iMac g3 Having trouble browsing the internet

[Astro13]

Hello, I have an iMac g3 slot loading 400mhz running OSX Tiger 10.4.11, and I am having trouble visiting any webpages on any browser I put on this thing, I know that modern internet does not work with old computers but is there any web browser or workaround that could be done? The g3 is connected to internet via an Ethernet cat5 cable connected to my router. Most webpages error out saying some version of cannot get a secure connection. Thanks

 

[schorschinjo]

Try InterwebPPC:

https://github.com/wicknix/InterWebPPC/releases/expanded_assets/RR4

If this does not help, (likely) nothing will. But be aware: The G3 is way too old to do anything in a speedy manner with it on the internet.

Just to compare: It is a machine more than 20 years old. Like if you used a Commodore C64 in the time of the G3.

 

[Astro13]

Ah, thank you, I will try that.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

My preference is InterwebPPC as well but DarkWeb Browser (both made by Wicknix ) is leaner and may perform better on your elderly imac. Speedometer benchmark scores with DW have consistently edged out IWPPC on these old legacy PowerPC macs. like your imacG3.

Despite being as slow as molasses on a winter day, it is a testament to the design and the continued support of retro computing folks like Wicknix that a 20+ year old, single core sub 1ghz cpu computer could function in any capacity on today's internet. Best of luck to you

 

[Astro13]

I have found interwebppc unbearably slow and choppy, is there a setting I can change to fix that? Or do I have to splurge on some RAM and an ssd. Or just give up on using the internet on 20+ year old Mac. Still have to try darkweb

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

There is no getting around the speed. It will always be slow. With that being said, to get the best performance, yes maxing out the ram & upgrading the ancient fireball in there with an SSD are great next steps. Also, give DarkWeb a shot.

My 1999 400mhz powermac G3 blue & white (think of it as the big brother prosumer option to your iMac) is also extremely slow and that box has an upgraded gpu & maxed ram & SSD & DarkWeb installed. As a proof of concept it technically does go online and does it very well for its age but everything internet related is still very slow thus not realistic IMO for common daily driver tasks like video streaming (and I am a very patient person). These retro computers are fun and as a retro computer enthusiast, I like puting them through their paces, upgrading them & keeping them out of landfill etc. but absolutely they have their limits. If you are looking to get into retro computing but are wanting functions like YouTube, video/audio streaming etc. I recommend 2008 & newer early Intel macs.

 

[TheShortTimer]

Or do I have to splurge on some RAM and an ssd.

You should definitely splurge some cash on RAM and SSD - both will make a huge difference to the general performance. It certainly did with my iMac G3.

 

[davisdelo]

It can help to go to modern sites that are catered toward retro computers too. There's quite a few out there now but check these out to start:

A retro search engine:
FrogFind!
Retro software:
Macintosh Garden
Retro Videos:
Cornica
More links and help here:
Mac84.net

Also, archive.org can be your friend to 'rewind' sites to a more contemporary state that's a closer match to your machine; obviously the information will be out of date too, still fun though

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Try InterwebPPC:

https://github.com/wicknix/InterWebPPC/releases/expanded_assets/RR4

If this does not help, (likely) nothing will. But be aware: The G3 is way too old to do anything in a speedy manner with it on the internet.

Just to compare: It is a machine more than 20 years old. Like if you used a Commodore C64 in the time of the G3.

The ironic thing is that the ONLY thing the "modern" Internet has that takes a more powerful computer is endless ads. The Internet ran WAY faster in the 1990s for most pages on a freaking dial-up modem and the information (e.g. News) was still there, but now they have giant ads by the dozen to load on the page. That's what your extra power is getting you. I mean let's face it, a C64 made a darn nice report for me in middle school (Amiga in high school). Frankly, I think we'd all be better off back then, particularly socially. Sure you need more powerful hardware for movies and gaming, but that's what a home theater and PS5 are for!

I used a PowerPC Digital Audio 1.5GHz G4 until 2012 (serving multiple Apple TV units with 3TB of storage at the time using a SATA card with 1.5GB of ram and a nice Radeon card) and it didn't really start getting long in the tooth until 2010 for the Internet (I had a MBP in 2008 for Logic Pro use and video editing). I've still got my 2012 Mac Mini Quad i7 with 16GB of ram and a 2TB SSD and it runs everything just great still (except Apple's abandoned it and 32-bit apps that I still have high-end software for like iZotope RX and Photoshop CS3 (former expensive to replace just because of Apple and the latter's replacement is RENT ONLY now). Yeah, it doesn't do 4K, but I have a home theater for that stuff and a Playstation for gaming.

Apple wants to call itself "green" but when they force computers into the landfill just to sell more I'd say they're anything but except to the fanboys who believe they can do no wrong no matter how screwed up their directives are (non-reparable phones and computers on purpose to push you to pay them or upgrade). Even Microsoft is supporting Windows 10 until 2025 with security updates. Apple abandoned Mojave years ago and Firefox is on its last leg for security updates too (Chrome already ditched it).

