What causes Win98 to load pages so slowly?

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9xer

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Dec 27, 2012
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Over the past couple of years I"ve had 6 Win98 computers, and all of them take a long time to load pages...some to the point where I had to reboot the computer because they took so long/wouldn't respond.

Hardware has been everything from a 400 MHz PII to a 1.8 GHz P4 with 512 mb of ram; makes no difference, it always runs slow no matter what machine. The machine I"m typing on now has a 500 MHz K7 Athlon/384 mb ram...runs so slow I have to wait for the text to keep up, and I have to hit the red x button next to refresh or else it will just load forever.

No viruses or malware...many of these have been fresh installs, and I use Clamwin regularly. It's not the internet speed either. What do you think it is?

And no, I"m not going to run 98 in a VM, I never liked those (part of the allure for me is the old hardware).

Thanks for any help you can give
 
Solution
USAFRet
What causes Win98 to load pages slowly?

Being Windows98, a 15 year old OS.
The browser is old, trying to load modern web pages. Web content has changed. Modern web pages are much heavier than ones from 1998. So the applicable browser version that 98 can use struggles to render the current content.

If you were to find a server with a website built in 1998, it would probably render somewhat faster than trying to render a modern page.


In addition, your olllllld hardware. Even your 1.8GHz P4 is ancient, in PC terms.
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Pinhedd

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Aug 7, 2007
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You have got to be joking...

Well, if you're not,

Rendering webpages has become more and more demanding as new web technologies are introduced. Javascript has become pervasive and can be found everywhere.

You are going to have to join the rest of us in the new millennium at some point.
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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Mar 16, 2013
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What causes Win98 to load pages slowly?

Being Windows98, a 15 year old OS.
The browser is old, trying to load modern web pages. Web content has changed. Modern web pages are much heavier than ones from 1998. So the applicable browser version that 98 can use struggles to render the current content.

If you were to find a server with a website built in 1998, it would probably render somewhat faster than trying to render a modern page.


In addition, your olllllld hardware. Even your 1.8GHz P4 is ancient, in PC terms.
 
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ss202sl

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May 23, 2012
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What browser? What web page? What kind of content?

There used to be a big push for making web pages very efficient so they were fast to download(over a slow internet connection), and fast to render on slow hardware\software. Over the last few years PCs got faster, browsers got more efficient, and internet speeds got faster. These all led to better web content. now you're trying to use this same web content on an old slow pc, with an old OS, not much memory(compared to today), and an outdated browser(IE 6).
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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Consider this:
Your 1.8 P4 has 512MB RAM. A decade ago, you would never see a 512 MB image on a website. Today...trivial. That RAM+CPU has to swap in and out of virtual memory just to render that one image. Swapping to an old, slow hard drive.

Why is a Model T slower than a 2013 Camaro SS? Because it is old.
 
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9

9xer

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I should have been more specific. First of all, this is not my main computer, I just use it for fun. I use Kernelex, which lets me use newer browsers and programs. I run Firefox mainly, never use IE. I've used all the way up to FF10 with the same results, and I've also used very recent versions of Opera; no difference.

So today's internet is just too much for the old hardware to handle? If that's the case, I guess I'm just stuck with the slowness, as there's not much I can do about that. But some of it must be due to the o/s as you've pointed out, as the 1.8 P4 machine I tried it on runs XP with the same hardware, and it runs decently.

Thanks for the answers, everyone
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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For instance: (new on the left)
website_compare.jpg


oxford-new-copy.jpg


Larger images, more content, more CMS/javascript
Bottom line, much more stuff for the browser to try to do.
 
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9

9xer

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Thanks, I do see the difference. But again, I ran a version of Opera that was maybe a year old at the time...even though it was considered a modern browser, it still wasn't any faster.

If we take the browser out of the equation, is Win98 itself simply unable to handle today's internet?
 
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9

9xer

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Ok, fair enough....but let's do a "what if". What if I used the fastest possible processor with 98 (which I believe is around 2 GHz), the most ram (512 mb), and the most recent Opera browser that works with Kernelex/98 (which is still pretty recent)...could I have a machine that's at least reasonable enough to surf the net with minimal lag, or will it still be a dog?

thanks for your answers
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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Would it be reasonable? Dunno. You'd have to try it.
You're still running a 15 year old OS, with very limited RAM.

But the only way *I'd* try is is in a virtual machine, running inside of a Linux host, on a discrete PC.
A long outdated OS, running a long outdated browser, is simply a virus/malware infection waiting to happen.

I still have a working Dell laptop, PII 300, running Win2000. It has one use. To interface with the car ODBII port, because that is the only working machine that has a working serial port to interface with the OBDII hardware I have.
It does nothing else, and is used maybe 2-3 times a year. And yes, it is dirt slow.
 
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9

9xer

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Nah, I never liked VM's, I like vintage hardware for the nostalgia aspect of it. I would never use it for anything other than surfing the net, and even then, never with any personal info...if it gets a virus, no biggie. Or to put it another way, it's that Model T we were talking about...I like to drive it once in awhile lol

Thanks for all of your help, much appreciated
 
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frk

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Jun 28, 2013
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As i don't like only "to take" from a board, but i'm glad if i can also "give something", i try to add my 2 cents to this topic, feeling more "near" to the author's position. (please, always be patient with my english).

It's true, web is ways heavier then only a few years ago, but this doesn't necessarily means contents are "better". I'm working with web til more a decade and i can say that 90% of complex code/objects in modern webpages is not there for users advantage but for publishers needs/purposes. Sometimes there is the clear intent to force users to upgrade software/hardware, sometimes simply web developers suck... i have personally seen developers saving a flash object in the more recent version's format of flash, without real need of this, disregarding backward compatibility.

This bring us to the only concrete help i could try to give: in the most cases, when a webpage doesn't load correctly on Win 9x/ME it's due to a flash issue. Flash was compatible with Win98 only up to "9" version, and with WinME only up to "10". If you try to install a newer version of flash plugin on these OS you'll get an advice that sounds like "you are trying to install flash on a not supported OS. Please upgrade your OS".

Established that no flash >10 object will be loaded, you can do like me: install the "noscript" estension for Firefox end it will stop to load any script on any page until you expressly authorize it (obviously it keep memory of what you authorize).

I hope this could help ;-)
 
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