eMac still good for everyday use (temporarily)?

[Fcr-900]

I was offered a free working eMac by a friend because I don’t have a desktop and wanted one... and was directed here for support as I am new to Mac and was told this group is for obsolete Macs. the specs he told me, are a 1.44 ghz processor and 2gb of ram, dual running os x 4 and 5.
I would like to know if I can still get by with this machine for the next several months, as due to obvious conditions in the world right now I can not get a better computer for The time being and this one is being offered free.
what id like to know is if I can do web browsing on it, or will it be so terribly Slow and lock up on every JavaScript website as it did on an old pentium iii xp laptop I used before. i understand this is a very old machine and I’m not expecting much but can an eMac still be useful To me until I have means to get a better PC? I would also like to do word documents on it, which according to him actually does that fine which is good.
Yes I want a desktop, not a tablet or phone to browse web on, create documents on and such and this is my only option or I wouldn’t be posting here. I watch YouTube videos on my phone and TV so I wont be using this for streaming.
should I grab this eMac or will it be a waste of my desk space?

 

[casperes1996]

I mean... Sort of?

I have an iMac G4 in my closet. - Now I can't really figure out what exact eMac this is, but I think all of the following will still apply;

Native code will run fairly well, since not much should be different from running it now and when the software originally came out, so for office, if you have the software for the machine you're good.
As for web though, you can get TenFourFox on 10.4 which is a port of a modern Firefox to PPC Mac. Without it, most websites won't render at all. With it, you can get by on the modern web, but don't expect to be using heavy JS pages like Facebook. - Last time I used my G4, I had an older version of the Spotify client running on it, which worked pretty well. And it could be used nicely enough for browsing some forums with some scripts disabled. But most pages were dreadful slow if you didn't just disable JS outright and even then some pages could still be slow to render.

If you've never really used a Mac before, I'm not sure this will be a very good introduction, but whether you can make do for now; Well, it really depends, but it's probably going to be hard, but not entirely impossible.
That said, these old PowerPC Macs are absolutely lovely and while eMacs have always been a bit on the boring side with their education focus, the whole PPC Mac scene is a lot of fun to play around with when you don't have the wrong expectations about the experience.

The web has become an insane resource hog and these machines just weren't made for the insane resource load the modern day web requires. It's kinda crazy to think what cool games you could run on these things, yet rendering something that should be simple, like Facebook Messenger, will push it to its knees.

I can only encourage you to try it out, but keep expectations low for web usage

 

[Dronecatcher]

Everything will need a little massaging to be efficient but most things are possible...but obviously slower than a modern desktop.

My video will give you an indication - my Powerbook is in the same league as your 1.42 eMac

 

[eyoungren]

@casperes1996 Tiger and Leopard are probably a better introduction for OP than later versions. Both Tiger and Leopard do not have the overhead of iCloud and Apple's services. Trying to figure out that, SIP, Gatekeeper, SIRI, notifications, etc, all of which OP doesn't NEED to use but which a stock install will present front and center, would possibly be a burden on top of actually learning OS X.

Just my opinion.
[automerge]1588629605[/automerge]

I was offered a free working eMac by a friend because I don’t have a desktop and wanted one... and was directed here for support as I am new to Mac and was told this group is for obsolete Macs. the specs he told me, are a 1.44 ghz processor and 2gb of ram, dual running os x 4 and 5.
I would like to know if I can still get by with this machine for the next several months, as due to obvious conditions in the world right now I can not get a better computer for The time being and this one is being offered free.
what id like to know is if I can do web browsing on it, or will it be so terribly Slow and lock up on every JavaScript website as it did on an old pentium iii xp laptop I used before. i understand this is a very old machine and I’m not expecting much but can an eMac still be useful To me until I have means to get a better PC? I would also like to do word documents on it, which according to him actually does that fine which is good.
Yes I want a desktop, not a tablet or phone to browse web on, create documents on and such and this is my only option or I wouldn’t be posting here. I watch YouTube videos on my phone and TV so I wont be using this for streaming.
should I grab this eMac or will it be a waste of my desk space?

If you use TenFourFox I would suggest installing uMatrix or NoScript. Both of these addons allow you to stop unwanted Javascript from running and prevent third party analytic sites from slowing you down.

The experience will not be the same as a modern Mac or PC, but without either of these addons things will be slow.

