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What standard of design should The New Old Web, or Web 1.1, ideally adhere to?

  • < HTML4, CSS2, no JS, no embedded media (Closer to 90's Web)

    Votes: 14 16.3%
  • =< HTML4, CSS2, frugal JS, frugally embedded media (Closer to Early 2000's Web)

    Votes: 68 79.1%
  • Something else (Post an alternative)

    Votes: 4 4.7%

  • Total voters
    86

Bruninho

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Mar 12, 2021
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I believe its Netscape 7.. under OS 9. MITM proxy ?? I do have enabled with all my email address, use less secure apps.. Outlook Express should connect and allow me to send/receive email. Do you know the imap settings for gmail ? If I recall, I did enable use less secure, so it should work.

For Gmail under outlook read here: https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?p=774999#p774999

According to my research, OE 5.0 ~ 6.0 will only "speak" TLS 1.0. To support TLS 1.1 and above one has to set up a local proxy server.

Basically I've set up stunnel running as a background service on my host machine, and the Windows 3.11 VM running OE 5.0. So the host machine acts as proxy server for your OE 5.0 to get into Gmail. This is because Gmail no longer accepts Plain AUTH. (I think).

I haven't tried it with OE and OS9 yet - but I assume the procedure will work the same way.

I do believe that since Netscape 7.0.2 is Mozilla based, it can access HTTPS with a NSS update, the same update Roytam1 did for Netscape 9.0.0.6 (and I think Retrozilla uses the same thing) on Windows 98SE. I just used that updated Netscape 9 on Windows 98 last night to get a few drivers from HTTPS websites.

This NSS update even have files with the same names and location as seen in the Netscape 7.0.2 install on my OS9. However, someone has to volunteer for the task and also need to know how to "convert them into OS9 format", because these files are DLLs for Win98 Netscape version. If we had that, then Netscape 7.0.2 could theoretically be able to access at least TLS 1.2...
 

Bruninho

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Mar 12, 2021
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@Starfia NPR's text-only site does not work on IE 5.2.2 (2001), unfortunately. But it does work on Camino 1.0.6 (2007) without issue. Part of me wonders if another section could be carved out for low-bandwidth versions of modern sites to list these examples as well? But then again, that might cloud the end-goal of what Web 1.1 will probably try to set out to accomplish, so maybe not...

@Bruninho Camino 1.0.6 (2007) and Firefox 2.0.0.20 (2008) will display Netscape News after spitting out a truckload of errors, but curiously enough, Safari 4.1.3 (2010) can't connect at all, citing the 'secure connection' error. And neither will IE 5.2.

Needless to say, I don't think it's very practical to include sites that can't even be accessed on IE 5. So a minimum browser requirement should probably be established to address this.

How about creating the list of browsers as "zones" ? Zone 1 - Up to IE 5, Zone 2 - up to another more modern browser than IE 5, Zone 3... and so on.

Although there will be sites that can be accessed in both or all zones. We can use color tags similar to Finder ones, next to the sites names on sites list, so one will know that a certain site can be accessed by zone 1 browsers or zone 2 browsers, or both.

Netscape News website is TLS 1.2. I also get a few errors with various websites, but they are all related to javascript, that's because the browser can't handle large javascript files, so you need the same kind of no-javascript optimization Cameron did on Classilla.

Safari 4 is nearly useless now. I am surprised with what you have found, considering that older browsers can still get to sites Safari 4 can't. Can you try https vogons.org ?
 

Macbookprodude

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Jan 1, 2018
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This is because Gmail no longer accepts Plain AUTH. (I think). - I don’t think Gmail ever accepted anything during the OS 9 era (1999-2002,2003) - sobs Gmail along with Google came out 2 years after that time.
 

z970

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Jun 2, 2017
3,589
4,543
@Bruninho I was actually thinking of a similar idea, but for another Web standard entirely. I haven't fully considered it yet though (nor have we even gotten an "official" Web 1.1 site yet, either), so perhaps raising this idea could still be premature at this time.

