How do I use the Web on a PPC Mac?

[eyoungren]

I don't know what this means.

foxPEP and TenFourFoxPEP - For A Faster Firefox / TenFourFox

The Firefox Partitioned Engine Patch, officially abbreviated as foxPEP, is a finely tuned all-in-one preferences patch designed exclusively for Firefox-based browsers that automatically applies a number of advanced under-the-hood configurations to achieve a superior Web browsing experience on...

forums.macrumors.com

I am very pleased with the performance of LWK until such time as the spinning beachball appears. Once that happens for anything more than a few seconds I can count on the browser to crash. I wouldn't mind if this was an occasional occurrence but it's happening with too much frequency for my tastes. I'm continuing to evaluate it because the alternative is so much worse.

You may want to look at Demeter: https://www.dropbox.com/s/6kw7f65lte60ro3/Demeter 1.0.8.app.sit?dl=0

Less stable than LWK. But it blows the doors off LWK in speed. Demeter is the fastest browser I have ever used and it's highly unfortunate that it was never developed further.

 

[defjam]

foxPEP and TenFourFoxPEP - For A Faster Firefox / TenFourFox

The Firefox Partitioned Engine Patch, officially abbreviated as foxPEP, is a finely tuned all-in-one preferences patch designed exclusively for Firefox-based browsers that automatically applies a number of advanced under-the-hood configurations to achieve a superior Web browsing experience on...

forums.macrumors.com

You may want to look at Demeter: https://www.dropbox.com/s/6kw7f65lte60ro3/Demeter 1.0.8.app.sit?dl=0

Less stable than LWK. But it blows the doors off LWK in speed. Demeter is the fastest browser I have ever used and it's highly unfortunate that it was never developed further.

Thank you for the information. At this point I'm planning to continue evaluating LWK for a few more days. If it remains unreliable then I'll probably just discontinue using my G5 for browsing the web.

 

[wicknix]

Try Iceweasel-PPC. It's a majorly slimmed TFF. Performance is somewhere between webkit and TFF, and it's stable 99% of the time. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1s1jd0d3ZZpLJYIm6iCQ26sD3TMwTLKPm/view?usp=sharing and install an ad blocker ( like ublock origin legacy ) as ads will kill speed on any browser.

 

[defjam]

Try Iceweasel-PPC. It's a majorly slimmed TFF. Performance is somewhere between webkit and TFF, and it's stable 99% of the time. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1s1jd0d3ZZpLJYIm6iCQ26sD3TMwTLKPm/view?usp=sharing and install an ad blocker ( like ublock origin legacy ) as ads will kill speed on any browser.

I'll give it a try. I agree that ads are performance killers, even on modern systems.

 

[repairedCheese]

Thank you for the information. At this point I'm planning to continue evaluating LWK for a few more days. If it remains unreliable then I'll probably just discontinue using my G5 for browsing the web.

Honestly, it's probably going to remain unreliable. The only reason I'm willing to put up with that is because it lets you open all windows from the last session under the History menu.

 

[defjam]

Honestly, it's probably going to remain unreliable. The only reason I'm willing to put up with that is because it lets you open all windows from the last session under the History menu.

I think I need to clarify what I mean when I say I want to see if it remains unreliable. I'm referring to how it reacts to the sites that I normally visit. It crashes on certain sites which I know to be "busy" but don't frequent often. However others seem to be OK (Mac Rumors being one). If others that I frequent don't cause problems then I'll continue to use it for some basic browsing.

 

[repairedCheese]

I think I need to clarify what I mean when I say I want to see if it remains unreliable. I'm referring to how it reacts to the sites that I normally visit. It crashes on certain sites which I know to be "busy" but don't frequent often. However others seem to be OK (Mac Rumors being one). If others that I frequent don't cause problems then I'll continue to use it for some basic browsing.

I had it crash on Mac Rumors as I tried to reply to you, so it sounds like it's more stable on your end than it is mine. But from seeing it crash as often as I have, my conclusion is that it just really does not like javascript, and the less you run into, the better off you will be.

 

[throAU]

Be gentle with me, I'm not a computer expert at all, I just got the opportunity to buy a PPC Mac for £50 so I did!

Thing IS - S-L-O-W doesn't even BEGIN to describe it on the Web. The poor thing can't handle the Internet for love nor money. You watch whatever site you click on painfully building up, almost pixel by pixel. If you then click on a link, you sit and watch a spinning beachball for 4-5 minutes, no joke, till it actually gets anywhere. If you're lucky. There's some sites - quite a lot, actually - that are totally unusable just because it cannot handle them.

So I'm back on my Windows XP SP3 PC that's about 14 years old and handles the Internet just fine!

Given that a PPC mac is AT LEAST 15-16 years old at this point, and most vendors gave up with updating browsers for PPC about 5-10 years ago, no this is not representative of all Macs...

 

[Dronecatcher]

I think I need to clarify what I mean when I say I want to see if it remains unreliable. I'm referring to how it reacts to the sites that I normally visit. It crashes on certain sites which I know to be "busy" but don't frequent often. However others seem to be OK (Mac Rumors being one).

Read my experiences here:

Surviving With A Powerbook

I'm now on my 2nd week away from the UK, in Nova Scotia, Canada - my only companion being my 12" Powerbook - ok, I have my Lumia Windows 10 phone but that's used for txt, calls, taking snaps and WhatsApp and an iPhone 4S that's used for iOS music apps only. So far, I've been able to get by...

forums.macrumors.com

I found selectively switching off javascript/changing the user agent to be invaluable.

Also consider Fluid instances and TenFourFoxBoxes for favourite sites.

A general rule of thumb is you can't have one general purspose browser on PPC.

 

[TheShortTimer]

A general rule of thumb is you can't have one general purspose browser on PPC.

Yep, I alternate between TFF, IWPPC and AF on my G3.

 

[defjam]

I had it crash on Mac Rumors as I tried to reply to you, so it sounds like it's more stable on your end than it is mine. But from seeing it crash as often as I have, my conclusion is that it just really does not like javascript, and the less you run into, the better off you will be.

I did experience an issue with posting a response to you using LWK but wrote it off to a prior browser crash. I agree about JavaScript. I disabled Java on TFF and its performance was acceptable. Unfortunately many websites became unusable without it.

I'm disappointed that LWK crashes so frequently as its performance makes browsing the web doable.
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A general rule of thumb is you can't have one general purspose browser on PPC.

This makes sense. However, it's something I would prefer not to do. Since I have alternative systems and browsing using my G5 is not critical to me I'll probably just "retire" it (again) for web browsing duty. I don't use the system much so browsing the web on it is not important. I'll leave LWK installed for the occasional time I am using it and might want to browse the web.