Do you know which is the latest web browser compatible with Windows 95 / 98? At the moment I have an Opera 10 working fine; it is very lightweight but very outdated.
I assume that software that works in Windows 95 will work in Windows 98.
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5Does the kind of browser matter? I'm sure the latest version of elinks can be ported to it...– forestCommented Mar 13, 2019 at 8:32
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2I'm reasonably sure I am running Firefox 2.0.0.20 on my W98 box (I'm 3000 miles away at the moment). It works fine for many retro-oriented sites. I regularly use it to hit AmiNet and then RS-232 the downloads to my Amiga.– Geo...Commented Mar 13, 2019 at 14:53
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12In case it wasn't obvious, surfing the web with an old browser and an old OS exposes you to roughly a gazillion 3000day exploits. A Bad Idea. Perhaps in a VM which you reset after each session. But to browse the web you do need to be networked which will require careful setup to protect other machines on your LAN. And you may become a spam or DDoS bot within a minute or two, bothering other people.– Peter - Reinstate MonicaCommented Mar 13, 2019 at 18:50
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8@Peter, but on the other hand, how many exploits are there in the wild that can survive in a W98 environment? In practice, using uncommon environment (esp. OS and browser) by itself greatly reduces the risk.– ZeusCommented Mar 14, 2019 at 6:32
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3Opera up to v12 is what I use. Any version before adapting the new GUI should work.– OvermindCommented Mar 14, 2019 at 7:41
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8 Answers
That latest web browser I am able to find is K-Meleon 74 Windows 9x Edition. It was created in 2014, when the Pale Moon engine (Goanna) was backported for Windows 2000. It requires KernelEx (and the latest updates) and a rather beefy old machine to run.
You could also experiment with other later browser versions on top of KernelEx, as it adds NT support to Windows 98. If not, then you're stuck with the official latest versions, of which Opera 10 is probably the best.
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I see that K-Meleon by roytam1 has newer beta releasessuch as KM76.1.1-Goanna-20190309 (based in Goanna3). As I cannot find the requirements, I understand that they probably require a winXP. Commented Mar 13, 2019 at 15:20
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1@DanielPerez KernelEx does try to simulation Windows XP, if you tell it too. So it probably wouldn't hurt to try it. But you are correct that usually the limit is Windows 2000, as XP introduced a bunch of new stuff.– trlklyCommented Mar 14, 2019 at 15:24
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2Opera 11.64 is the last 'tested' version for kernelex it seems, though there seems to be workarounds for some versions of 12 - kernelex.sourceforge.net/wiki/Opera– dashnickCommented Mar 14, 2019 at 18:59
I have not tried any of these, not having a Windows 98 system, but a bit of research reveals:
- Internet Explorer 6 SP1 was the last IE, in 2001.
- Firefox 2 was the last Firefox in 2006.
- Netscape 8 (2005) or Netscape 9 (2007) are available here.
- Opera 10 (2009) seems to be the last available, here.
- Safari and Chrome never supported Windows 98.
Browsers carried on supporting Windows XP for much longer, because it was a better platform for software development and testing.
This answer was written before the question was edited to add Windows 95. It's not safe to assume that anything which runs on '98 will run on '95; the reverse is more likely to be true.
answered Mar 12, 2019 at 17:42
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19@Nelson As someone who occasionally browses with javascript completely disabled, I can say this simply isn't true. Many major websites work fine, although others don't. Any my goodness, the web is much faster with no javascript.– xorsystCommented Mar 13, 2019 at 14:25
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5@Zeus why is it foolish to not support older, less secure TLS and SSL versions?– MooCommented Mar 14, 2019 at 7:11
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4Well, in most cases they really have nothing to lose except me as a customer. This 'weakening' is like having a 50 mm armoured door instead of 60 mm for your house. But I'm fine with my beautiful oak door. So let's agree to disagree and not continue such discussion here.– ZeusCommented Mar 14, 2019 at 8:19
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4@Zeus At a minimum, the user needs to be confident that the web site they are at is the one they think they are at, which means there needs to be a certificate on the web site that the user trusts and it needs to match the URL the user typed in. And the mechanism to verify the certificate needs to be as secure as possible. You need TLS and it needs to be a fairly modern version.– JeremyPCommented Mar 14, 2019 at 9:33
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7@Zeus First of all, 99% of users have no way to assess what level of security they want or need. From a websites perspective there's also frankly no sane reason why they'd lower their security standards just because some stubborn users refuse to upgrade their outdated systems.– CubicCommented Mar 14, 2019 at 12:51
It very much depends on what you're trying to do - Lynx's latest release is from 2018, runs on Win95, and is very lightweight, but, you know, lacks graphics.
I also use Dillo on old machines when I just need Wikipedia. (Yeah, it does not have nice prebuilt Win binaries as far as I can tell.)
// would've like to comment, but I lack the reputation!
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1Basic browsing functions are enough, in fact such small amount of RAM would not be able to render sophisticated and heavy weight pages. But having a browser under support is always better. Commented Mar 13, 2019 at 15:16
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1Some quick research in the graphical realm also yielded Netsurf and Links -- haven't tried either, yet. Neither mentions which Windows versions are supported & I don't have a VM at hand, but both support other really old OSs, so chances are good. And both seem to be actively developed.– kubiCommented Mar 13, 2019 at 18:46
You could run Web Rendering Proxy (screenshots) on a server, the browser would just be displaying pre-rendered images with imagemaps.
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If you are going this way, you can run VNC client and have a complete Linux desktop at your disposal. Though most likely you'll have problems with entering non-ASCII characters. Commented Mar 13, 2019 at 19:00
IE6 was the last Internet Explorer on Windows98 SE and IE5.5 with high encryption pack for Windows95. These were important for Citrix, and quite a bit of software leveraged IE6 dll's, notably Ultra-Edit.
Seamonkey 1.1.19 - March 2010, a bit Retro. Not as recent as a better answer.
Fresh news with options!
Lynx Version 2.9.0 (January 2024). Current versions of Lynx run on Unix, VMS, Windows95 through Windows 8, 386DOS and OS/2 EMX.
Lynx is a fully-featured World Wide Web (WWW) client for users running cursor-addressable, character-cell display devices such as vt100 terminals, vt100 emulators running on Windows 95/NT or Macintoshes, or any other character-cell display.
https://invisible-island.net/lynx/
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Since Lynx relies on either OpenSSL or GnuTLS to handle https://, are there versions of these libraries for Win95/98 that will work with modern TLS versions and cipher suites?– doneal24Commented Apr 23 at 16:24
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In internet I can see the v2.8.3 compiled but I can't find later binary releases Commented Apr 24 at 10:36
This won't be the last one, but for Mozilla Firefox, the last version supporting Windows 98 (without hacks) was Firefox 2.0.0.20, released on December 18, 2008, support for98/Me was removed on Firefox 3.
There are assemblies US versions TLS 1.0-1.2 SSL browser based on declared under windows 98 here: http://www.fdd5-25.net/networks.htm#win9x Example of work here: http://gallery.fdd5-25.net/details.php?image_id=5370
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1Thanks for the link to a useful repository of binaries for web browsing under Windows 3.1 onward. However, this doesn't contain any dates for the software, so wouldn't be very useful for answering the question without further research. RCSE discourages link-only answers, so it would be better to include a bit more detail about which of these applications you are recommending. Commented Mar 19, 2021 at 10:03