Working XP browser in 2018...

[Sighlass]

As a few of us old computer users know, getting around on XP is getting harder by the day.

I found a old fork off of Pale Moon that still works and I am even getting HTML5 YouTube videos to play now that were not on my old IceDragon browser.

MYPAL is the browser... and I am able to get most my add-ons that I used from Firefox to work on it. I did have to use the Legacy version of Ublock Origin (version 1.13.8) to get my fave adblock program to work (and set it not to update).

I just wanted to put this here in the computer section in case some other dinosaurs computer folks wanted to try it.

URL for latest version below...

https://github.com/Feodor2/Mypal/releases

[roamer_1]

Sooner or later, you're just gonna have to take it out back and shoot it, @Sighlass   

To my knowledge, Opera supported XP longer than anyone.

[Wingnut]

There is always Vista to fall back on @Sighlass.
/s

[roamer_1]

Heck, Lubuntu would prolly run on that thing... And prolly better.

[Sighlass]

Sooner or later, you're just gonna have to take it out back and shoot it, @Sighlass   

To my knowledge, Opera supported XP longer than anyone.

I am getting pretty useless myself.... so figure when XP is gone, I might be next. lol...

Funny the kids and wife all like their newer computers, but it is me they take it to to fix. I just love my old XP computer with the programs I have installed, that just do what I need it to do. I also like that I am still sticking it to google and other media giants when I don't enable their junk to check what I play on my computer.

[roamer_1]

I am getting pretty useless myself.... so figure when XP is gone, I might be next. lol...

Funny the kids and wife all like their newer computers, but it is me they take it to to fix. I just love my old XP computer with the programs I have installed, that just do what I need it to do. I also like that I am still sticking it to google and other media giants when I don't enable their junk to check what I play on my computer.

Yeah... I am having fun right now... My son found a couple of Dell 2120 itty bitty notebook pooters...
They came with Win7Pro/32, loooong ago, and we are having a friendly battle to see who can make Win10Pro  run best on it...

It's been fun taking a carving knife to Win10... I only have 2g of ram to work with... And I still have a fully functional Win10Pro-Slim that is living in less than 800mg of ram at idle... I am pretty proud of that.

But I had to go to Chrome, or maybe Opera, because Firefox is just too fat... It works fine once it is up, but it takes a month to get up... And I may just have to step off of Thunderbird too, for the same reason...Pegasus and Eudora are still around, but I want calendar and tasks in it too.... So that's gonna be tough.

All it needs to do is run internet, play 780 vid on youtube, run mail/PIM, and run Remote Desktop to control my other boxen...

And I am really close to having that done.

 

[corbe]

   I can remember using Edlin to slice and dice Video/Sound drivers in that proverbial 740K to 1M space in Win 3.1/95/98/ME memory.

[Sighlass]

Yeah... I am having fun right now... My son found a couple of Dell 2120 itty bitty notebook pooters...
They came with Win7Pro/32, loooong ago, and we are having a friendly battle to see who can make Win10Pro  run best on it...

It's been fun taking a carving knife to Win10... I only have 2g of ram to work with... And I still have a fully functional Win10Pro-Slim that is living in less than 800mg of ram at idle... I am pretty proud of that.

But I had to go to Chrome, or maybe Opera, because Firefox is just too fat... It works fine once it is up, but it takes a month to get up... And I may just have to step off of Thunderbird too, for the same reason...Pegasus and Eudora are still around, but I want calendar and tasks in it too.... So that's gonna be tough.

All it needs to do is run internet, play 780 vid on youtube, run mail/PIM, and run Remote Desktop to control my other boxen...

And I am really close to having that done.

 

You sound like a better computer guy than me, I did take over kids computers for a couple days to remove all the junk of Win10 I could find (lot of searching for what needed to be deleted).... They really know how to bloat up software now days, no wonder they need such super processors with Ram out the yahoo.

