Некоторые последние версии свободного ПО для Windows 98/Me

Изначально постил как комментарий под этим видео, но несколько дней позже, обнаружил, что коммент или не постился, или был устранён:
• самой системой комментарий — если по желанию автора канала комментарии с линками не постятся, а целое имя пакета "OpenOffice.org" автоматически выставился как линк, и я сам не был достаточно осторожным, чтоб заменять обычную точку на какую-то альтернативную орфографическую точку;
• или автором видео — я немного покритиковал конструктивно: "Вообще вместо того, чтоб ставить Microsoft Office, лучше было бы ставить OpenOffice.org."
Ну не судьба, потому, что другой один мой комментарий под тем же видео как раз выжил. Видео из жанра "Выживание под Windows ME в 201x. году".

Итак, переходим к теме поста.

• RetroZilla 2.2 — браузер на базе SeaMonkey. Есть изначальная версия от rn10950, и более новые варианты от Roytam1. Есть поддержка протокола TLS 1.2, но в изначальной версии от rn10950 это надо включить на странице about:config. В версии от Roytam1 TLS 1.2 включена по умолчению. Рекомендую расширение NoScript 1.10 для блокировки скриптов.

• GIMP 2.2.17 — графический пакет. Надобна отдельная инсталляция теки GTK 2.6.
• Чат-программа Pidgin IM 2.6.6 тоже работает с отдельным GTK 2.6.
• Старые версии GTK для Windows доступны в проектах gtk-win и Pidgin IM на сайте Sourceforge; рекомендую GTK 2.6.10 для обеих.
• Gnumeric 1.4.3-rc4 — табличный процессор
• AbiWord 2.5.2 — текстовый процессор

• OpenOffice.org 2.4.3

• Для OpenOffice надобен Java 2 Standard Edition (J2SE) 5.0 Update 22 или предыдущая J2SE 1.4.

• VLC 0.8.6g. Есть и VLC 0.8.6i, но по своему опыту только 0.8.6g была последней работающей версией. Ила даже 0.8.6d.

(Линки пока не ставлю.)

Mozillale NoScripti installimine Windows Vistas

Seesinane on siis eestikeelne kokkuvõte oma varasemast ingliskeelsest blogipostitusest. Alguses kirjutasin selle kohta ühele sõbrale, ning kuna tekst osutus siiski pikemaks, leidsin ma seejärel, et jutt vajab avaldamist.

Hiljuti ühes Windows Vistaga masinas avastasin Mozilla 1.7.13. Tegemist on siis tarkvarapaketiga, mille lehitsejamoodul on sama vana kui Firefox 1.0.8 (Aprill 2006; esitlusmootor pärineb 2004. aastast ja Mozilla enda arhitektuur 2001.-st aastast).

Et Mozilla mõnede lehekülgede JavaScripti pärast kokku ei jookseks, läks alguses palju aega, et kuidas sellele NoScript nii peale panna, et töötaks, sest umbes sama vanale Firefoxile Knoppix 4.0.2-s (2005) sai küll. Lõpuks jätsin asja katki...

Mõni kuu hiljem leidsin lahenduse (Mozilla tuli käima panna administraatori õigustega) ja siis panin peale NoScripti, aga nii, et see tuli kindlasti installida Mozilla kasutajaprofiili kataloogi.

SeaMonkey 1.1-ga sellist probleemi ei tohiks olla, sest SeaMonkey 1.1 ja Windows Vista arendus/väljalase langes umbes samale ajale, et põhimõtteliselt sai seda Vista jaoks siis veel kohendada nii, et oleks parem ühilduvus.

SeaMonkey 1.1.19 on üks viimastest vabatarkvaralistest graafilistest lehitsejatest, mis töötab Windows 98/Me peal.

Windows Me, Netscape 4.x

This text was written as a series of replies I posted in the YouTube comments section of a promotional introduction video of Windows Me, which can be found in the said operating system.

Since the video was not uploaded from the official source, chances are that the video and the comments to it won't be available at some point of time. So I posted them here for future reference.