I'm not convinced this Apple Silicon move will work out in the long run either. Look at Motorola 680x0 and PowerPC. Apple isn't a very efficient company. Without FoxConn, Apple would be lost with phones too. It's only a matter of time before they're utterly irrelevant again. How long did it take to finally get that brand new Mac Pro out only for Apple to virtually announce at the same time they were ditching Intel CPUs??? And what about external graphics card support that finally was being added only to get ditched with ARM. That's the level of stupidity from Apple I'm talking about. WTF was the point? They could have maintained two lines (they did it for PowerPC longer), but that was probably beyond them logistically despite every cheap 2-bit PC maker able to update their hardware 5x more often than Apple.

Apple used to innovate. Now it just robs you blind. Poor Steve is rolling in his grave.

 

[Astro13]

I have to agree on the repairability part, after the g5 things got very difficult to fix, I can get my old g3 apart in a few mins, but it takes 2 hours on my 2015 MacBook.

 

[Astro13]

It can help to go to modern sites that are catered toward retro computers too. There's quite a few out there now but check these out to start:

A retro search engine:
FrogFind!
Retro software:
Macintosh Garden
Retro Videos:
Cornica
More links and help here:
Mac84.net

Also, archive.org can be your friend to 'rewind' sites to a more contemporary state that's a closer match to your machine; obviously the information will be out of date too, still fun though

Thank you, I will try these, I am just getting tired of doing things on a usb stick from my MacBook to my g3, I want to download this stuff right onto the g3

 

[eyoungren]

Or just give up on using the internet on 20+ year old Mac.

I am just getting tired of doing things on a usb stick from my MacBook to my g3, I want to download this stuff right onto the g3

The best you're going to get from any of this is slightly below mediocre. I am a PowerPC user, but these days my PowerPC Macs don't hit the internet. They do other tasks.

Things started hitting the wall around 2020 for me. TenFourFox stopped being actively developed and more and more sites started to slow down or break. T4Fx was a major browser developed for PowerPC after Firefox 4 abandoned us. It kept a lot of us relevant for years. But even after tweaking it and making a whole bunch of workarounds the handwriting was on the wall for me at least.

I had T4Fx running tweaked inside a RAM disk on a Quad G5 with 16GB of ram. The cache, the user profile and the app itself were all on the ram disk. On the most powerful PowerPC Mac Apple made with max ram. It just wasn't enough. You're trying to get something going on a G3.

@MagnusVonMagnum has stated that a lot of the problem is ads on the internet. I agree, but its also a bunch of other things. Starting with bad code. There is no incentive to write good website code anymore because modern computer CPUs and GPUs can power right through bad code. You have trackers, scripts and third party code from external websites. Some extensions/addons have known memory leaks and PowerPC uses old versions of those things that you can't find anymore. To top it all off, one of the biggest problems we can't fix and that is how PowerPC processes webpages. No matter what browser you use, page processing will ALWAYS be handled by the CPU. There is no ability to pass it off to the GPU. So, the internet 'slows down' because the CPU is busy processing all that stuff I mentioned above.

There is hope, but basically you've either got to turn your web browser into a text only browser or use mobile phone user agents. I don't know about you, but I already have a modern iPhone with a modern browser that's going to work faster than trying to use an iPhone user agent on my PowerMac G5.

So for me, I was done in 2020. I gave it as much effort as I was willing to give from 2006 to 2020.

 

[Astro13]

Yeah, I’m thinking that I’m going to forgo internet browsing and just play DOOM and use Ms office on it

 

[eyoungren]

Yeah, I’m thinking that I’m going to forgo internet browsing and just play DOOM and use Ms office on it

It'll be perfect for that.

 

[za9ra22]

The ironic thing is that the ONLY thing the "modern" Internet has that takes a more powerful computer is endless ads. The Internet ran WAY faster in the 1990s for most pages on a freaking dial-up modem and the information (e.g. News) was still there, but now they have giant ads by the dozen to load on the page. That's what your extra power is getting you. ...... [snipped]

It's actually way more than merely advertising that slows the modern internet for old systems. Lots of stuff to do supposedly useful things which we may not want, but the answer would be to have options to turn all these 'features' off in a browser. I don't know one that can do that, unfortunately, but I do know that even with ad blockers, the internet is bloated and data-dense thanks to web designers taking advantage of increasing power and resources in our hardware.

The death of really viable internet accessibility for older computers came when smartphones outstripped them in processing capacity, and became the minimum hardware standard for web compatibility. I'm not sure there are that many web designers who are still in the business from the short era of base-level internet connected devices, but I'd be pretty sure there are very few of these old systems in use at all today in comparison to even cheap smartphones to bother web authors these days with the issue of reverse support for them.

