Wow, a custom compile for 95/NT? I wondered where you got it, then looked on your website.
I had been mostly using a version of Opera 10.6 (hex-edited to change references to some 98-specific APIs) that's pretty good at rendering, but its JavaScript renderer soaks up virtual memory like a sponge. SeaMonkey is better on Windows 95.
Windows 95 OSR2 was far more stable than the initial release of Windows 98.
"Internet integration" was a sham, and it amazes me that people defend it. For the record, it was technologically possible to remove IE from Windows 95. Windows 98's "integration" ruined the modularity and usability of the system, and occurred for no reason other than to circumvent anti-trust stipulations and increase the penetration of Internet Explorer by any and all means necessary. We're still paying for that today.
I remember Netscape 4. In fact, I was using it semi-regularly (albeit on my Windows 3.1 computer) as late as 2003.
Although it wasn't quite as lightweight as Netscape 3 (which was undoubtedly their high-water mark), it was generally stable and ran just fine on a 486.
It had none of the security issues that Internet Explorer 4 invited by going above and beyond the definition of what a web browser should do.
If it crashed, it seldom took the whole system down with it as IE would always do.
It didn't take the entire system hostage. It left the Windows shell well enough alone. It was uninstallable, like a normal application.
Its rendering capability was no worse than IE 4's. (If it seems worse now--and frankly, most people haven't used IE 4 in years so they don't really know--that's only because IE got ahead of it in rendering capability after Netscape had its air supply cut off and was in a mad scramble to do anything other than fade away without a trace.)
It was a more robust browser than IE 4 in practically every way. And if Netscape had been able to develop the software in a more natural manner (a la version 1-3) without a monopolist breathing fire at their heels with blatantly-illegal marketing practices, I'm sure it would have been better still.
(And before you claim that IE won the Macintosh market "fair and square," remember that Microsoft threatened to discontinue Office for the Mac if Apple didn't bundle IE as the default browser on its systems.)
Assuming it matches the rest of the laptop, black permanent marker works in a pinch. It worked on the Dell that I've been trying (painfully) to convert to a workable Linux system.
In any case, "Windows" is a key that I've personally found to be as useful as "Sys Rq"...
The difference, of course, is that recent Firefox releases are quite a bit better in terms of features, usability, rendering capabilities, and stability than Netscape Communicator 4.51 and the then-sub-prototypical Netscape 5/Mozilla Milestone 4 were ten years ago. I can think of no like advantage Windows Vista has over Windows 2000.
Let's get this straight: "Raise the minimum requirements to require Windows XP Service Pack 3 or higher," with no benefit, and no rationale other than for breaking compatibility for its own sake? If that's the case, I venture to say that Mozilla has seriously lost its way.
So, Microsoft ditched support for Windows 2000 and Windows XP pre-SP2? So what; the APIs are just the same now as they always have been. If anything, Mozilla should focus more attention to catering to users of OS versions that Microsoft left behind, where they have less competition...and chances are, the users of Windows 2000 are still using the OS that they are because they're frustrated with Microsoft's "support" policies and the further regressions (performance and usability issues, product activation) posed by newer versions of its products.
I'm seriously still bitter about them breaking compatibility with Windows 95 and NT4 a few versions back: One consequence was that the current version of Firefox was no longer capable of running off a version of Windows not unremovably inundated with Internet Explorer and its ilk. Short of a miracle of penetration from the Linux camp, how are we going to wean people off of a steady consumption of upgraded Microsoft products when we get attitudes and potential decisions like this?
(Er, make that uber-bundling!)
Has anyone forgotten how people went about getting browsers before IE ber-bundling existed?
Not to digress, but how was the mandatory Internet Explorer integration of Windows 98 a "slightly less painful experience for the end user?"
Yet magic and hierarchy arise from the same source, and this source has a null pointer.