And since Blogspot does not have limits on the amount of text, then I have edited the replies a bit to add text.

Windows Me was really good on something like a 667 MHz CPU and 128Mb RAM at the time. If you want to run reasonably modern software without swapping much, then you need 256 Mb of RAM (factor in [modern] web browser, IM program, OpenOffice 2.4.3).

Windows Me can run on less, of course, as it was included in computers that only had 64Mb of RAM.

At one point, Windows xp ran fine with 128 Mb RAM, but nowadays it needs 512M RAM as a real-life minimum to keep the system secure & do something productive.

These specs were for a new PC from around 2000 that was first supplied with only 64 Mb RAM. I requested it have 128 Mb, since the lesser setup was slow with multimedia of the time (it had fast Internet, so I knew it was the amount of RAM). After the RAM upgrade, using the computer was a breeze.

I also took very good care of the hard drive and the OS, keeping it updated & secure, and since its users mostly used Netscape for business, then viruses and exploits never made it there.

At that time it [the popular version of Netscape] was Netscape Communciator 4.x. I think on that PC we stuck with 4.79 for a long time (the last of 4.x was 4.8, released in 2002 :-). The 4.x branch was the first to support CSS, but that was the only feature which caused crashes when turned on (especially in 4.0x), so I kept it off on all our Netscapes, which were fairly solid after that. Despite the clunky Navigator, the best part was the e-mail client, which introduced mail filters to fight spam (then seen as controversial).

We skipped Netscape 6, never considered 7.x, and in newer PC's moved instead to Mozilla, the open-source descendant of Netscape and which Netscape 6 and 7 were based on anyway.

As Mozilla Foundation started Firefox, it ceased Mozilla development, which was taken over by others, and Mozilla Application Suite became SeaMonkey.

The last version of SeaMonkey for Windows 98/Me is 1.1.19 ([from] 2010); its Gecko rendering engine is a wee bit newer than that of Firefox 2.0 (Gecko 1.8.1.20 vs 1.8.1.24).

What's left of sidebars for Netscape

Ed Mullen has a great page on Netscape and Mozilla tips and even a page that includes installable links to sidebars that can still be added to SeaMonkey 1.1.xx, a successor to Netscape 7/8 and Mozilla Application Suite.

Unfortunately, some of the sidebars are now outdated, half-work, redirect, cannot be found anymore or are completely offline.

Below is a selection of sidebars I found to be interesting to check them out.

Sidebars that still work:

• The Google sidebar works! Yay!
• The Real.com Guide sidebar only offers search for audio, video, and radio stations (no actual Guide to speak of).

...That are outdated:

The CNN Expanded Sidebar is still live, but stopped having updates since two years ago on March 2, 2009: The Dow Jones index dropped below 7000 on that day, because AIG had a record loss, tech gadgets had become a luxury, and "Twilight" stars were huge.

The links to news sites don't work, because they use a redirect via info.netscape.com (which now redirects to netscape.aol.com ).

In terms of context, the "Last updated" text in the sidebar is inaccurate, because it's most likely a script. That sidebar page is now a virtual time capsule of World news.

Netscape Sidebars

...that redirect:

• Netscape WebCenter Travel (webcenter.travel.netscape.com) — Ah, well, this at least redirects to travel.aol.com, but that's it. At least it's topical.
• Netscape Celebrities (celebrities.netscape.com) — redirects within the sidebar to netscape.aol.com.
• Netscape TV Listings (tv.netscape.com) — redirects in-sidebar to netscape.aol.com.