 

[bobesch]

That eMac is a great machine with maxed-out RAM.
You'll have two decent browsers: LeopardWebkit and TenFourFox + TenFourFoxBox
You'll have MS Office 2004 and 2008 and LibreOffice.
The Leopard Email-client works fine (IMAP).
You can watch DVD or 360p/720p video.
There are FileSharing (FTP/SFTP/AFP) and ScreenSharing option and the option of webDAV.
The eMac has a great speaker-system and a great Triniton flat screen, that is much better compared to the CRT of the iMacG3.[edit]
You can either go for OSX 10.4 Tiger with Classic (emulator-environment for elder os9 applications) or OSX 10.5 Leopard (no Classic, more advanced but slower than Tiger).
Have a look at macintoshgarden to pick the gems ... (OSs, apps, games etc.)

BTW: I drove 50 miles and paid 50 buck to get hands on that very same model ...
(uuh, and despite of it's capabilities I think it looks pretty ugly ... plus no color and no handle!)

 

[z970]

I used this machine in the same configuration as yours as my daily for a short time towards the end of last year.

The 1.42 GHz models are great performers, and the 2 GB RAM really makes them fly. As long as you know how to use it, it can do a great many things on the modern Web.

So here's my suggestion to you... Use OS X 10.5 Leopard. Get AuroraTrimcelerator, which will slim down and optimize Leopard so it will run even faster on your eMac. I suggest also then picking up Monolingual and ShadowKiller to optimize the OS even further.

Afterward, get the latest version of TenFourFox, which will handle your more demanding tasks on the Web. Also get Leopard WebKit (a port of modern WebKit to PowerPC) for less demanding tasks online. For even more basic use, AquaWeb aims to provide a fast, minimalist Web browser based on TenFourFox technology.

And, YouTube is very much possible and quite usable on a computer of the eMac's caliber. See TenFiveTube and PPC Media Center 7.

Finally, I present to you foxPEP for both TenFourFox AND your XP laptop to benefit from, which I'm told makes the Web quite usable on old machines, and even better on modern ones.

In the event you are not already aware, I suggest using roytam1's Firefox 45 SSE or New Moon 27 SSE for the best Web performance on your XP laptop, both of which are also compatible with foxPEP.

Hope I was helpful.

- Sent from a 600mhz Pentium !!! beast

 

[1042686]

Install the newest version of TFFx, install umatrix or no script and if you want, foxpep and I think that will get you pretty close to a slower but very usable machine for daily tasks. If you want facebook, there is a facebook for powerpc app called faceIt that someone here made (IIRC @weckart maybe ??) that works really well by forcing the mobile app. Without it and FB is a horrible dog. I just logged into FaceIt on my quicksilver PMG4 so I know it is still working. Youtube will work through TFFx but will be choppy - fugly choppy @ 480p, decent at 360P, not dropping frames at "good" at 230. There are better work around published extensively here, so if you have the time (and it seems like most of us still do) you can achieve awesome playback results using them. If you need newer functionality like apple maps, photo, notes etc. foxboxes work really well too.

If I had another room, Id totally score a desk and drop an Emac on there alongside my g1 intel white imac. Cool score and for the right price!

 

[bobesch]

If you use TenFourFox I would suggest installing uMatrix or NoScript. Both of these addons allow you to stop unwanted Javascript from running and prevent third party analytic sites from slowing you down.
The experience will not be the same as a modern Mac or PC, but without either of these addons things will be slow.

Yep, unwanted ads, Javascript and third party analytics are THE real PITA of web-browsing and deserve to be nuked!
[automerge]1588632860[/automerge]

So here's my suggestion to you... Use OS X 10.5 Leopard. Get AuroraTrimcelerator, which will slim down and optimize Leopard so it will run even faster on your eMac. I suggest also then picking up Monolingual and ShadowKiller to optimize the OS even further.

... and run Titanium's Onyx-app to reduce graphic-effects etc.

