Youtube/Safari/OSX help for the kids' Pixar G4 Imac

[avincent52]

Lately the Pixar G4 Imac that my kids use and love isn't working with YouTube and other popular sites. I tried resetting Safari, and fixing permissions without any real effect.
The problem seems to be that Safari (1.3.2) and Firefox (1.5.0.4) are not supported by the newest versions of these sites.

The machine is running OSX 10.3.9, has 712 MB of memory and about 20 gigs of free hard drive space.

Is there a way to upgrade the OS, and then the browsers, enough to get some more useful life out of this still functional (and very attractive) machine?

thanks in advance
allen

 

[sysiphus]

Lately the Pixar G4 Imac that my kids use and love isn't working with YouTube and other popular sites. I tried resetting Safari, and fixing permissions without any real effect.
The problem seems to be that Safari (1.3.2) and Firefox (1.5.0.4) are not supported by the newest versions of these sites.

The machine is running OSX 10.3.9, has 712 K of memory and about 20 gigs of free hard drive space.

Is there a way to upgrade the OS, and then the browsers, enough to get some more useful life out of this still functional (and very attractive) machine?

thanks in advance
allen

Yikes! Sure hope you meant 712MB of memory

Your iMac should be able to run Tiger (10.4) well, and Leopard (10.5) possibly, depending on your processor speed. Either one should allow you to run newer browsers which should help significantly.

 

[alust2013]

Wow, you have incredibly old versions of those browsers. I'd find a disk for 10.4 Tiger, which I know at least Firefox 3, and Safari 4 work with. That should help significantly.

 

[spinnerlys]

Look for the Model Identifier here (#3) and report back.

With memory you mean RAM? If so it probably has 768MB RAM, as K is sometimes used for Kilo, and a G4 iMac has more than 712KB of RAM.

You should get newer versions of Safari and Firefox here, that still work with Mac OS X 10.3.9, or you get Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger via eBay, but make sure to get the Retail version of it and not some Restore CD/DVD, that will definitely not work with your iMac.

 

[avincent52]

Thanks guys, you're awesome.

First off, yes, it's 768 MB of RAM.
Second, there's no model identifier on this version of OSX, but it's a 1 Ghz processsor speed, and a Power PC G4 (3.3)
Third, believe it or not, 1.3.2 is the latest Panther compatible version of Safari. I did find a much newer version of Firefox (2.0), which is still unsupported, so....

If the next step is upgrading to Tiger, what's a reasonable price to pay for the full version on ebay or elsewhere?
I did a quick search and saw some as high at $150 which doesn't seem to make sense for a computer of this vintage.
What's the latest version that will work (well) with this hardware configuration?

thanks again

 

[sysiphus]

Thanks guys, you're awesome.

First off, yes, it's 768 MB of RAM.
Second, there's no model identifier on this version of OSX, but it's a 1 Ghz processsor speed, and a Power PC G4 (3.3)
Third, believe it or not, 1.3.2 is the latest Panther compatible version of Safari. I did find a much newer version of Firefox (2.0), which is still unsupported, so....

If the next step is upgrading to Tiger, what's a reasonable price to pay for the full version on ebay or elsewhere?
I did a quick search and saw some as high at $150 which doesn't seem to make sense for a computer of this vintage.
What's the latest version that will work (well) with this hardware configuration?

thanks again

With a 1GHz G4/768MB RAM, I wouldn't put Leopard on it (10.5). It will run, but not well. As such, I'd stick with upgrading to Tiger--that should give you at least another year's worth of use before obsolescence truly sets in.

A retail copy of Tiger has apparently appreciated LOTS since the last time I looked. I'd just keep an eye out on eBay for a good deal.

(If you're curious, the reason Tiger is so desirable for may users is that it's a) the last version of OS X to support the "Classic" compatability layer used for running OS9 apps, and b) it's the best balance of features/speed for most G4 Macs.)

 

[rpang]

Unfortunately, from my experience, youtube and other flash sites are too much for the PPC G4 processor. They have become more processor intensive and tend to favor intel-based imacs.

 

[MacHamster68]

upgrade to osx tiger and then do a software update to 10.4.11 run software update a couple of times as you will also get some more java and security updates after 10.4.11 , just run software update until it tells you that there are no more updates for your system
and for youtube
after you have upgraded everything use the html5 beta site
it helps a lot because most videos are available in html5 which is not processor hogging like flashplayer , but update flashplayer too to 10.1 because if the video is not available in html5 format it will play in flashplayer
http://www.youtube.com/html5
and get click to flash , so all the adds wont show up on websites and the websites will load better and faster , instead of the add you see only a empty space with a F (stands for flashplayer)in it ,
if your kids want to play for example the games in facebook they will also come up as empty space with F , then they just have to click the F and the game will start loading might take a bit longer to load , but playable
http://clicktoflash.com/

 

[PowerGamerX]

Unfortunately, from my experience, youtube and other flash sites are too much for the PPC G4 processor. They have become more processor intensive and tend to favor intel-based imacs.

YouTube no, it works fine in standard def on my powerbook, active 30fps and no dropped frames or skipping. Game sites, yes, its just too much.

Be sure to at least have Tiger, if you upgrade the ram, then Leopard will be your best bet.

