I've never run into any problems having my retro systems online. These days, I have them on a small network that connects to the internet through my main Windows 7 system with internet connection sharing. I don't do any significant web browsing on the 386 and 486 systems, but I did recently install Firefox 10.0.7 ESR on my K6-2+ Windows 2000 SP4 system and it seems to work quite well!

I occasionally connect my retro machines to the internet - just the grab the odd driver, utility or wallpaper off sites that still support old browsers. And besides, browsing vogons on a 120Mhz cyrix 586 is unexplainably fun 😜

Yes, all my retro machines are connected to LAN and therefore internet as well. Of course I don't browse web on them, performance is simply too low.

keenerb wrote:

I'm basically done with installing this Windows 98se box and I'm at the point where I need to decide whether to connect this sucker to the internet.

I would expect that's a very bad idea. I'm leaning towards giving it an IP without a gateway, so I can ftp/copy files off my internal servers.

If I did give the machine full internet access, is there a "safe" browser to use?

I like the idea of omitting the gateway if you want to connect to the LAN. You can also assign a static IP and do it in the firewall.

I don't let my retro PCs go online. I'm old school, I just transfer files over by floppy, USB or rewritable disc. It's not that big an inconvenience.

As long as your entire household is behind some sort of router with a built in firewall (99% of all of them provided by an ISP all have this today, mostly).. then you're perfectly fine and should have no issues putting any computer online.

I do it with all of my old machines, Win3.11 dos machines, Win98se machines, XP SP-0 machines, all of em are online. I've never had a single problem over the years, behind a router.

yea mine is online and so are my virtual machines. I see it this way its been 10 years since the last update for Windows 9x, and its been 13 since it was used in any large amount. What are the odds today of coming across a windows 9x virus. No one targets 9x anymore and if by some small chance you get infected is the server that will hijack your system even online anymore 🤣. 3.11 is likely even safer, no one is writing virus's for 16bit OS's anymore

I don't allow end-of-support NT (including 2000 or consumer XP) or *nix on the internet, with one exception - if it's NT and it's not x86, it's OK... but only if FX!32 isn't installed. (And, my only Alpha box has FX!32 installed, so it doesn't get to be routable.)

The same rule goes for any *nix that's past end-of-support.

Beyond that, though, most things are pretty safe due to sheer obscurity. Browsing the web with IE 6 on Windows 98 or Me is one thing I won't do, but many exploits are written around NT specifically, and won't run on 9x. (However, you want a browser that's still in support and getting security patches, and on 98, that's quite hard. And, KernelEx increases your attack surface by adding NT compatibility.)

bhtooefr wrote:

I don't allow end-of-support NT (including 2000 or consumer XP) or *nix on the internet, with one exception - if it's NT and it's not x86, it's OK... but only if FX!32 isn't installed. (And, my only Alpha box has FX!32 installed, so it doesn't get to be routable.)

The same rule goes for any *nix that's past end-of-support.

Beyond that, though, most things are pretty safe due to sheer obscurity. Browsing the web with IE 6 on Windows 98 or Me is one thing I won't do, but many exploits are written around NT specifically, and won't run on 9x. (However, you want a browser that's still in support and getting security patches, and on 98, that's quite hard. And, KernelEx increases your attack surface by adding NT compatibility.)

Any exploits for old systems won't be seen or found on the web any more today, no one cares about exploiting those systems anymore. At one point I specifically spent weeks hunting down the install discs for a 7 year old version of linux just to put it on a P166 system, and used an old version of apache for a web server, and I put it online and served a website for about 5 years with it 24-7-365 and never had a single issue, even with hundreds of random people accessing it daily.

This mental idea that "Oh god it's old and not supported, it'll get viruses if you put it online!" is total hogwash bullcrap and not even remotely true.

bhtooefr wrote:

I don't allow end-of-support NT (including 2000 or consumer XP) or *nix on the internet, with one exception - if it's NT and it's not x86, it's OK... but only if FX!32 isn't installed. (And, my only Alpha box has FX!32 installed, so it doesn't get to be routable.)

The same rule goes for any *nix that's past end-of-support.

Beyond that, though, most things are pretty safe due to sheer obscurity. Browsing the web with IE 6 on Windows 98 or Me is one thing I won't do, but many exploits are written around NT specifically, and won't run on 9x. (However, you want a browser that's still in support and getting security patches, and on 98, that's quite hard. And, KernelEx increases your attack surface by adding NT compatibility.)

its not gonna happen, think like Apple, we are security because we are obscure.