Safari 4 won't connect to https://vogons.org. It will connect and display http://vogons.org mostly fine, though.
 
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alex_free

macrumors 65816
Feb 24, 2020
1,103
2,357
I voted for

< HTML4, CSS2, no JS, no embedded media (Closer to 90's Web)​

Basically what my website is, but since it’s on GitHub without a custom domain TLS is an issue... Can’t change to http without paying for a custom domain.

Great template for something like this is this relic last updated in 2004 or this last updated in 2005.
 

Astralis56

macrumors newbie
Nov 16, 2020
17
68
I voted for

< HTML4, CSS2, no JS, no embedded media (Closer to 90's Web)​

Basically what my website is, but since it’s on GitHub without a custom domain TLS is an issue... Can’t change to http without paying for a custom domain.

Great template for something like this is this relic last updated in 2004 or this last updated in 2005.
when you say no embedded media, do you mean no images completely? If so I think that would limit the type of website to put in place.
 

Bruninho

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Mar 12, 2021
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I think that there is no need to be THAT extreme. The supported HTML4/CSS2 old set of features can still be very productive, if you’re very creative with them. I would like to incentive flair and creativity with these websites to explore the full potential and push its limits.

CSS-Tricks website has several posts on many techniques to do things with HTML/CSS alone without JS/jQuery. If you dig deeper, you’ll be revisiting old HTML properties that should be still being used as of today but most devs ignore. There is also a website called “you don’t need jquery!” but I forgot the URL.

I plan to redo my personal website with support for older browsers but frankly that website is just for my web portfolio. I tried to run a blog ten years ago, but I wasn’t a good frequent blogger so I removed it. Well, would be a good idea to showcase my skills with retrocompatibility for older browsers doing a new version of that portfolio exploring the unused HTML stuff.

I did a Moodle theme for work that nearly worked flawlessly on Windows XP and SeaMonkey. Just a little CSS was broken, as expected, but Moodle mostly worked very well there. Try the untouched demo of Moodle with your old browsers and see. But I believe that Moodle will require at least TenFourFox to work beautifully.
 
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z970

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Jun 2, 2017
3,589
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@alex_free There's two inline images in the first site, and one in the second site. That counts as embedded media. ;)

All that's missing is fancier HTML formatting, more complex CSS styling, a couple more images (or one low-res video), a few lines of accompanying JS for some type of additional functionality, and it would already hit the limit for the second proposed option.

As it stands though, just take the images out and it may as well be a decade older; only then aligning with the '90's Web' standard, if in accordance with what was proposed in the first option.
 

Macbookprodude

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Jan 1, 2018
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Something to ponder... Since OS 9 stopped around 2002, and Youtube didn't come out for 2-3 more years after, I am trying to remember, how did we all used to watch videos or stream videos in OS 9 before Google and Youtube ?I am trying to remember what i used to watch videos back in the os 9 ERA. something to really think about, since we are on the topic of trying to get OS 9 to work with some form of youtube. Also, another question is - I want to create a PowerPC blog and website.. what OS 9 program does this ?
 

Macbookprodude

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Jan 1, 2018
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Macbookprodude

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I think Outlook will work if you set up a MITM proxy with stunnel and if your email server supports less secure apps. I remember that a few years ago I managed to make OE 5.0 on Windows 3.11 talk to my office365 account to send and receive emails through stunnel from my 25 yr old @hotmail.com account, while my modern mac was the MITM and Windows was emulated by QEMU. I had even documented it on VOGONS forums.

What version of Netscape are you using?
Version of Netscape - 4.77 sorry. So, how do I set this MITM proxy up ? Yes, gmail's settings allow me to select less secure apps - I also have this as my default for all my email.
 