 

[Dronecatcher]

what id like to know is if I can do web browsing on it

I'm writing this from a TenFourFoxBox, I also have Leopard Webkit open replying to emails on Gmail - in the background I'm streaming audio from Youtube via youtube-dl/MPlayer....all on a G4 Powerbook.
Your eMac will be fine

 

[Fcr-900]

I'm writing this from a TenFourFoxBox, I also have Leopard Webkit open replying to emails on Gmail - in the background I'm streaming audio from Youtube via youtube-dl/MPlayer....all on a G4 Powerbook.
Your eMac will be fine

Thanks for all helpful tips! I honestly seriously doubted this machine, because seriously it was low end even in 2006 when it was made (my friend got it in about 2008 and it was pretty low end then) So I little hopes for getting much out of it besides the spinning color wheel but after watching some videos about the g4, I am shocked that it can do so much still. It can still play downloaded YouTube videos, HD at that.

 

[eyoungren]

Thanks for all helpful tips! I honestly seriously doubted this machine, because seriously it was low end even in 2006 when it was made (my friend got it in about 2008 and it was pretty low end then) So I little hopes for getting much out of it besides the spinning color wheel but after watching some videos about the g4, I am shocked that it can do so much still. It can still play downloaded YouTube videos, HD at that.

@Dronecatcher is and has been very adept at getting YT and media content to work on lowspec systems with a minimum of problems. And quite a few members here have been instrumental is getting media to work as well. There are ways to make these old system perform, it's just how willing you are to engage in the work necessary to get there. Most of the time the payoff is worth the effort though.

 

[Dronecatcher]

It can still play downloaded YouTube videos

More than that, it will stream them realtime - TenFiveTube, SMTube, PPCMC and various browser plugins.
As you might have seen in my video, the Powerbook can play online audio from Bandcamp and play 720P video at the same time (not that you'd want to!) - it's all about getting the right software.

 

[CubeHacker]

The eMac has a great speaker-system and a great Triniton screen.

Are you sure its a Trinitron screen? I am pretty sure that my eMac had a shadow mask. I don't remember the usual 2 grid lines on my eMac that is typical for a trinitron screen.

 

[bobesch]

Are you sure its a Trinitron screen? I am pretty sure that my eMac had a shadow mask. I don't remember the usual 2 grid lines on my eMac that is typical for a trinitron screen.

Oh, certainly you're right! I've mixed up things in my memory - because the eMac has that flat-screen CRT which is miles better compared to the iMac G3's screen.
Edit: it's this #9 posting from @bunnspecial , that tells all about the quality of the different CRT screens. Well there's at least one Trinitron ... Guess all that information got mixed together by my memory to the result of "Trinitron" ...

 

[Macbookprodude]

Of course if you want to send and receive email - you need to BOW down to google because they won't let you use good, "deprecated" browsers.. I swear one day someone will TOPPLE google's reign. i am sick of this - I installed on my pb g4 pismo Office V.x for Mac(predates 2004) and it runs really fast, but Entourage isn't working and I have disabled all of GOOGLE'S SECURITY.. EVERY DAMN BIT OF IT and it still not working. I hate google. I hate the modern web too - I just want to go back to simple 2000's web browsing. We don't need flash or javascript !

 

[Fcr-900]

Of course if you want to send and receive email - you need to BOW down to google because they won't let you use good, "deprecated" browsers.. I swear one day someone will TOPPLE google's reign. i am sick of this - I installed on my pb g4 pismo Office V.x for Mac(predates 2004) and it runs really fast, but Entourage isn't working and I have disabled all of GOOGLE'S SECURITY.. EVERY DAMN BIT OF IT and it still not working. I hate google. I hate the modern web too - I just want to go back to simple 2000's web browsing. We don't need flash or javascript !

And funny, both of those were popular in the 2000s

 

[Macbookprodude]

No, not funny at all. While, yes I have a G5 Quad which screams.. a PB G4 1.67 - I do have a G4 Pismo which I use as an everyday driver for simple things like office etc. I use Office 2001 and Office x in Tiger which runs a lot better than 2004 office. Still, Google and the rest.. have NO RIGHT to deprecate good email clients. All this security stuff is not necessary in my opinion.

 

[RogerWilco6502]

No, not funny at all. While, yes I have a G5 Quad which screams.. a PB G4 1.67 - I do have a G4 Pismo which I use as an everyday driver for simple things like office etc. I use Office 2001 and Office x in Tiger which runs a lot better than 2004 office. Still, Google and the rest.. have NO RIGHT to deprecate good email clients. All this security stuff is not necessary in my opinion.

