Hi,

i am working on my german Win98-ThinWin Project.

Getting my Win98SE down to 60-80 MB with all updates and Tools, i am asking myself, which browser would run fastest with less ressources needed.
IE is good too. Security is not my priority, cause system would be stored on write-protected CF-FlashCard and loaded to RAM every boot.

Candidates:
- IE 6.0SP1 (cause their are execellent fellows out their, getting us all the updates we need)
- latest FireFox
- latest Opera

Is their any comparison / test out their in the web not older then 2006, where these browsers where tested under Win98SE ?
At the end, a XP-comparison would give me that info too.

I am interested in:
- System slowdown / CPU needed
- RAM usage
- Space neede for full install (i could measure that myself, but its not a must ;-)=)

So, the low CPU-usage, minimu-Ram-usage and tiny install-space needed browser would be my perfect choice.
Any tips?


Thanx,
B.Poller

I use an old 400 MHZ computer for internet use. Like you, security is not the primary factor due to my surfing habits. When I had only 64 MB of RAM on this machine using Windows 98 First Edition, Opera and Internet Explorer (Although froze a lot) was best. Firefox was a resource, and, memory hog which I had to dump within a month's time.

If you have a good amount of RAM (512) there really won't be a problem with Firefox.

BTW, I'm still using this old 400 MHZ for Internet use although, Windows 2000 is my primary operating system for the net. Opera is still my choice.

You could use an older browser version if you don't need a lot of bells and whistles.
Older browsers don't stop working when a new version appears, they just lose support from the developer. Like Windows 98

Good Luck!

IE is crap. Its rendering engine is ancient and wildly non-standards compliant. It's also quite buggy. Just because you will run it on a write-protected area does not mean security is unimportant. Ever heard of phishing, impersonation, etc.?

I recommend K-Meleon. It's fast, its interface is native, and it uses Mozilla's Gecko rendering engine.

some web sites don't work correctly with Opera browsers, regardless of whatever version of Opera used.

Firefox can be a resource hog, but I've found ways to curb its appetite. Using these Firefox Memory Tweaks mentioned here:
http://www.ghacks.net/2007/02/26/firefox-memory-tweaks/
Firefox now runs better on my Win2k/XP machines.

speaking of IE being crap, there IS a way to dump IE under Win2000; the steps to do it are little more complicated but possible. see here:
http://www.vorck.com/windows/remove-ie.html

and there's always 2000Lite which scrubs IE from Win2000 completely.

The leanest browser I ever saw (besides Lynx), is Off by One

Thanks guys,

seems that i give opera a try.
IE is deleted from my Win98 then.

Cause i want to convert old ThinClients (mostly 300 MHz Geode CPU) to WLAN Win98 ThinWin's, CPU Speed and sometimes RAM is limited (not all accept 256 MB Modules),
I think FireFox really need to be configured for that environment. Will try that later sometimes.

Extra Thanks: Off-by-One Tip
I need Flash support for that ThinWin's but for other projects or really limited Ex-ThinClients, thanks for that browser. I never heard of it before and that one is REALLY small.

Bye,
B.Poller

Actually, I've never had any site I've visited have problems with Opera. However, Firefox is another story...........

Bare in mind, surfing habits vary and what works great for some may not be the same to others.

Personally, I use IE to read offline HTML files I save and that's pretty much it. While I could use Opera (Or any other browser for that matter) to do the same thing, I prefer using IE due to it's fast start up time which no browser on the market can compare.

I've already have my own customized 2000 version however, I reverted back to the untouched version. While it was faster, and pulled around 30 MB of RAM, whenever I wanted to install an older program, I was confronted with an error. So, I just use 2000 SP 4, reduce my services to 12 and that's that.

Not to mention, 54 MB of RAM is still minimum compared to what many are pulling upon bootup.

And all this time I thought it was an IE shell. Thanks for the link, it sounds neat.

Do remember that the core of Firefox is Gecko. K-Meleon and SeaMonkey (browser only) will give mostly the same experience webpage-wise, as they use the same core.

Even not K-Meleon? Even on my Pentium II 233 Mhz it starts up pretty quickly.

I do have K-Meleon.

When I want a change from Opera that's what I use. I've actually tried every browser
at one time or another.

K-Meleon is full featured like Opera which I like. I would be a waste to use it only for HTML files.

I remember installing Norton Ghost 2003 and it required IE 5.0 Minimum at a time I was using Windows 98 with IE 4.0 Hey, I don't even use IE 6.0 on Windows 2000 It's
5.0