As for the Apple commentary, the reality is that it was Jobs who authored the 'computer as an appliance' philosophy with the first Mac in 1984. His belief that users shouldn't have to (or want to) open up the computer and tinker inside created (if possibly inadvertently) the market for sealed and disposable systems, which Apple abandoned when Jobs left, but regained when he returned. And really Apple's resilience in the market is because they have engineered superb products, which users are prepared to pay for, even though it is at the expense of rotating devices into the landfill. It's not at a faster rate than Dell, HP, or any of the others though, because no business can survive on not selling new product. Once just about everyone who was going to buy a computer had bought one, none of the system manufacturers could really survive much longer without obsoleting old products and selling new ones to the same people. At least in Apple's case, they have tended to engineer longer lasting and (usually) more reliable product to keep in service longer.

I'm not a fan of the company and its policies or even much in the ay of their products these days, but I'm pretty sure they understand their business and how the industry and their market works rather better than amateurs commenting on it. But I'm sure they'd be open to suggestions as to how to improve on the recycling of materials they already do, if not for any reason other than that it is actually profitable.

 

[ocmac]

Keep to browsing simple sites, in simple browsers and the modern web is still "accessible" to your iMac G3. You definitely need more RAM, and an SSD will also help, as the Short Timer said. I won't bother you with frogfind or 68k.news as they've been already mentioned.

news:
text.npr.org
lite.cnn.com
hckrnews.com
guardian.gyford.com/
www.cbc.ca/lite/news?sort=trending

reddit:
teddit.net
old.reddit.com

weather:
wttr.in

search:
duckduckgo.com/lite

Retrozilla and ArcticFox PPC (both by Wicknix, available on this site or on his, just google them) are much better choices than TTFx or InterwebPPC for your aged hardware. I am shocked at how much browsing I can still do (admittedly on a fast G4, not a G3) with Retrozilla. At times I forget I am on such an old computer!

Dronecatcher can still stream youtube on a 500 mhz imac G3 using all of his methods-I won't bother detailing them, again, search this forum if you are interested for his posts on the topic. This is his youtube video from three months ago:

Links2 is a text based browser (will display inline images, sometimes) that will actually feel FAST on your iMac. Ported by alex_free, its available on the forum, just search for it. Many many websites will "work" though you have to get used to the fact that everything is justified LEFT, and there is no javascript. At all. That also gets you around many paywalls like nytimes.com and washingtonpost.com and theatlantic.com

Stream internet radio with Fstream, or with one of the macintosh garden's hacked itunes versions.

Don't give up yet! Change your expectations a little. If you wanna get super creative you can VNC into a modern computer (even like a Raspberry Pi) and "run" a modern browser inside your ancient mac. Yes, it's cheating, but it also blows people's minds, which is always fun.

 

[eyoungren]

It's actually way more than merely advertising that slows the modern internet for old systems. Lots of stuff to do supposedly useful things which we may not want, but the answer would be to have options to turn all these 'features' off in a browser. I don't know one that can do that, unfortunately, but I do know that even with ad blockers, the internet is bloated and data-dense thanks to web designers taking advantage of increasing power and resources in our hardware.

With TenFourFox (or similar Mozilla based browsers) for PowerPC there is uMatrix or uBlock Origin. uMatrix is a scalpel that allows granular permissions and uBlock is a shotgun. Some people prefer NoScript. Ghostery has a memory leak, so does AdBlock.

With more modern browsers uMatrix and uBlock Origin are still maintained. I use Vivaldi (by one of the original founders of Opera) which is Chrome based and uMatrix.

 

[Ryan Bremer]

Have people forgot about TenFourFoxPEP? Also increase sheet display speed with OnyX and disable spotlight (add all of your hard disks as exception in system preferences)

 

[eyoungren]

Have people forgot about TenFourFoxPEP? Also increase sheet display speed with OnyX and disable spotlight (add all of your hard disks as exception in system preferences)

I have not forgotten. A lot of the optimizations I made to my personal T4Fx pref file ended up in PEP. Increase speed of sheets and turning off spotlight was done on all my Macs years ago. As well as other optimizations that both Onyx and the Secrets prefpane allowed.

As I mentioned above, I even had the T4Fx app, the cache and my user profile in a ram disk on a Quad G5 with 16GB of ram. T4Fx still was slow by 2020 with more and more sites breaking. And OP wants to use a G3.

 

[wicknix]

Retrozilla and links2 would be best options for that machine for casual browsing and downloading. Also a hosts file to block ads will greatly speed up browsing.

 

[Astro13]

Thank you, I will try it

 

[AphoticD]

Retrozilla + FrogFind makes for some zippy web. It’s like stepping back to 1998, but without the dialup handshake

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

Retrozilla + FrogFind makes for some zippy web. It’s like stepping back to 1998, but without the dialup handshake

I’m going to break out one of my g3s and give that combo a whirl via Ethernet. Very aware of FF but Somehow I missed an entire release & thread about retrozilla

 

[AphoticD]

Add in a little background noise for the full nostalgia:

 

[Astro13]

Hahaha