The title says it pretty well. My iBook G3/500 (Dual USB) runs pretty well on Panther but very poorly on Tiger, even with Dashboard and Spotlight disabled. I'd like a more modern browser (at this point even Firefox 3.x is fine) than Firefox 2 because that thing is getting pretty darn close to unusable on most web pages.
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Is there any way to get Firefox 3.x/early TFF running on 10.3.9 Panther and if not what is preventing it from working?
- Thread starter Caleb Hauge
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Links2 supports TLS 1.3 and uses updated internal certificates while also running on 10.3.9. No JavaScript support but you’d be surprised how many sites don’t really require it. Firefox 3 might be portable but that’s still 13 years old and wouldn’t support modern TLS.
I also think the same about Panther V.S. Tiger…
How does it run poorly on Tiger? In my experience Tiger has always, 100% of time been very noticeably faster than Panther. Tiger is literally an optimized version of Panther with a few added features that have relatively low overhead. Much like Snow Leopard to Leopard. There is basically no reason to run Panther other than novelty. Tiger is better, and faster even on slow G3s. This is not opinion, it is fact. I even have Tiger on Beige G3s.
A lot of users on here disable dashboard on Tiger. I never do. It doesn't do anything IMO and I use it even on very slow G3s. What I do disable, is spotlight indexing. If Spotlight is indexing it slows even mid-range G4s to a halt IMO.
Your G3 will never be good at web browsing. I have the same iBook (amongst many other G3s).
How much ram does your system have? The HDD could also be going out. Max the ram out if it isn't, a slap in an SSD and your iBook should be a decent Tiger machine as far as G3s go.
System resources that Panther does not have but Tiger and Leopard do.
You've got a choice. Either try and work with what you have until it dies and turn your G3 towards jobs that don't require the internet or upgrade. We all love workarounds here and the ability to push our machines, but a G3 on the internet in 2021 running Panther just really isn't viable except for really light and easy tasks.
Have you upgraded ram on your G3? That may be one reason it runs Tiger poorly.
You've got a choice. Either try and work with what you have until it dies and turn your G3 towards jobs that don't require the internet or upgrade. We all love workarounds here and the ability to push our machines, but a G3 on the internet in 2021 running Panther just really isn't viable except for really light and easy tasks.
Have you upgraded ram on your G3? That may be one reason it runs Tiger poorly.
This^.
I find Tiger runs best with 256MB or higher. Though I have ran it on 128MB and it still isn't much worse than Panther. OS X on anything under 256MB is iffy IMO.
Thanks, I'll give Links2 a try.
I'll at admit that I am only sitting here with 320MB of RAM, so that's probably not helping at all. I swapped out the HDD yesterday morning for the 60GB one from my now dead 867MHz PB G4 12" and in the process broke the power button cable socket off the motherboard so now I have to use it half assembled with an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse, so at the moment I want to put any more upgrades off until I can find my soldering iron and get the thing fully fixed.
It seems that my previous message is awaiting moderator approval. Maybe it's because I quoted some people? Anyways, I'm going to give Links2 a try on here. I've got 320MB of RAM and recently upgraded the HDD to a 60GB one from a 12" 867MHz PB G4 and in the process broke the power button cable socket off the motherboard so I have to use it half assembled until I can find my soldering iron. Until then I'd like to avoid any more upgrades to try and prevent me from destroying it further.
I have the exact opposite opinion. I would 100% use Panther like I do Tiger/Leopard if it had the same amount of software support. For example a lot of my ported stuff needs to be built on Tiger or higher although it is built to run on 10.3.9 and higher.
I still use Panther a lot and it’s only ever been generally faster and more lightweight then Tiger. Panther gets a really bad rap and I think it’s just because everyone likes Tiger so much that Panther is overlooked.
Links2 even works well on an Apple TV first gen using Rosetta with a terrible amount of available RAM. On my clamshell it’s an absolute pleasure to use. I don’t think there is any graphical browser more light weight then it . Please post back on your thoughts using it!
I've specifically tested Panther vs Tiger on some of my slower G3s and each time I've found Tiger to be a better experience. I don't have anything against Panther, it's a great OS. But it's like using 10.5 Leopard on an Intel Mac.
This article states it all I think.
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if you have it half assembled, and plan on fixing it further I would change that HDD out for an SSD. The HDD that came in the 867MHz 12" is a paltry 4200RPM drive which is a drive speed that shouldn't have ever been used after 1990. Since you already have it mostly disassembled, just do that when you fix the socket.
