I am soooooo sick of Adobe Flash

[one finger john]

That's it. Can't get it, no Intel.
2001 G4 Digital Audio.
1.2 OWC processor
2 500 gigabit (or megabit?) hard drives.

Is there a work around that even a brain damaged 66 year old can use. All I use this machine for is internet & email. I listen to ITunes radio. That is it.

Bonus question - Will a SSD help in any way?

John

 

[eyoungren]

The latest Flash hack is the last version for PowerPC but will report a more current (but still outdated version).

No idea why you need Flash for iTunes. iTunes has never used Flash for anything. Perhaps there is some other issue?

What version of OS X are you using?

A SSD would help as far as speed, but it's not going to magically solve issues related to a lack of support for PowerPC Macs.

 

[keysofanxiety]

I believe the G4s used PATA (ribbon cable) HDDs. All SSDs are SATA. Even if you got a SATA>IDE converter, the bottleneck of the interface will give you very little performance benefit. Adobe Flash issues - well, no way around that, I'm afraid. Adobe just don't support PPC Macs.

To be honest, in my experience, using these old G4s for Internet browsing is pretty much the worst thing you can use them for, due to how web content/browsers have evolved, in tandem with a number of other things. And the G4 just hiccups with that sort of thing. They're better used for home servers, or running legacy games/software. I know it sounds ridiculous that a computer would be better suited to recording music rather than browsing the Internet but … well, again, just my experience.

 

[eyoungren]

I believe the G4s used PATA (ribbon cable) HDDs. All SSDs are SATA. Even if you got a SATA>IDE converter, the bottleneck of the interface will give you very little performance benefit. Adobe Flash issues - well, no way around that, I'm afraid. Adobe just don't support PPC Macs.

To be honest, in my experience, using these old G4s for Internet browsing is pretty much the worst thing you can use them for, due to how web content/browsers have evolved, in tandem with a number of other things. And the G4 just hiccups with that sort of thing. They're better used for home servers, or running legacy games/software. I know it sounds ridiculous that a computer would be better suited to recording music rather than browsing the Internet but … well, again, just my experience.

Respectfully, I have to disagree with both points.

There are PATA SSDs out there, but they are expensive. But they do exist.

In the long run though it would be cheaper to buy a PC SATA card and flash it to Mac then use a SATA SSD (or an actual HD). There is a thread on doing that here. I did it and it cost me $10. I have two 1TB SATA hard drives on my G4 Quicksilver.

Second, as far as web browsing, I do fine on both my QS and my 17" PowerBook G4. I use TenFourFox, a fork of Mozilla Firefox and right now T4Fx is on version 38 which is equivalent to Firefox 38. Pretty modern there.

People complain that T4Fx is slow, but we now have three options to speed it up. Applying my tweaks in about:config (see my signature), using Altemose's easy installer or adding a Firefox addon that gets the basic tweaks if you really want to avoid going in to about:config.

My Quicksilver is not relegated to server or second tier tasks. Quite the contrary, I use it for design work and it's quite capable. Adobe CS4 will run on this Mac under Leopard as will Acrobat 9 Pro and QuarkXPress 8.x.

I have six displays which is more than I can say for a lot of Intel Mac Pros out there.

 

[jbarley]

All SSDs are SATA.

Except for the PATA ones that is.

 

[Dronecatcher]

Is there a work around that even a brain damaged 66 year old can use. All I use this machine for is internet & email. I listen to ITunes radio. That is it.

Bonus question - Will a SSD help in any way?

John

The Flash hack will work for most sites fine. For iTunes I'd use an old version and add the radio URLs manually - later iTunes are colossal and resource hungry by comparison.
For browsing use Tiger or Leopard Webkit - they're much faster than the standard versions and the Leopard version allows you to install ClickToPlugin that allows you to turn Flash on/off and pipe video content to Quicktime or download for offline viewing.
TenFourFox is uptodate and secure but doesn't allow Flash.
Your main enemy online is Javascript - some sites have so much they bring an older Mac to a standstill. Whichever browser you use, turning it off will speed things up, however, virtually all sites use it now. On my slower Macs I have the Developer menu enabled in Safari - this allows me to turn Javascript on/off very quickly.
That Powermac has plenty of life left in it yet!

 

[one finger john]

Thank you for the responses. What is weird is that a couple of days ago i tried using Ookla Speedtest and even though they said it needed the latest Flash, it still worked! The mistake I made was reinstalling the operating system (Leopard, factory disc) and some how lost the advantage. Very frustrating.
And no, I don't need Flash for ITunes, I just listen to the radio.

Any other thoughts or observations would be appreciated. But it has to be in regular, everyday person talk with the emphasis on the 66 year old guy.

Again thanks, John

 

[jbarley]

Thank you for the responses. What is weird is that a couple of days ago i tried using Ookla Speedtest and even though they said it needed the latest Flash, it still worked! The mistake I made was reinstalling the operating system (Leopard, factory disc) and some how lost the advantage. Very frustrating.
And no, I don't need Flash for ITunes, I just listen to the radio.

Any other thoughts or observations would be appreciated. But it has to be in regular, everyday person talk with the emphasis on the 66 year old guy.

Again thanks, John

Oh ya, I can still vaguely remember back in the day when I was 66, seems like so long ago.
Those were good times, all that energy and motivation.

 

[eyoungren]

^^^jbarley is not being sarcastic.

 

[Dronecatcher]

But it has to be in regular, everyday person talk with the emphasis on the 66 year old guy.

That's the catch 22 John - to get the best out of these machines, you have to get a bit technical...
However, the bare minimum you can do is, update Leopard to 10.5.8 and Safari to 5.0.6 via the Software Update in your Apple menu, download and install the Flashhack kindly provided by eyoungren - that should give you a little extra leverage.

 

[one finger john]

Thanks guys, already have the updates on the operating system and Safari. Any idea why Ookla (which requires Flash) would work without Flash or any hacks?

John

Oh yes, the afternoon naps really are nice.