download web browser for windows 98 Are old versions of Windows at risk of modern malware attacks? On my answer to a previous question (Can I run Windows 98 and games from the same era on an AMD Duron CPU?) I finished with a warning about using Windows 98 on the Internet, which received the following comment: Windows 98 it so old that most attacks don't work, and most malware won't run. That poses the question, are the 9x versions of Windows susceptible to modern Malware? I have my own thoughts on this question, but I thought I'd query the community first. 4 Answers 4. The very first step of an attack is to probe the target for platform . Pentesting applications such as metasploit have much more numerous and varied techniques to breach Windows 98 as opposed to the newer Windows versions. By extension, most malware in the wild will also check for platform. In fact, much of that malware has its origins in Metasploit, especially those malware deployed by script kiddies. (The question How could one say that older operating systems are more vulnerable? on Security Stack Exchange (linked by Stephen Kitt in the comments) provides a more in-depth answer, but I will try to provide a high-level answer here as well.) Yes and no, mostly no. Yes in the sense Windows 9x is vulnerable to most of the exploits patched by the various Windows XP (and above) service packs and security updates. The manufacturer has ended support for those OS versions and has no intention of providing any additional updates. No in the sense that any executables targeting a version of Windows higher than Windows 9x will (or uses some then unavailable WIN32 API) will refuse to run on your system. See this example alert when trying to run a Skype executable designed for Windows XP and above. Pre-XP versions of Windows are certainly vulnerable to targeted attacks, such as you'd see from Metasploit -- if you're the sort of high-value target that attracts such attacks, don't run Windows 98. However, most malware isn't that flexible. Instead, it's programmed to run on popular versions of Windows (typically XP or newer) and nothing else: the return on investment from targeting older versions just isn't there. For example, attempting to run what ClamAV calls "Win.Trojan.Fraudload-3348" on a Win98 system crashes with the following error: Other possible errors include missing DLLs. DLLs that explicitly require a newer version of Windows (this one requires "5.0 or newer"), errors that are just plain strange, and one I haven't been able to trigger to get a screenshot of, where a system library is missing an expected function. The last is probably your greatest protection, in fact: most programmers will, deliberately or accidentally, target Unicode-based systems. If you haven't installed the optional unicow32.dll library on your Win9x system, Unicode-based programs can't run. @Mark is on the right track with this when discussing targeted versus non-targeted attacks. To be more specific, this depends on the nature of the threat that you are trying to defend against. If you are up against a hostile government, organized crime syndicate, or similar threat that is specifically targeting you and is actively engaged in gathering intelligence on your operations and infrastructure, running older operating systems isn't going to provide a meaningful defense as the hackers will just target you with exploits for whatever OS you use. If you are defending against random opportunistic attackers who are looking for quick and easy victims, older operating systems will likely provide some defense as most opportunists are going to be targeting the most commonly used operating systems. 'Modern' browser that will work in Windows 98SE. I have a little Windows 98SE virtual machine I run as a curiosity. I occasionally need to/want to download software to test on it, but the version of IE on it has trouble rendering many modern sites or handling redirects. I'd like a browser that will run on Windows 98SE and. render reasonably modern webpages. I don't expect Acid compliance, but I do expect say, oldversion.com to work enough to be able to download the most recent DX version for the platform not need a load of additional software installation to work handle redirects, PNG and other things we take for granted on the modern internet to work correctly. 5 Answers 5. Opera 9.64. Free. Version 10 and later don't run on Windows 98. Version 9.64 was released in 2009 and was among the best browsers back then. You get tabs, mouse gestures, speed dial, URL blocking and countless other features. There's a program called KernelEx that adds a "compatibility layer" into Windows 98SE (and ME). It lets you run some Windows NT programs on Windows 98SE/ME. (Info on installing KernelEX: http://kernelex.sourceforge.net/wiki/Help:Contents) With KernelEX, you should be able to run Firefox 10 ESR, and Opera 11.50 [source] (check the wiki link, you might need to run it in "Windows 2000 SP4" mode instead of the default "Windows XP SP2" mode). ARCHIVED: What are the Windows 98 and Windows 98SE system and hard disk requirements? Note: UITS recommends that you use a current version of Windows on computers connected to the Indiana University network; see Recommended Windows operating systems at IU. System requirements. According to Microsoft, the minimum system requirements for Windows 98 and 98SE are: 66MHz 486DX computer, with 16MB of memory VGA monitor Mouse or compatible pointing device Keyboard Floppy disk drive or CD-ROM drive. UITS recommends, however, that you start with a Pentium or Pentium-class processor and motherboard running at 200MHz or higher, with at least 32MB of RAM as a minimum configuration. Keep in mind that running Windows 98 or 98SE with less than 32MB of RAM will cause a lot of disk swapping, and the more applications you want to run at one time, the more memory you'll need. Windows 98 and 98SE both use 8 to 16MB of RAM, while one typical 32-bit application needs several MB to run properly. Hard disk requirements. The typical Windows 98 or 98SE installation requires about 195MB of hard disk space. Installation can take as little as 120MB of disk space or up to 295MB, depending on your system and the options you choose to install. If you use the FAT32 file system, you will gain about 10 to 15% more efficient use of disk space on a larger hard disk (above 512MB). Limitations. Although Windows 98 and 98SE are versatile operating systems, both were designed to run on Intel x86-based processors. They also do not support multiple processors; although both will run properly on multiprocessor computers, they will access only one of the processors. Note: You cannot install Windows on a computer using a 386-based B-step processor. To find out if you have this type of processor, you can either check your system documentation or use a utility such as Microsoft System Diagnostics to check the ID of your processor (B-step processors have an ID of 0303). To do so, at the DOS command line, enter MSD , and then check the CPU settings to get this information. This is document afqp in the Knowledge Base. Last modified on 2018-01-18 12:12:29 . Download web browser for windows 98. The extended support from Microsoft for the ancient Windows 98 ended in July 2006 at latest. So the ancient Win98 has been vulnerable for 10 years now. It is one thing to use it offline to play old games or such but it should not be used for online stuff. What hardware does it have for cpu and amount of Ram as there may be a pretty current light Linux distro that would be far far safer to be doing online stuff with. If you got say 128MB or more RAM then maybe Lubuntu 14.0 LTS may be able to run smooth on it. Latest web browser compatible with Windows 95 / 98. Do you know which is the latest web browser compatible with Windows 95 / 98? At the moment I have an Opera 10 working fine; it is very lightweight but very outdated. I assume that software that works in Windows 95 will work in Windows 98. 7 Answers 7. That latest web browser I am able to find is K-Meleon 74 Windows 9x Edition. It was created in 2014, when the Pale Moon engine (Goanna) was backported for Windows 2000. It requires KernelEx (and the latest updates) and a rather beefy old machine to run. You could also experiment with other later browser versions on top of KernelEx, as it adds NT support to Windows 98. If not, then you're stuck with the official latest versions, of which Opera 10 is probably the best. I have not tried any of these, not having a Windows 98 system, but a bit of research reveals: Internet Explorer 6 SP1 was the last IE, in 2001. Firefox 2 was the last Firefox in 2006. Netscape 8 (2005) or Netscape 9 (2007) are available here. Opera 10 (2009) seems to be the last available, here. Safari and Chrome never supported Windows 98. Browsers carried on supporting Windows XP for much longer, because it was a better platform for software development and testing. This answer was written before the question was edited to add Windows 95. It's not safe to assume that anything which runs on '98 will run on '95; the reverse is more likely to be true.