Always liked the Pale Moon and IceDragon browsers (both worked off an earlier Firefox build)... Mainly because I liked the add-ons folks made for them. I don't have to have anything fancy, but I be dang if I am gonna browse without an adblock program. That I have to have. I like privacy so I have a cookie eater/blocker program, and a flashblock program that toggles on and off as needed (w/ whitelist).

All was going fine until everyone started switching to HTML5 exclusively, and people started dropping support for browser updates. I was losing some of the streaming ability (Fox News and others)... but this new browser has gave me back that ability. I am happy...

Secret to long computer life, good fan, and blowing out the dust every few months with an air hose.

[roamer_1]

Gosh! I wish I had 98SE That'd FLY on 2g of ram... But sadly, it sucks in power options, so not any good for a notebook. 

But it is REAL funny to see Win 10 with less than 10 items in Programs and Features...
It is running entire in under 800 mg. I wanna get it down to 512, but prolly not. 600 prolly not. Even 700 is praying at this point.

[InHeavenThereIsNoBeer]

I am getting pretty useless myself.... so figure when XP is gone, I might be next. lol...

Funny the kids and wife all like their newer computers, but it is me they take it to to fix. I just love my old XP computer with the programs I have installed, that just do what I need it to do. I also like that I am still sticking it to google and other media giants when I don't enable their junk to check what I play on my computer.

I have programs like that that I've used daily for over 25 years.  There's new bells and whistles, if I want to use them, but no one tries to force them on me, or breaks the old ones.  My desktop configuration has been the same for over 20.  I'm sure some of the fancy new stuff could be useful, but I can do everything I need through muscle memory and I go years without finding the need to add something new.  All while having continuing access to security and other updates.

If you ever have to give up XP, try out some Linux desktops.  You can download a live CD image, or these days more likely you'll just copy it to a USB stick, and boot off of it without making any changes to your computer.  Probably something with ubuntu or mint in the name (Xubuntu with the, I'm pretty sure, default xfce4 window manager[1] is just stupid easy to use).  A search on "ubuntu window manager XP" provides plenty of info if you want to stick close to what you're used to.  Then if you really don't want to give up your apps, you can (probably) run them using a program called wine, or (definitely) take your old XP machine and turn it into a virtual machine.

Or not.  Makes no difference to me.  But it's probably easier at some point to just make a one time switch and have stuff just work.

If you decide on one of the ubuntus, consider one that has LTS (long term support) in the name or description.  This is a commitment to continue providing support updates for several years without having to do an update to the next version.

[1]  AFAIK, every time windows has a new version, they move a bunch of stuff around.  Some people like it, some don't, but you pretty much have to accept the new way of doing things.  They have changed the window manager "for" you.  With Linux, there are lots of window managers to choose from, and if you like your window manager you can keep your window manager.

[InHeavenThereIsNoBeer]

Yeah... I am having fun right now... My son found a couple of Dell 2120 itty bitty notebook pooters...
They came with Win7Pro/32, loooong ago, and we are having a friendly battle to see who can make Win10Pro  run best on it...

It's been fun taking a carving knife to Win10... I only have 2g of ram to work with... And I still have a fully functional Win10Pro-Slim that is living in less than 800mg of ram at idle... I am pretty proud of that.

But I had to go to Chrome, or maybe Opera, because Firefox is just too fat... It works fine once it is up, but it takes a month to get up... And I may just have to step off of Thunderbird too, for the same reason...Pegasus and Eudora are still around, but I want calendar and tasks in it too.... So that's gonna be tough.

All it needs to do is run internet, play 780 vid on youtube, run mail/PIM, and run Remote Desktop to control my other boxen...

And I am really close to having that done.

 

I'm getting close to retiring the D400 I'm sitting at now.  It was pretty sweet back in the day, with a Gb NIC and GB of RAM.  HDD died several years ago, and I didn't have another of the same form factor so it network boots.  Battery can still handle a power outage of several seconds.  But, alas, the digital video (DVI) died and I can no longer run the TV I bought to use as a monitor.

