17 Aug
2004
17 Aug
'04
2:38 a.m.
Gordon JC Pearce wrote:
Windows 98 is now six years old, and is really just a
facelifted version
of Windows 95 - very nearly 10 years old. Win 98 is no longer supported
by Microsoft, so good luck patching for any vulnerabilities. You could
try using Windows 2000 - pretty much anything better than a PII-350 will
run it, if you've got enough memory (anything less than 256M is a waste of
time). As far as the browser is concerned, I thoroughly recommend
switching to Mozilla Firefox. Netscape 4.78 is possibly the most broken
web browser known to exist.
Jerome Fine replies:
First, Microsoft still supports Windows 98 SE, although I must
admit that every time I accept patches, it crashes my system.
Second, the ONLY reason I stay with Windows 98 SE is because
Ersatz-11 runs correctly for me ONLY under Windows 98 SE.
I use MACRO-11 99% of the time to write programs and I
MUST have 132 character lines when I use the editor under RT-11.
None of the other Window OSs that I tested would support
132 character lines, although Ersatz-11 does mostly run under
those other OSs, just not quite as complete. Actually, I will
probably upgrade to a Pentium 4 by the end of this year, just
in time to obtain a motherboard that can handle a separate
AGP adapter with ATI firmware that supports 132 character
lines with Ersatz-11. The 750 MHz Pentium III is now just
2 1/2 years old, so I would have preferred to use it for at least
4 or 5 more years.
As for Netscape, I have saved all my e-mails and news groups
posts. Shifting to IE would be almost a disaster.
And since one bank still allows Netscape 4.78, I would
presume that the other bank would not really have a problem
continuing to support Netscape 4.78 if they chose to do so.
But since it is highly probable that, as a large organization, the
bank is infected with the same mentality as Microsoft, the bank
just does not care. It is not as if they are being asked to support
a new interface, just to continue to support the old one which until
the end of July was the case!
Without wishing to seem disrespectful or unpleasant,
you are basically
complaining that your 1957 Morris Minor can't keep up with modern motorway
traffic.
Actually, I would be quite happy to use a Morris Minor
if the spare parts were available. I don't drive on highway
often enough to matter!
I still find Netscape 4.78 more than competitive with IE on the
few times I need to use my wife's computer.
Because I
ALWAYS run Netscape with cookies turned OFF,
except when I am required to have cookies enabled to access the
2 web pages that I normally use, I often encountered the error
page which listed Netscape 4.x as one of the required browsers.
Why? I've
never understood this obsession with cookies. I mean, *why*?
So an advert banner site knows that the same computer visited it twice.
Big wow. Do you stop answering the doorbell in case it's a door-to-door
salesman? Well, you might, but it would break more things than it would
fix. From my point of view, except for the 2 bank sites I
use
because I am helping my son, I refuse to use any other
sites where cookies are required. And more to the point,
I set Netscape to notify me when the doorbell is being
run even then. I just feel it is a good idea to know if the
doorbell is being rung and then to answer it myself rather
than allowing open door access, even to a web site that
is likely more reputable than most. For all other sites,
I just NEVER even listen when they ring the doorbell.
Actually, can you explain what advantage cookies provide?
Is there something about cookies which they do which can't
be done without cookies?????????????
Sincerely yours,
Jerome Fine
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