...that don't work anymore:

(in descending order of importance)

• Netscape Time Zone Converter (cgi.netscape.com) — "Not found" — Ed Mullen's screenshot of it is now a historical artifact;
• Netscape Netbusiness — because netbusiness.netscape.com is completely offline (no 404 page, even);
• Netscape Netbusiness Industry Headlines (netbusiness.netscape.com) — domain is offline;
• Netscape Netbusiness Search (netbusiness.netscape.com) — offline;
• Netscape DevEdge (developer.netscape.com): "This tab is not available right now." — Taken offline since about 11.10.2004 and then moved to devedge-temp.mozilla.org/index_en.html
   
• Netscape Home Improvement (homeimprovement.netscape.com) — "Not Found";
• Netscape Home Improvement House and Home (homeimprovement.netscape.com) — "Not Found";
• Netscape Lifestyles Pet tools (lifestyles.netscape.com) — "Not Found".
   
• American Greetings (lifestyles.netscape.com) — "Not Found"

• The OS/2 sidebar does not work either, because os2.org cannot be reached.

Speaking of which — OS/2 has officially outlived Windows 9x, because according to screenshots, Mozilla Firefox 3.5.4 works in it. OS/2 can also run OpenOffice.org 3.1.1 and OS/2 now lives on as eComStation, where Firefox 3.6 and 4.0 (beta) can also be run.

eComStation is capable of running OpenOffice.org 3.2, VLC Media Player 1.1.4, and CUPS, a free software printer framework (modern printer support).

While Windows 9x only supports Mozilla Firefox 2.0, OpenOffice.org 2.4, and has ageing support for printers (I admit as much that some printers useless with CUPS are supported in Windows 9x)...

Older Flashblock and NoScript for older Firefox and SeaMonkey versions

If you're ever stuck with an older computer and a Live CD (an older version of Knoppix) or an older computer with Windows 95/98/Me and an older version of Firefox or Mozilla or SeaMonkey, then useful extensions (add-ons, but not plugins) for these still exist and can be installed.

(If installing them from a website won't work, download an .xpi separately and install from local storage.)

The most recent version of NoScript to support —

• Mozilla Firefox 1.0.x (in my case): 1.1.4.7 (XPI)

01.02.2011.

Noscript caveat:
Version 1.1.4.7 does not block META redirects within <NOSCRIPT> elements in HTML. — I saw this with one Russian social networking site.

The noscript.forbidMetaRefresh boolean (set to true) in about:config only applies to refresh elements outside <NOSCRIPT> tags.

Turned out that the functionality blocking META-refresh-in-<NOSCRIPT>-tags was first introduced with version 1.1.4.8RC1 of NoScript, which only supports Mozilla Firefox 1.5 or newer.

02.02.2011.

Multiple Mozilla Firefox 1.0 caveats with the modern Internet:

• Firefox 1.0 is so outdated that only "Basic", "Classic" and "Lite" versions of various popular services work. Remember to place these services' old versions' addresses in the Bookmarks menu or toolbar.
• Windows Live sign-in doesn't work at all.
• Nowadays' popular Websites use scripts and AJAX so intensively that NoScript is invaluable in suppressing unnecessary scripts that may hog system resources (also applies to Firefox 2 and SeaMonkey 1.x).

Windows 95	Firefox 1.5–1.5.0.3:	NoScript 1.5.2 (XPI)
	Firefox 1.5.0.4:	NoScript 1.8.1.3
	Firefox 1.5–	NoScript 1.10	SeaMonkey 1.1.17 –1.1.19
Windows 98/Me	Firefox 2.0.0.20
28.01.2016.
Windows 2000	Firefox 12.0	NoScript 2.9.0.1rc1	SeaMonkey 2.9.1

NoScript versions page

I know I haven't posted much about Flashblock, but it can be had from flashblock.mozdev.org

The legacy options presented in this post pertain to situations where it's impossible to upgrade to SeaMonkey 1.1.19, such as an out of date Live CD (and what if someone has only that?).

Yet when it comes to a Windows 9x operating system, then it's best to install or upgrade to SeaMonkey 1.1.19. Reasons for this in one of my previous posts.

Best Gecko-based browser for Windows 9x

The latest and last versions of Gecko-based browsers to run on Vanilla Windows 98/Me (and 95, with updates and other reservations) are

• Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.20 (Gecko 1.8.1.20, 20081217),
• K-Meleon 1.5.4 (Gecko 1.8.1.24pre, released on 05.03.2010) and
• SeaMonkey 1.1.19 (Gecko 1.8.1.24, released on 16.03.2010).

