I have an old computer running WinME (spare me the jokes). Is there a brower that works with ME now?

Question

I just want to use this old computer to download files while I'm working with my other computer. I've tried Firefox, IE, Chrome, and Opera and none work with WinME anymore.

Answer 1

Avant, which uses the Windows shdocvw.dll core for rendering

http://www.avantbrowser.com/



K-Meleon, which uses the Gecko rendering engine

http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/wiki/FAQ



Patch the kernel with KernelEx and run Firefox or IE or Opera

http://sourceforge.net/projects/kernelex/



Or compile any Linux browser against Cygwin

http://www.cygwin.com/



Or use a lightweight Linux like Puppy from a LiveCD (yes, I know that this begs the question)

http://puppylinux.org/



q



NB: Don't blithely install a current Linux distro on an old machine. Most will bring the machine to its knees - there is no magic that makes Linux multitasking inherently faster than Windows multitasking, and you'll find after benchmarking that WinXP makes better use of your old PC than all but the most austere Linux distros. Unfortunately, to get good performance with WinXP still requires you to jettison a lot of extraneous services. Microsoft won't help you do this, but there *is* a distro floating in TPB that has already done it for you. Don't ask, don't tell.

Answer 2

You could try old versions of Firefox - http://www.oldapps.com/firefox.php or IE - http://www.oldversion.com/Internet_Explorer.html or http://www.oldapps.com/internet_explorer.php



They will probably moan a lot about needing to be updated though.



There are newer smaller browsers around, like Dillo - http://www.dillo.org/screenshots/index.html - that may work with ME.



I know you probably already know this and don't want to hear it again but ME was probably the worst version of Windows ever made. Have you an old version of Windows 98 Release 2 around? That was much more stable. If your hardware can handle it then XP would be a great choice.



Have you considered a version of Linux? There are versions around designed to work on older hardware. http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/newbie/8441-distro-look-here-before-posting.html and http://www.linux.com/news/hardware/desktops/8248-linux-distros-for-older-hardware



Once running there, as far as the user is concerned, there isn't that much difference from Windows.

Answer 3

Nothing really works on WinME anymore since it's a horrible system (comparable to Vista and 98). There's not any support for it anymore, so no one develops for compatibility. You can try finding IE6 since that's the last browser to be supported on ME; I strongly recommend upgrading to XP though if you want to download stuff since nothing works with Windows ME.

Answer 4

I don't usually recommend this, but if you can't get a copy of XP or even Windows 2000 to put on that thing then I'd advise you to wipe it clean and install Linux. It's free and certainly better than ME, but then again, a dog turd makes a better operating system than ME. You'll be able to use modern browsers with it, at least.