On Thu, 11 Jan 2018 16:33:56 -0600, Mark Lloyd wrote:

On 01/11/2018 09:29 AM, wrote:

[snip]

But
connecting with Windows 98, works fairly good, but limits browsers to
Firefox 3.x. (which of course cant handle HTML5 or most HTTPS, and gives
constant script errors).

You get get up to 9.x (maybe higher) with KernelEX . It does support
some new features like the fullscreen API.

I cant even use a cellphone at my location, NO SERVICE. The only way I
could get fast internet would be to spend around $150 per month for a
satellite dish, which could require installing a tall pole to mount the
dish, at a cost of several thousand to install. I'm retired and on a
fixed income. The dish is NOT gonna happen.

I have had satellite internet (Starband, around 2001). It was nearly
unusable because of the high and variable latency.

[snip]

I have kernel-ex installed. It is helpful with some stuff, but not
browsers. I have tried numerous versions of FF beyond 3.x, and they are
very unstable, or dont work at all. By default, FF 2.x was the limit
without kernel-ex. With it, FF 3.x works, but nothing higher. Some of
them load, but not properly in all cases. Lots of crashes and errors.

Then again, I doubt any of those old versions of FF would work well
today with all the security issues and HTML5. Even my laptop that I use
at WIFI spots (with XP), began acting flakey recently because I was
using FF 18.x. I finally had to upgrade that to a newer version, which
works but runs sluggishly because it's so bloated and that laptop is an
older and slower computer. (And I'm still not using the newest version
of FF on that laptop).

I keep asking when this will all end? Why is all this bloat and complex
junk needed, just to read some text and see some pictures? What ever
happened to the old web that was useful? I suspect they are doing this
to force everyone to keep buying new computers and operating systems. In
all honesty, I can use my old Win98 computer to do anything I can do on
any newer computer, and it does it well. I can watch videos and
everything. Win98 had some limitations with USB support though.

What really bugs me is that I cant even read a Wikipedia site anymore
because of the security crap. Why is all this security needed, just to
read a simple page of text and some pictures? The answer to that is IT'S
NOT NEEDED. It's only needed because of all the scripts and CSS junk
that's being used these days. The internet was much more secure before
they began adding all that junk. And before they allowed Facebook and
Google to track everyone online.

We need to go backwards if the web is going to continue being useful,
but I dont see that happening, because Google, Facebook, and some others
would lose money.....