If there were a competition between the three, then the winner would be SeaMonkey.

The reasons are thus:

• Under similar limited circumstances, SeaMonkey 1.1 is more responsive than Mozilla Firefox  2.

  Here's why: SeaMonkey 1.1's XPFE/XPToolkit-based user interface (UI) technology dates back to Mozilla Application Suite (v1.0 released 05.06.2002, but pre-releases were usable since a year before), while Mozilla Firefox 2.0 (2006) is completely based on a newer toolkit (XUL).

• SeaMonkey 1.1.19 has a newer and more secure Gecko layout engine than Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.20 and K-Meleon.
• SeaMonkey 1.1 has been supported by the two most important extensions to grace web surfing: Flashblock and NoScript.

  K-Meleon also uses the native Windows API for its UI, meaning that it can't run extensions which normally work in SeaMonkey or Mozilla Firefox.
  
  While K-Meleon comes close with its quick UI responsiveness and its rendering engine, it's only good for websites that are safe and are known to not be resource-intensive. Most of the latter still exist as they are, but the most popular sites (for webmail and news) are regularly redesigned to include more fancy features and are therefore made more demanding by way of including extensive JavaScript and AJAX technologies and often embedding multiple manifestations of the Adobe Flash plugin.

Which is why SeaMonkey 1.1.19 adorned with NoScript and Flashblock extensions is about the best Gecko-based browser solution that there is for Windows 9x, even Windows 95.

The only caveat is that SeaMonkey requires at least 64 Mb of RAM to run passably and at least a 266 MHz CPU. Well, a Navigator-only one-window/one-or-two-tab solution works in a PC with just a slightly lesser CPU.

K-Meleon is best for computers with 32–48 Mb of RAM (certainly less than 64 Mb).
Some words of caution: Java and JavaScript could only be allowed for safe and non-demanding websites. Because of a lack of NoScript or like extension for K-Meleon, JavaScript should be turned off for casual browsing (sometimes even a Google Search result may cause a hiccup). Keeping Java on is only recommended when a user consciously recognizes a real and pressing need to use that plugin (maybe a map application over the web).

On Plugins

Although Adobe Acrobat Reader 6.0.6 (released/updated last in 2003) is about the last version for Windows 98 as far as I know, it is still outdated and so more vulnerable to attacks that use the Reader.

While older computers might best handle even older versions of Acrobat Reader, it's most important to disable Acrobat (Java)Script in the Reader's preferences, no matter the version. This should somehow prevent malicious websites using the Reader as an attack vector.

A complete alternative to using Adobe Reader in old computers is muPDF: It's much less resource intensive, supports the newest PDF document display standard (PDF 1.7) and does not use AcroScript. muPDF does not support interactive PDF elements; this is both a caveat and a security/speed measure. muPDF does capture the file type association in Windows, so when using the app, then it's an either-or situation between it and Acrobat Reader. It should still be a no-brainer in old computers.

msn connectivity of Pidgin 2.6.6 in Windows 98

I very recently attempted to connect with Pidgin IM 2.6.6 (the last to run on Windows 98, AFAIK) to the .NET Messenger Service, which handles Windows Live Messenger connections. In short, I wanted to connect to msn, but it was impossible because of certificate issues.

The typical solution is to upgrade Pidgin to version 2.7.6, but this version relies on the gtk+ 2.10.xx or newer runtime (a library), which won't run on Windows 98/SE, so users of this operating system may feel stuck.

The solution is thus:

• Close Pidgin.
• The real solution is at SQuID's rants blog post or at the Pidgin developer site.
• Caveats: The filenames must be
  Microsoft_Secure_Server_Authority_2010.pem
  and
  Microsoft_Secure_Server_Authority_2010.pem
  If by any chance the files saved save as *.pem.log
  or anything that does not directly end with a .pem extension, then rename them to *.pem (the asterisk stands for filenames).