As you know the ram doesn't really require any further disassembly.
I'm no fan of Tiger as anyone here who has witnessed my rants about 10.4 in a mixed PC/Mac environment can attest. By and large, Panther was always a more stable system as well.
But the problem is that if you want to run more modern software you've got to upgrade. Once Tiger came out, developers ditched Panther very quickly. Panther is great if you're choosing to work on period software and generally avoid the internet but beyond that it's day has passed.
Tiger is a much more complete OS for sure. There is a reason most of my ports require 10.3.9 and not 10.3.8 or 10.3.0. 10.3.9 is soo similar to 10.4 that the same 10.4 SDK can mostly be used for the same features and run on 10.3.9 with a specific build configuration of a minimum Mac OS X Deployment Target of 10.3 and possibly minor other differences (like core audio was massively changed in Tiger and it was a headache to figure out for Panther SDL2, also Tiger has some serious threading advantages and much more modern API). 10.0-10.3.8 is a nightmare to port most modern stuff too (I’ve tried) because it’s not even really completely posix like compared to things like Linux. That’s why software support is soo bad on these versions.
For me, 10.3.9 is very stable and just seems more lightweight then any Tiger version, on all 3 of my PPC Macs. Leopard is definitely slower on any PPC Mac compared to previous versions but it is what it is.
Different experiences with various OS versions are expected of course. But for my workflow, I think Panther is rather assumed as just a worse workflow when it actually is incredibly similar to Tiger.
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Someone agrees! Well now with PPCMC 7.2.5 not only do we have twitch and YouTube playback, but also the latest git, curl, ffmpeg, FFplay, and much more! And Links2 is definitely making the internet usable on 10.3.9, although tbh I don’t think anything will compare to TFF’s sheer compatibility with the majority of websites the require and rely on JavaScript.
I think that was only true up until 10.4.9 or 10.4.10. After 10.4.10 I would say Tiger surpassed Panther on stability. Though I suppose there was a reason for having that many updates after all.
Panther was definitely not any better at PC networking. I'm one of those people. Having a FreeNAS/TrueNAS server is what finally has removed all the difficulty with cross platform networking for me. For file sharing anyways which is all I need.
I'll agree here on everything except it being more lightweight. I think they're pretty equal on that front especially if you take away spotlight. Spotlight is a resource hog for sure.
Links2 is the only thing I bother using on G3s at this point. Especially with frogfind and similar sites starting to show up. I don't think I've ever used it on Panther though...I totally forgot it actually is compatible with it.
One of these days I'll play with it. Panther is on my netboot server so I can use it whenever. It kinda sucks Links2 can't work with Jaguar. Jaguar is really the only other PPC OS X version I use other than Tiger and Leopard.
The Links2 port really reminds me of the old internet days, My iBook Clamshell browsing around the modern intenet at such incredible efficiency reminds me of my earliest internet memories.
I gave Links2 a try and was only able to get the text mode working, even with X11 installed, though that may be down to me still being on 10.3.8 (can't find a dmg or .pkg to update to 10.3.9 that I can download from within 10.3.8, USB flash drives are not liking this thing at all lately) and not on 10.3.9. Once I can upgrade to 10.3.9 I'll try out the graphical option. The text mode has impressed me quite a bit with the speed though there is quite a learning curve to navigating the web this way.
I've had a lot of trouble with PPCMC on Panther, though my experience with PPCMC on my G3 has always been negative regardless of the OS. My normal method of watching YouTube on old Mac OS (worked on Mac OS 8.6!) was by downloading videos from http://wantyoutube.com/ but that website no longer works properly so until I can get PPCMC working I appear to be screwed in that department.
It requires 10.3.9. It’s actually incredible that it runs at all in any way on 10.3.8.
500MHz G3 is going to be rough on streaming but downloading files should be fine. There are the download for QuickTime 6 options, the 240p one which I used on the clamshell which is a 300MHz G3 and it works great for playback even in Mac OS 9. I even streamed twitch once at 160p on the clamshell.
Now that I've updated to 10.3.9 (thanks Project Alice and Macintosh Garden!) I can give Links2 a proper try. I messed around with the color settings to get the background white (looks much better that way in my opinion) and I really enjoyed it. Scrolling was pretty weird but other than that I can say it is easily the best browser available for Panther (and possible G3 Macs overall) due to speed and the ability to actually connect to stuff. I'm very happy with it so far.