Might be interesting to put it on ebay and see how much it would cost me to ship it to someone.

[roamer_1]

HDD died several years ago, and I didn't have another of the same form factor so it network boots. 

You know what's REALLY funny?
Don't get me wrong... This little 2120 is respectable standing alone, and will fulfill it's function. It will never be a speed demon, but I can get around ok... It needs to do browsing, email, and PIM, and stand in for a laptop if I am out in the sticks or traveling...

But when I am home, I RDP into my main whip (*which is a ground-pounder), and its response over RDP is super fast! I only wish that little notebook was that fast on it's own! It is literally better to RDP into my whip and do my browsing on it! Go figger!
 

[roamer_1]

You sound like a better computer guy than me [...]

Nah... this is just right exactly in my wheelhouse. I have been making portable miniwins since Win31 days... It has been an ongoing part of my tech support milieu, especially since win2k came out without a boot disk. I am still supporting a miniwin7 and have a mini10, but it is still kinda a work in progress... I am using it now, because it detects better than Win7, but the Win7mini is tried and true...

So anyway, making a Win10Slim is just playing around for me :) The trick is how skinny can you make it and still maintain full capability.

I did take over kids computers for a couple days to remove all the junk of Win10 I could find (lot of searching for what needed to be deleted).... They really know how to bloat up software now days, no wonder they need such super processors with Ram out the yahoo.

I am pretty handy at that... If you need a hand with it, let me know.

Always liked the Pale Moon and IceDragon browsers (both worked off an earlier Firefox build)... Mainly because I liked the add-ons folks made for them. I don't have to have anything fancy, but I be dang if I am gonna browse without an adblock program. That I have to have. I like privacy so I have a cookie eater/blocker program, and a flashblock program that toggles on and off as needed (w/ whitelist).

I am stuck on browsers... I mean, I have grown steadily attached to FF since it began syncing... I have been a FF guy ever since they started up. I recently began moving over to Chrome, just for the speed....but even at that, I am loathe to even mess with anything else - even Opera, which is a Google owned browser now too (and even faster than Chrome)...

All was going fine until everyone started switching to HTML5 exclusively, and people started dropping support for browser updates. I was losing some of the streaming ability (Fox News and others)... but this new browser has gave me back that ability. I am happy...

Secret to long computer life, good fan, and blowing out the dust every few months with an air hose.

Yeah, I wouldn't have the patience for it... The minute I am fighting to keep it alive, I am going to something else... Computers are SO CHEAP now... The box that runs my main TV is an old Dell I picked up for somewhere between $50 and $70 bucks... and it's a 4-core i5 with 8 gigs of ram. All it needed was a HDD and a reload and zoom baby! I have since converted it to Win10/64, and it is the main media server for the house...

With that as an example, why would I suffer an old box for a mere pittance like that? As it turns out, The machine I retired form that station went to power the TV in the bedroom, and I sold the 2 core machine from that station for 50 bucks, so I am really not out much at all, other than elbow grease. Why fight it? 

There is thrift, but sometimes you can chase it too far.  The sweet spot is when you can sell your outgoing gear for enough to supplement the incoming gear... And I actually wind up cheaper doing that. At least most of the time.

[InHeavenThereIsNoBeer]

You know what's REALLY funny?
Don't get me wrong... This little 2120 is respectable standing alone, and will fulfill it's function. It will never be a speed demon, but I can get around ok... It needs to do browsing, email, and PIM, and stand in for a laptop if I am out in the sticks or traveling...

But when I am home, I RDP into my main whip (*which is a ground-pounder), and its response over RDP is super fast! I only wish that little notebook was that fast on it's own! It is literally better to RDP into my whip and do my browsing on it! Go figger!

Same here, though VNC vs RDP.  Everything I do runs on the machine in the back room that has all the disks (and fans) in it that I don't want in my office due to the noise.  The laptop is basically a KVM.