The following was my initial solution, but there was a chance that it might not have worked. For other purposes, I left it as a tutorial on how to export and save certificates in W98/Me.

• Go to
  C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\.purple\certificates\x509\tls_peers
  or
  C:\WINDOWS\Profiles\Profilename\Application Data\.purple\certificates\x509\tls_peers
• There you will see what appear to be .com (command) files which are appropriately shown as such by Windows Explorer, but they are actually certificates. Amongst them you will see the omega.contacts.msn.com file. Back that file up by moving it somewhere else, but keep that directory window open and copy its address bar contents into the clipboard.
• With Internet Explorer, connect to
  https://omega.contacts.msn.com
  You may get a denied directory listing, but perhaps the most important part of it is that you'll be presented with a new certificate. —
• View the certificate, go to the Details tab.
• In the Details tab, click the "Copy to File..." button;
• In the Certificate Manager Export Wizard, click next;
• Choose the Base64 encoded X.509 (.CER) format, click the Next button;
• In the Export File Name step, browse to
  C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\.purple\certificates\x509\tls_peers
  or your profile location (best now to paste the location of .purple certificates into the File Name field and then pressing the Enter button for the filepicker to reach the folder), then write the filename as omega.contacts.msn.com, click Save. As the full filename path is now given in the "File name:" field, click Next.
• In the next step, you'll see the certificate export summary, where you'll just have to click Finish and the system will prompt that the export has completed successfully. But that's not everything.
• Restore the abovementioned tls_peers folder window and you'll see that omega.contacts.msn.com may not be that, but omega.contacts.msn.com.cer

  (that is, if you can see the .cer extension. If not, but the file has a certificate icon and not a program icon, go to View > Folder Options > View tab > and in Advanced Settings, uncheck "Hide file extensions for known file types", click OK).

  The solution is to rename the .cer file by removing .cer from the filename. Windows will ask for a confirmation as to changing the file extension (the renamed file will have .com extension). Confirm the rename.
• If it's impossible to change Windows settings as to showing filename extensions (you may be using a work computer, but such a situation is rare with a Windows 9x PC), and if you still can access MS-DOS Prompt, then rename the file from there:
  Type
  cd "C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\.purple\certificates\x509\tls_peers"
  or just type
  cd "
  and paste the certificate directory address by accessing the window menu (click once on the MS-DOS icon and choose Paste from the Edit submenu), type another quote,
  press Enter.
  Your profile directory path may vary as stated above depending on settings.
  Use dir command to get a directory listing. That should show short and long file names. If you see omega.contacts.msn.com.cer as the filename of the msn certificate, rename it:
  rename omega.contacts.msn.com.cer omega.contacts.msn.com
  That should do it. Type exit, press Enter key to close the MS-DOS Prompt window.
• Now start Pidgin and see what happens at the msn login. I could successfuly log in, so you should hopefully not have any trouble either.

I got the initial above solution from Ticket #12906 at the Pidgin developer site.

Non-keyboard characters in Pidgin IM and Windows 9x

This page neatly describes what to do to write non-keyboard characters in Pidgin.

Keep in mind that because the latest major version of Gtk+ for Windows 9x is 2.6, the new input method introduced in Gtk+ 2.10.0 won't work. (Users of Windows 2000 and newer are spared of this).

In Windows 9x, you have to hold down the Ctrl+Shift keys and type a hexadecimal Unicode number for the character.

While the Character Map in Windows 2000 and newer supports showing Unicode character numbers, Windows 9x versions don't.

One workaround is to use the Windows Calculator to get the hex value of a typable character. Open it, select set the calculator view to scientific, type the given Alt+xXXX value and then click on the Hex radio button. This will convert the decimal value to hexadecimal. 0176 or just 176 yields a degree ° sign, the hexadecimal value for this is B0.

Keyboard shortcuts for Dec/Hex conversion in Calculator:
F5 for Hexadecimal (Hex) and F6 for Decimal (Dec).