Mozilla Firefox

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Mozilla Firefox is a free and open source popular web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite and managed by Mozilla Corporation. As of September 2010, Firefox was the second most widely used browser. The last version officially supported on Windows 98/ME is 2.0.0.20 (18 December 2008). With old KernelEX 4.5.2 you can install and run it up to 9.0.1.

Running and Additional Requirements versions 24-52.9

Manual: Firefox 24 - 52 for ME and 98

Set Firefox.exe and Xul.dll to Windows XP SP2 or higher.

Summary:

KernelEx / latest core updates
Kext (latest Kstub.dll + ini file)
merge reg file "APISets/Knowndlls" into the registry
paste UCRTBASE.DLL (version 10.0.14393.33 of Firefox 52.9 or 10.0.14393.795) and concrt140.dll into the system folder
edit dependentlibs.list
Dll's from XPSP2 or SP3 or ReactOS
(Activeds.dll, adsldpc.dll, apphelp.dll, authz.dll, dbghlp.dll, dnsapi.dll, mprapi.dll, netrap.dll, netui0.dll, netui1.dll, ntdsapi.dll, ntlanman.dll, rasdlg.dll, rasman.dll, regapi.dll, rtutils.dll, samlib.dll, utildll.dll, w32topl.dll, winscard.dll, winsta.dll). Paste these files into the system folder.

Hardware acceleration Direct3D9 (OMTC):

1. Install DirectX 9c

2. about:config "layers.acceleration.force" => true

And see issues "Topic Firefox 24 - 52 for ME and 98" on MSFN/board.

Note, following old Firefox versions like Firefox 3 or 9 are now largely unusable due to missing modern features! RT's NSS Library updates improve the functionality so that web pages can be opened and displayed and provide support for cryptographic protocol TLS 1.2. But it is only a kind of makeshift, because the websites are usually poorly rendered. Also browser crashes and freezings are possible. It makes sense to update KernelEX and to use Firefox 31.8 at least.

Download: releases and Portables on Sourceforge

RT's NSS Library updates (2020) for versions 8 - 10 and Firefox 3.6 (nss library 2020) by RT

Installing And Running

Firefox 3.0 - 3.6.28: No special steps required. Runs out of the box. Set to Windows XP Mode. Firefox 3.6 is recommended because it is the most stable and reliable release for KernelEx systems.

Firefox 4.0 - 9.0.1 (KernelEx 4.5.2 required).

Firefox 10.0 esr: Installs and runs unmodified. Compatible with the Adblock extension and Flash 10.3.183.18 plugin. Installing Firefox 10.0.12esr (03 January 2013) avoids frequent automatic updates that can fail under KernelEx. (KernelEx 4.5.2 required) FF10 could be unresponsive after a while!

Known Issues

Can't set as system browser: You can't set Firefox as default system browser. Dialog box "Would you like to set Firefox as default browser?" appears every time you start it. Cause: Windows 9x shell does not support per-user file associations.
Workaround: Run the helper.exe with /SetAsDefaultAppGlobal parameter, as shown in example:
"C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\uninstall\helper.exe" /SetAsDefaultAppGlobal
Printing doesn't work: You can't print from Firefox. Print Preview dialog may work fine, but printing will fail. Only some parts or blank page may be printed or Firefox may hang or crash. Cause: Firefox Cairo printing system uses 32-bit coordinate system and printing extensions which are not supported by Windows 9x.
Workarounds:
1. Use IETab/IEView add-ons which may allow printing via IE engine.
2. Or Printing ::via Firefox 2 engine.
3. A promising Workaround to Print with Firefox 3 and newer on MSFN Printing with KernelEX. More probably it will not work, but you can check it out. Use caution!
Changing system settings stalls while Firefox is running: When you try to change appearance theme in Display Properties, or in RPConfig with Revolutions Pack installed, or changing other system settings which are propagated to other apps, Firefox doesn't respond to changed settings. Other apps may hang when you apply settings until Firefox is closed with Ctrl-Alt-Delete. Cause: There's a bug in Windows 98 message broadcasting. Solution: Update USER.EXE and USER32.DLL to version 4.90.3000 or newer.
JRE doesn't work with recent releases: Java classic works up to version 3.5.19. There is no known workaround to run Java applets in Firefox 3.6 and higher on Win ME/98. See Oracle (Sun) JRE plugin
Firefox is starting in offline mode: The problem doesn't occur with Firefox portable. Install version: Type
about:config
and change
network.manage-offline-status
to false (usually you have to create this entry as a Boolean).
Versions 4.0 up to 10.0.12esr: Recently visited addresses, history and bookmarks don't work. For using bookmarks it's possible to install the add-on PlainOldFavorites. Restart Firefox twice and allow the installation of the add-on. There is another add-on HyperBK 0.5.4 with bookmark functionality and history. You have the possibility to hide the Firefox bookmarks menu. The install.rdf file inside has to be edited. Change maxVersion="4.0.*" to 11 or higher.
Versions 4 and higher: FF runs slow => Try disable "Use hardware acceleration when available" (Tools > Options > Advanced > General). Run it with compatibility mode "Default mode".
Firefox 10: If Firefox 10 hangs or freezes while idle, then disable background update checks:
1. Click Tools -> Options -> Advanced.
2. In the General tab, disable Submit crash reports and Submit performance data.
3. In the Update tab, disable Automatically install updates.
Note there are reports that Firefox 10 runs on some ME/98 systems, but also reports of other people that it hangs or crashes, regardless of the above-mentioned settings.
Firefox 11+: Firefox 11 installs and runs unmodified on KernelEx systems, but might be slow and have noticeable rendering glitches.
Firefox 12 freezes after a few seconds.
Firefox 13 - 23 don't start.

End of Document

The contents were retreived on 11/4/2022 at 12:56 UK.

WinFan3672 plans to add the files and pages attached to the page as well, in future.

Original Document