I tried using a tablet with USB keyboard/mouse and HDMI as a KVM, but all the VNC software I could find absolutely insists you use the touchscreen.

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

You can buy a new Windows 10 or Chromebook for pretty cheap these days.

[Restored]

Using XP is like driving around on old, bald tires

[Elderberry]

Using XP is like driving around on old, bald tires

I used to keep my tires until the last ply showed thru. Pre-tubeless days.

I left XP about 3 yrs back. Win10 now, except for a HP Touchpad I found in a trash pile. I loaded android on it and use it for easy-chair web browsing.

[roamer_1]

Same here, though VNC vs RDP.  Everything I do runs on the machine in the back room that has all the disks (and fans) in it that I don't want in my office due to the noise.  The laptop is basically a KVM.

I tried using a tablet with USB keyboard/mouse and HDMI as a KVM, but all the VNC software I could find absolutely insists you use the touchscreen.

@InHeavenThereIsNoBeer
Yeah, I have vnc servers running in everything just in case something goes wrong w/ rdp... Ran tightvnc for years and years... But if you can do rdp... oh man, mo' bedda...

Both my servers are headless, so they are always accessed remotely by nature... And like you, I start a process on the bench, and retire to the living room, or out to the porch, or maybe out to the shed to work on mechanical things... and the laptop or the notebook becomes my interface.

Beats the holy livin heck outta living in all that rf gain like back in the day when I was a basement geek with 10 or more boxes running in a 12x12 room.

 

My kid an I are backing up to each-other... offsite, but still trusted... Now that I have external ports open anyway, my next game is going to be remote via internet... Then I can go to lunch and step into the office any old time I want...

[Blizzardnh]

 

Beats the holy livin heck outta living in all that rf gain like back in the day when I was a basement geek with 10 or more boxes running in a 12x12 room.

I had an apt. like that , computers humming all over. Then I got hitched and it all ended up in the basement some how. Now trying to snag  one of the kids old rooms.

[catfish1957]

Hey everyone....

Bonfire tonight at Sighlass' place......

Don't forget the beer.

[XenaLee]

You can buy a new Windows 10 or Chromebook for pretty cheap these days.

A friend of mine just bought a Windows 10 Dell, 500G HD, laptop for only $200.  Damned good deal when you catch them on sale.

[roamer_1]

I had an apt. like that , computers humming all over. Then I got hitched and it all ended up in the basement some how. Now trying to snag  one of the kids old rooms.

It's weird.

My living room is 'L' shaped, with the little part of the 'L' being a semi-segregated hallway... The linoleum pours out of the laundry room running toward the back of the house, alongside the living room carpet. Just enough room for my main desk and main test bench. So I spend the day looking right out the living room picture window.

It's a wonderful thing... But man was it hard to start with, coming up out of the basement... So bright and roomy... Made me jittery...

[roamer_1]

Hey everyone....

Bonfire tonight at Sighlass' place......

Don't forget the beer.

woohoo!

Brings me to mind of gamer LAN parties, where we'd all bring our own computer and play DOOM for hours on end.... Or other things that I won't mention here.

It's been a long, long time since I screwed a garbage can handle to the top of a mid-tower box :D

 

[Blizzardnh]

woohoo!

Brings me to mind of gamer LAN parties, where we'd all bring our own computer and play DOOM for hours on end.... Or other things that I won't mention here.

It's been a long, long time since I screwed a garbage can handle to the top of a mid-tower box :D

 

[Sighlass]

Hey everyone....

Bonfire tonight at Sighlass' place......

Don't forget the beer.

Yeah, I still have a floppy drive, I think I disconnected it just cause it probable used up some power for no reason. Still running with my big ole 75 gig hard drive (in which I always keep it 2/3rd empty)...

Gamewise: Maybe Daggerfall (Elder Scrolls 2)... Now free woot (and I have never played it)