 

[avincent52]

Okay, I get that I need to upgrade the OS.

Will Leopard run on my machine?
I've got Leopard disks from my MacBookPro. Will they work?
(I think this machine maxes out at around 1.2 gigs of RAM using only the user slot.)

If it makes sense to go with Tiger instead, am I right in assuming that I can use "upgrade" disks since I've got 10.3.9?

Thanks in advance. My kids will be forever grateful as they pretend to be doing their homework and watch South Park clips instead.

 

[spinnerlys]

Okay, I get that I need to upgrade the OS.

Will Leopard run on my machine?
I've got Leopard disks from my MacBookPro. Will they work?
(I think this machine maxes out at around 1.2 gigs of RAM using only the user slot.)

If it makes sense to go with Tiger instead, am I right in assuming that I can use "upgrade" disks since I've got 10.3.9?

Thanks in advance. My kids will be forever grateful as they pretend to be doing their homework and watch South Park clips instead.

Leopard will work on your Mac, albeit slowly. Tiger is the better option.

And know, that the grey Restore DVDs that came with your Mac are model specific and will not work your iMac.
You need to get the RETAIL version of whatever Mac OS X version you choose.

 

[alust2013]

Okay, I get that I need to upgrade the OS.

Will Leopard run on my machine?
I've got Leopard disks from my MacBookPro. Will they work?
(I think this machine maxes out at around 1.2 gigs of RAM using only the user slot.)

If it makes sense to go with Tiger instead, am I right in assuming that I can use "upgrade" disks since I've got 10.3.9?

Thanks in advance. My kids will be forever grateful as they pretend to be doing their homework and watch South Park clips instead.

It will run Leopard, but that disk won't work if it's the gray one. And if you wanted, you could max out the RAM at 1.25GB, which would always be helpful. I'd recommend the RAM and Tiger

 

[drewdle]

Leopard will work on your Mac, albeit slowly. Tiger is the better option.

And know, that the grey Restore DVDs that came with your Mac are model specific and will not work your iMac.
You need to get the RETAIL version of whatever Mac OS X version you choose.

Because of your needs, I respectfully disagree with this statement.

Leopard will run slower than Tiger at most tasks because its a bigger, heavier system, however there is an area in which Leopard runs better than Tiger, and that's video playback. Safari 5 is supported on Leopard, which has support for HTML5, and if you enable the HTML5 Beta on YouTube, you'll see a striking performance increase on Leopard.

Tiger is in it's death throes as a modern OS. In another year or so it will be where Panther is now, with next to no support for modern browsers, plugins, and applications. I say this because, for some of us, this is a non-issue, but in certain environments, it's a much bigger deal, such as your wanting to give this machine to children so they can use the internet. Leopard is better equipped for this.

Also, it would be a cold day indeed before I was convinced to spent $150+ on an outdated piece of software. I got my retail copy of Tiger with my iMac when I bought it; otherwise, it would have been torrents for me.

 

[raysfan81]

Go to the terminal and type “machine” (without the quotations). Then see what processor you have and download camino for that processor version here. 1.6.11 is the last version to run on panther so you need that one. Once it downloads go to preferences>web features > and click "block web advertisements" (you could also block flash if you want and load it when you click on the icon. The optimized camino or firefox is always a good idea when running a PPC system.

 

[rpang]

YouTube no, it works fine in standard def on my powerbook, active 30fps and no dropped frames or skipping. Game sites, yes, its just too much.

Be sure to at least have Tiger, if you upgrade the ram, then Leopard will be your best bet.

Well, it was choppy in my G4 1.0Ghz PPC w/ 1.25 GB ram.

 

[PowerGamerX]

Well, it was choppy in my G4 1.0Ghz PPC w/ 1.25 GB ram.

Slower processor speed, coupled with certain versions of Flash and browsers can all effect that.

My friend can watch flash fine on his 1ghz through the right version of Firefox, and it only has 512mb of ram.

 

[raysfan81]

Slower processor speed, coupled with certain versions of Flash and browsers can all effect that.

My friend can watch flash fine on his 1ghz through the right version of Firefox, and it only has 512mb of ram.

400mhz sawtooth, 1gb ram perfect SD playback and even full-screen with no lag (for most videos).

 

[max¥¥]

Okay, I get that I need to upgrade the OS.

Will Leopard run on my machine?
I've got Leopard disks from my MacBookPro. Will they work?
(I think this machine maxes out at around 1.2 gigs of RAM using only the user slot.)

If it makes sense to go with Tiger instead, am I right in assuming that I can use "upgrade" disks since I've got 10.3.9?

Thanks in advance. My kids will be forever grateful as they pretend to be doing their homework and watch South Park clips instead.

leopard will work those disks will not work as standard but with some simple mod's and a usb memstick it can be made to work

 

[jasonbitesapple]

Look for the Model Identifier here (#3) and report back.

With memory you mean RAM? If so it probably has 768MB RAM, as K is sometimes used for Kilo, and a G4 iMac has more than 712KB of RAM.

You should get newer versions of Safari and Firefox here, that still work with Mac OS X 10.3.9, or you get Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger via eBay, but make sure to get the Retail version of it and not some Restore CD/DVD, that will definitely not work with your iMac.

10.6.4 is out