video and even with vbem in acceptable speed. artifacts happen thou, but most of the time the video works quite well. and if u wait long enough rest of the youtube page is loading as well, it only takes a lot of time till everything is ready. i guess it has to do with only having one core able to work with in w98se and few extensions of cpu may not be used correctly? that i would just assume. all over all, you *can* watch videos with it.
Btw i'm using the hdatsr from 16-bit. with this it wont play sound in youtube. however, with my usb headset sound from youtube works without any problems. fullscreen is impossible thou because of vbem or the firefox incompatibility with windows or disabled hardware acceleration. anyways, it is interesting how far we have come with this  never expected it to reach that deep into  the depths of modern web.

[schwups]

Which vbemp version did you use - 32,64 or 128MB?

[Danielx]

16 hours ago, schwups said:

Which vbemp version did you use - 32,64 or 128MB?

It is the 128MB version. In the meantime i installed DirectX 9.0c, no change (but i really didnt expected any changes because i only installed a runtime). 

Fullscreen does work but Video and sound stutters. I guess we really reached the end of the capabilities here since my assumption is that new drivers would prove the same effect. Its Firefox on this os that is indeed too much. I mean w98 can only handle 1GB ram at max. So what Happens if u try to open YouTube on w10?

If i Open only few small tabs normal sites we already consume 200-300MB. YouTube the utilization of ram is increasing. 

So im ready to accept that this might be the best that is possible.

[schwups]

Surely, the "CPU one core use" significantly reduces the performance. With Intel Core 2 Duo Wolfsdale 8xxxx I lose one core, but the used one has the complete L2 cache of 6MB available and I see NV Geforce 6 or 7 (256MB) with driver support significantly increases the performance compared to the vbemp solution. Memory: 512MB is clearly too little. The known entry in the system.ini enables to use 1GB on 98 and up to 2GB on ME. RLoew's Memory Patch allows more than 3GB. Therewith browsers like Firefox 52 work with quite good speed. YT video resolution/quality 720p is no problem and 1080pHD usually works as well. This depends mainly on the internet speed.

Edited March 31, 2023 by schwups

[defuser]

On 30.03.2023 at 13:53, Danielx said:

so i just did. i downloaded firefox 52.8, followed all steps deliberately with all the DLLs, kextensions and whatelse not.
but, guess what. @awkduckseems to be a very clever duck indeed, since he or she was right!
youtube indeed *does* work with firefox 52.8 in this situation. maybe work is not the right word for it, it tries to do its work, almost. 
well what happens if i try to open youtube.com? it loads like forever, than it draws correctly. fascinating sight to see, youtube.com in 2023 on a windows98se, still wonderous and marvelous!
the best experience you could probably get with firefox 52.8 on w98se is disabling all cache, disable hardware acc (at my case with vbem), disable all site prefetching in about:config and such.  then you use google to search a certain video and strangely enough it never can remember any of your cookie settings and you get more advertisements thrown at than on any other device and it is slow. but..

it works! you even see the video and even with vbem in acceptable speed. artifacts happen thou, but most of the time the video works quite well. and if u wait long enough rest of the youtube page is loading as well, it only takes a lot of time till everything is ready. i guess it has to do with only having one core able to work with in w98se and few extensions of cpu may not be used correctly? that i would just assume. all over all, you *can* watch videos with it.
Btw i'm using the hdatsr from 16-bit. with this it wont play sound in youtube. however, with my usb headset sound from youtube works without any problems. fullscreen is impossible thou because of vbem or the firefox incompatibility with windows or disabled hardware acceleration. anyways, it is interesting how far we have come with this  never expected it to reach that deep into  the depths of modern web.

This is very good news! Since there was no sound with any proven drivers under Windows 98 yet. I even tried an unofficial WDM driver for Sound Blaster 16 ISA (From Windows ME, where there is sound with it). Would it be difficult for you to write with which USB headset you have achieved such success (the name of the model at least) and which drivers you put on it (You can specify a link to them or add here)?

[defuser]

I have already thought about the option of purchasing a separate sound card myself, especially for Firefox 52.9 and Mypal 29.3.0, so that there would be sound in the browser. But there was no reliable confirmation. Now, thanks to you, it is there. It's not even difficult to make a shortcut that will switch the sound card by default before launching the browser and return everything as it was after. And the output from this sound card can be combined with the main one (If desired). A complicated scheme, yes, but I don't see any other way out (Except to use the browser in a virtual machine, which negatively affects the YouTube frame rate). But for the successful implementation of this, you need to know exactly which USB card model you should purchase and which drivers to install on it. So thank you for confirming that such a scheme will, in principle, work under Windows 98 and it will be even better if you write with which sound card and which drivers you managed to do it (So that it would be clear what to buy). Thanks.

As for YouTube's performance. Firstly, as mentioned above, links can be searched through a search engine, you can also use an alternative muzzle (Links to them can be found on the Internet). In principle, you can also watch there, they do not lag so much and are even less demanding on the browser version (You need to choose the right one among them). Also, you can open the link instead of:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXXXXXXXXXX

https://www.youtube.com/embed/XXXXXXXXXXX

then only the video itself will open. You can also look in the direction of extensions that change UserAgent. The iPad version is more lightweight, but at the same time it is complete. Mobile version also. But these are all crutches, it's about viewing the YouTube site itself "as is", and nothing can be done here, because browser engines are outdated. If only somehow run Mypal68 (For XP initially which) or MiniChrome from Kafan for Windows XP (Based on Chromium 87). Their engines are better compatible with modern YouTube.