I don't have a 98 machine, but I use Win2k and XP online every day. It's only as safe as it ever was - if you do careless things you can get infected, but the same was true 5 and 10 years ago. These OSes don't do much to protect you from yourself, which is the key difference between them and modern versions of Windows. Some people repeatedly have problems with malware on these OSes and some people don't have problems at all.
If you are behind a firewall (most people are), make sure what you download/install is clean, and are conscious of the risks of scripting in web browsers (I use NoScript) then you'll be fine. Also disable autorun on flash drives - but that's not an internet issue. On NT releases, if you want to be super careful you can run as a restricted user (but personally I don't go that far). If you don't let malware in then you don't have a problem.

I guess this subject is controversial nowadays. When XP stopped getting updates from Microsoft, many people didn't feel comfortable with it anymore, which is fine, but it seems a smaller number of people went on a crusade to stop anybody else on the internet from running it either. I don't remember such an aggressive attitude emerging upon EOL of any earlier releases, but some people really have it in for XP users.
I even got a comment on an Amazon review recently where I had mentioned how to configure a device under XP. For just mentioning that, it prompted somebody to repeat the standard "OMG you can't run XP anymore" lecture. I'm getting tired of it to be honest.
I don't have a 98 machine, but I hope to build one at some point. When I do, I'm not at all worried about letting it see the internet. I don't know what web browsers it has available though, and the browser can present a risk if it's not kept under control. I would try to use some version of Firefox with NoScript installed.

candle_86 wrote:

yea mine is online and so are my virtual machines. I see it this way its been 10 years since the last update for Windows 9x, and its been 13 since it was used in any large amount. What are the odds today of coming across a windows 9x virus. No one targets 9x anymore and if by some small chance you get infected is the server that will hijack your system even online anymore 🤣. 3.11 is likely even safer, no one is writing virus's for 16bit OS's anymore

Sounds like the makings of a movie. In fact I seem to recall a movie, where they had to find and recall a bunch of old servicemen from WWII to fire up an old battleship. Instead, they'd have to hire all of Vogons users with their pre-XP systems because all the modern OS's are so virii-ridden that nothing can function, anymore.

kithylin wrote:

Any exploits for old systems won't be seen or found on the web any more today, no one cares about exploiting those systems anymore. At one point I specifically spent weeks hunting down the install discs for a 7 year old version of linux just to put it on a P166 system, and used an old version of apache for a web server, and I put it online and served a website for about 5 years with it 24-7-365 and never had a single issue, even with hundreds of random people accessing it daily.

For *nix specifically, you've got plenty of daemons that are new enough to be vulnerable, old enough to not have been patched, such that modern exploit techniques work against them. (Think of things like sendmail being configured as an open relay by default.) Firewalling the machine off helps, but it's not really trustworthy IMO.

Two of my Windows 98 systems have boot sector viruses, but these appear to have come from either old medium or Yamaha's website - three machines had the virus and the one thing they have in common is that they've had the SW1000 in them and the drivers were from Yamaha's site. I will have to test the files from Yamaha, but I am leaning further towards it being from an old bootleg of a common application, just haven't figured out what, possibly PassMark 6 - before you say anything, I paid for it and my key stopped working, I'm not paying for it again.

All my PCs are connected to the LAN, and therefore can connect to t internet if I wish to do so. My main rig (Windows 7 32bit) and secondary/XP rig are connected during almost all their powered up times, but my older machines (PIII DOS/W9x/WMe/W2k and PMMX DOS/W9x) are able to connect (connected to LAN) but I'm definitely not using them for browsing or anything (not because I afraid but because its a tasteless experience)

Normally, I don't, but I do have one computer I just recently completed which I would like to set up for online play in Star Wars X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter under Windows 98 SE, although all previous attempts at netplay have failed (I will note I was trying to connect to Windows 10 computers, and this worked via direct connection with a crossover cable or with an Ethernet switch, but not through my ISP's router even with port forwarding). As such, I may dual-boot the computer with XP to run GameRanger and save myself the headache.

Like many others here I do as well. I've had no problems or issues connecting my DEC 486 to the internet. I've even manged to navigate to places like anandtech and google without issue. I've also signed onto IRC and Usenet just too see.

My 486 runs DOS 6.22 and WFW 3.11. Maybe the 16-bit file system adds an extra layer of protection but I doubt it.

I use FTP on my retro gaming boxes, but that's more to pull files back from the local LAN, without bothering with network redirectors, floppy disks, or USB support layers. A packet driver and mini TCP stack are easy to configure.

Tried using DOS browsers and it's pretty much unusable..

I use DOS Lynx from time to time. It's not fancy or pretty, just all business.

Well, I dont surf internet with my retro machines. Too scared someone may just hack and steal my dos abandonware games! 😉