Bruninho

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Mar 12, 2021
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Something to ponder... Since OS 9 stopped around 2002, and Youtube didn't come out for 2-3 more years after, I am trying to remember, how did we all used to watch videos or stream videos in OS 9 before Google and Youtube ?I am trying to remember what i used to watch videos back in the os 9 ERA. something to really think about, since we are on the topic of trying to get OS 9 to work with some form of youtube. Also, another question is - I want to create a PowerPC blog and website.. what OS 9 program does this ?
You can use Dreamweaver, good enough for starters (I used back in the day) but more skilled ones like me (the 2021 Bruninho) will just use BBEdit (a simple text editor) for coding the old school way. I haven’t seen a Dreamweaver window for like ten years when I got my first Mac with Snow Leopard, but quickly switched to Espresso and later Coda (I am still using Coda on my current Big Sur Mac). Panic did a great IDE with Coda, but not so good with Nova, hence why I am sticking to Coda as much as I can.

Very nice.. this was indeed before even OS 9. I remember, working at an Office Depot in 1996 and they sold System 7. I would imagine System 7 was the main OS at that time.

I think MacOS 8 was out in 1995.

Version of Netscape - 4.77 sorry. So, how do I set this MITM proxy up ? Yes, gmail's settings allow me to select less secure apps - I also have this as my default for all my email.

Just follow the steps I wrote on the VOGONS post I mentioned before. It can be done on both MacOS and Linux hosts (I’ll be using a raspberry pi, it already has Browservice on, so stunnel will be the icing on the cake for OE to work with Office365). Although I could ditch this and simply use Mulberry.

I don’t recommend or endorse setting less secure apps for all your mail accounts. You’re very exposed. I am only using an old @hotmail.com account (my very first email ever), I’m very suprised it works on Office365. I do not use other accounts with my retro VMs.
 

Macbookprodude

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Jan 1, 2018
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I do have a PowerPC only email account which I use for all communication regarding powerpc everything. Ok, I can put back normal security settings for my main email and auxiliary email.
 

mortlocli

macrumors 6502a
Feb 23, 2020
729
665
Re web standards..why not go with W3C standards. The world wide web consortium. They set standards in the early 1990s.. based on the idea the web is for everyone...including the blind. A good web site should be accessible with minimum hardware and browser and readable by readers for the blind..ie read out loud the content. But the world wanted lots of bells and whistles ..so cluttered up web pages that must be a nightmare for blind people to listen to.

When I was learning to code in html5 you could test your page design on their web site.. this was coding without using a web making program...that add 'extras' with a click.

Their whole philosophy is ' Making the Web Accessible'.


..and just checked.. yep..still can test web pages for accessibility:
 

Certificate of Excellence

macrumors 6502a
Feb 9, 2021
963
1,479
Drag those knuckles, little boss. :D
Haha man if I could change my name, Little Boss would be on my short list. And for the record, if it wasn’t painfully obvious, I have zero desire to push cultural or societal constructivist mores onto the web1.1.

Assuming web1.1v gets off the ground it’s a matter of time when individuals perspectives of ethics & morality will impact and influence the initiative. Best of luck to all involved.
 

Macbookprodude

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Jan 1, 2018
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Haha man if I could change my name, Little Boss would be on my short list. And for the record, if it wasn’t painfully obvious, I have zero desire to push cultural or societal constructivist mores onto the web1.1.

Assuming web1.1v gets off the ground it’s a matter of time when individuals perspectives of ethics & morality will impact and influence the initiative. Best of luck to all involved.
Count me in.. I am for an end to this bloatness of the web.
 

Macbookprodude

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Jan 1, 2018
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And Toastytech, featuring a GUI gallery and the world's best Internet Explorer hate page.
Really it should be a Microsoft hate page. That is where I plan to create a blog and site giving my reasons for hating Microsoft. Also, speaking of browsers, is it possible to add new security and certs into Netscape ? If we can get the source which I believe Netscape is now open source, technically we could revive Netscape to run on modern PPC hardware. Is this possible ?
 
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