What browser to run on an old PII 233 MHz laptop?

[lolouis]

It has 96 MB of ram on it and it'll be using a good wireless connection.
Can't use the smaller browsers such as Dillo because most of the things I need to do on the web require a much more capable browser.
So, for those of you who have dealt with a similar problem on this kind of hardware and got to a satisfactory solution, the question is, which one will run reasonably well with TCL on the old hardware? Opera, Seamonkey, perhaps an older version of Firefox? Your suggestions, tips and advice will be very much appreciated.

[curaga]

All will crawl, but in my experience Opera tends to be the least slow.

[lolouis]

Which release of Opera would you go for to reach a good compromise between speed, security and capability? Also, what am I looking at in terms of required dependencies that need to be added on to the opera.tcz? Thanks.

[Rich]

Hi lolouis
If you call up AppBrowser and click on opera, then click on the tab called Size, it will
tell you what it needs to download. The + signs to the left of the items listed are what
it needs to download. The totals are listed at the bottom. Regardless of the browser
you choose you may want to go to the user preferences and knock the cache size
down a bit so it doesn't suck up all of your RAM.

[lolouis]

Thanks Rich,
I'd like to hear more from TCL users before downloading anything, though.
I noticed there's a bonecho firefox (bonecho-gtk2.tcz) meant for older machines....wondering how capable that is (of course I won't be doing my online banking with it because of security concerns). Perhaps, it will accept the DownThemAll! firefox add-on (really excellent download manager I am using) - that would be a plus!
Any further thoughts, suggestions, advice?

[Guy]

If you install Tiny Core, and install applications using App Browser, it will download all dependencies. If you download using another method, you will take a long time to download each dependency.

I suggest you install Opera, and if you want, also install bonecho firefox, and even others. If you have them all in OnDemand, you can use each of them at different times, and see for yourself which you prefer.

[lolouis]

Great suggestions. Thanks. Will do.

[tinypoodle]

I would try opera 6.0 and hv3

[lolouis]

I am curious to know....are you currently running Opera 6 and what makes it more desirable than other similar releases of that era, in your opinion?

[tinypoodle]

I am curious to know....are you currently running Opera 6 and what makes it more desirable than other similar releases of that era, in your opinion?

Occasionally I do, for the sake of speed and small footprint.
6.0 is the oldest opera version which works with flashplayer (and netscape plugins in general).

There wasn't such a plethora of browsers back then, and certainly not of such which had a "tabbed browsing" feature, so not sure which ones you would define as 'similar'.

[lolouis]

There wasn't such a plethora of browsers back then, and certainly not of such which had a "tabbed browsing" feature, so not sure which ones you would define as 'similar'.

I meant, why opera 6.0 over, say, opera 6.10 or 7.11, which are all 2002-03 releases pretty similar as far as size and footprint...
With 6.0, can you log into sites such as google, use webmail and do most of the basic stuff people usually do on the web? I would think not, but if you can, then I'll definitely give it a try.....for the sake of speed and small footprint. I remember that firefox 2.0 (released around 2005, I think) ran quite fast on my old laptop (and within slax 5.06, which is no doubt much more resource consuming than TCL), so I would think a much more recent opera release should be doing fine as well.... Sure I want it to be reasonably fast, but if not able to use regular stuff on the web, then it kills the purpose, no?

[Jason W]

Links (links.tcz) is my favorite for old machines that need access to gmail or other https sites.  Of course, no flash, but there is plenty of functionality, stability and security in a light package.  I would use it for secure stuff before the older but more full featured browsers for sensitive business.

[tinypoodle]

There wasn't such a plethora of browsers back then, and certainly not of such which had a "tabbed browsing" feature, so not sure which ones you would define as 'similar'.

I meant, why opera 6.0 over, say, opera 6.10 or 7.11, which are all 2002-03 releases pretty similar as far as size and footprint...
With 6.0, can you log into sites such as google, use webmail and do most of the basic stuff people usually do on the web? I would think not, but if you can, then I'll definitely give it a try.....for the sake of speed and small footprint. I remember that firefox 2.0 (released around 2005, I think) ran quite fast on my old laptop (and within slax 5.06, which is no doubt much more resource consuming than TCL), so I would think a much more recent opera release should be doing fine as well.... Sure I want it to be reasonably fast, but if not able to use regular stuff on the web, then it kills the purpose, no?

As curaga said in Reply #1 all will crawl, and there is a quite significant difference in footprint between opera 6.0 vs. 7.11, IME.
To me software kills the purpose if it has features which obstruct it from being reasonably fast. If I had a PC with such specs I would probably first try links - as Jason W suggested - in combination with elinks, both of those have different strengths.

[lolouis]

Links (links.tcz) is my favorite for old machines that need access to gmail or other https sites.  Of course, no flash, but there is plenty of functionality, stability and security in a light package.  I would use it for secure stuff before the older but more full featured browsers for sensitive business.

Thanks! And what would you suggest as a reasonably light word processor for TCL? Beaver is really a text editor and Abiword seems huge in such a small OS. I wish there were a Ted package, but then, again, Ted comes with a tremendous amount of library dependencies....What's your take?

[lolouis]

As curaga said in Reply #1 all will crawl, and there is a quite significant difference in footprint between opera 6.0 vs. 7.11, IME.
To me software kills the purpose if it has features which obstruct it from being reasonably fast. If I had a PC with such specs I would probably first try links - as Jason W suggested - in combination with elinks, both of those have different strengths.

I'm beginning to think that's probably the very best solution... As Jason W pointed out, reasonable reliability and functionality and the peace of mind of logging into secure sites with updated software...