"All this security stuff" is what gives email and web browsing as a whole some semblance of security. While it's not as secure as say, facsimilie, not much is.
Believe me, I love using older tech whenever possible, but it is the sad reality that the progression of technological innovation marches on and waits for no one. Expecting Google to downgrade their security to support an email client that is 19 years old (although its last update was in 2007) and in use by relatively few people is as unreasonable as saying it's Apple's fault a certain third-party, PPC-only application hasn't been updated to work on Intel systems IMO. If anything it would be Microsoft's problem for not keeping the security certs up to date and, even then, I wouldn't expect them to support such old software. I don't like a lot of Google does, don't get me wrong, I just don't think that it's exactly reasonable to expect them to support this.

Also, on the topic of the modern web, not many use Flash anymore, basic Javascript is what gives us the ability to easily have login systems and other things like that, and HTML5 is probably what a lot of people use now given it's very powerful in many ways previous HTML revisions weren't.

 

[Amethyst1]

I hate google.

There's a very simple solution - stop using their services.
[automerge]1588762102[/automerge]

Still, Google and the rest.. have NO RIGHT to deprecate good email clients.

They have the right to do whatever they want with their services as long as it's not against the law.

 

[repairedCheese]

Still, Google and the rest.. have NO RIGHT to deprecate good email clients. All this security stuff is not necessary in my opinion.

You know, if you switched to Linux, you wouldn't be having this problem. Lubuntu would be a good choice, its code base is getting a tad bit stale as you can feel the end of life getting closer, but that's just it, Ubuntu 16.04 and all its derivatives are still getting updates.

You can even use effectively current browsers. Not bad for hardware that hasn't gotten an update since 2005.

 

[Macbookprodude]

What Linux can I get that will run on a PB G4 Pismo ? The machine is not so slow as I just installed an M2 128gb ssd msata-pata. I just like OS 9 and Mac OS X, but still Entourage is not a bad email client, even Classila in OS 9 works to receive/send email.

 

[RogerWilco6502]

...even Classila in OS 9 works to receive/send email.

But Classilla is also more up-to-date then Entourage X.

 

[z970]

You know, if you switched to Linux, you wouldn't be having this problem. Lubuntu would be a good choice, its code base is getting a tad bit stale as you can feel the end of life getting closer, but that's just it, Ubuntu 16.04 and all its derivatives are still getting updates.

You can even use effectively current browsers. Not bad for hardware that hasn't gotten an update since 2005.

Truth. At the time I made the decision to switch over (which was difficult just to do so, courtesy of Apple's vindictive software and ecosystem), it was no longer a preferential choice, but for health reasons alone.

Never have I met such an arrogant, restrictive, and incompetent operating system like macOS. My blood pressure still raises whenever I have to use it, and I still waste 30 - 45 minutes trying to do something the way Apple wants you to, waiting an eternity for applications to open, and staring at beachballs on relatively capable hardware, because the developers at Apple are incapable of proper optimization and good, clean code (case in point, Catalina). It has now gotten to the point with recent releases that even Windows 10, an objectively more immoral OS than macOS, is more tolerable to use for me.

Maybe it's a bad install, but those didn't use to exist. They used to be a Windows "feature". You know that when even your online company representatives are suggesting this and to reinstall in the hopes of different results, you've got solid evidence that all of your quality control processes have taken a steep decline.

 

[Rikintosh]

I used an Emac for a full year in 2015. It was the best possible version of emac (found in the trash), 1.4 or 1.5ghz G4, I don't remember, and it was almost 2gb of ram, a 7200rpm disk, recorder dvd ... Still, he suffered a lot to access the internet. It's funny how powerpc can work so easily with heavy programs like photoshop and cad, but the simple task of using the internet can make it so slow.

I also used MS Office 2008, Adobe Reader, and at the time youtube still worked on macs.

Nowadays, I think it is impossible to use a powerpc for everyday life, the operating system is out of date, browsers are out of date, there is no interest in developing updated drivers.


A few years ago I also had a 1.67ghz g4 powerbook, he could barely access the internet, and it was so hot that it was possible to fry an egg in it.

 

[Macbookprodude]

But Classilla is also more up-to-date then Entourage X.

You miss the point - they DELIBERTLY made it so that a good, old bit still good email client can not be used. I am one of the developers of Classila and yes, we are working on trying to get it to work with modern web.