I have experienced this myself.

My main machine at home - a M2 Pro MacBook with 32GB RAM - effortlessly runs whatever I throw at it. It completes heavy tasks in reasonable time such as Xcode builds and running local LLMs.

Work issued machine - an Intel MacBook Pro with 16GB RAM - struggles with Firefox and Slack. However, development takes place on a remote server via terminal, so I do not notice anything beyond the input latency.

A secondary machine at home - an HP 15 laptop from 2013 with an A8 APU and 8GB RAM (4GB OOTB) - feels sluggish at times with Linux Mint, but suffices for the occasional task of checking emails and web browsing by family.

A journaling and writing machine - a ThinkPad T43 from 2005 maxed out with 2GB RAM and Pentium M - runs Emacs snappily on FreeBSD.

There are a few older machines with acceptable usability that don’t get taken out much, except for the infrequent bout of vintage gaming

It isn’t.

Something does seem fishy: the total number of votes this post has received (~450 at the time of writing this comment) is only about a third of the number of comments (~1.2k).

I guess people were really pent up about their pedantic tendencies.

Thanks for sharing your experience.

Also, appreciate the intro to Haiku OS, I had not heard of it earlier. It is interesting to read their philosophy through their FAQs.

https://www.haiku-os.org/about/faq/

Thank you. The order of trials is 98 -> 2000 -> XP.

I will not be using Windows to connect to the internet; that function will be reserved for the Linux based OS, which I will be running in dual boot mode.

During my search for operating systems for older machines, I did come across NetBSD, but I am not sure if I am ready to give up my familiarity with Linux-based OSs.

Edit: Having said that, this seems like a good opportunity to try it out.

Thank you. I shall add SeaMonkey to the list of browsers to try out.

Thank you for your insight. But I have made it clear that I will not be using Windows 98 for browsing the web, and instead use a Linux based OS.

X220 is a beautiful machine! May it continue to serve you well for years to come. :-)

Yes. I do plan to max out the CPU and RAM, and use an SSD.

Thank you for pointing to the software. I am already looking into getting back on IRC thanks to another comment. I will check the rest out.

It has been more than a decade since I used IRC, #oldcomputerchallenge is a very good reason to get back to using it.

I was superficially aware of Gopher, but I did not know of the other internet protocols mentioned at: https://portal.mozz.us

Also, I completely agree with your point about using light software. I hope I come across more such software as I go down this rabbit hole.

I have learnt so much from your few comments. Thank you so much!

P.S. I am curious to know what your daily driver is, only if you don’t mind sharing.

Yes. I plan on using a lightweight Linux based OS for daily operations and restrict Windows only to game. I also know Firefox would not cut it, and using an older build of FF is a security risk.

The intention behind making this post was to learn from the community what they do to browse the web on vintage machines, if they even do.

Thank you for pointing me to Luakit and https://farside.link. I already use alternative front ends like Piped and Nitter but it is nice to see there are many more options.

Thank you. I do have my expectations in check. That is the reason the machine is restricted to certain activities like reading and writing/journaling.

I was just curious if anyone is using it to browse the web, especially with a combination of lightweight OS and browser.

Thank you sharing about The Old Net. They even have a lite page for systems with limited RAM:

http://theoldnet.com/lite

Oh I won’t even bother connecting to the web with Windows 98.

When I asked the question I assumed a Linux based OS like Antix or Bunsen.

Joplin’s storage model made me stop using it.

Managing plain text notes should not be this convoluted.

I do not agree with @FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today’s take. LLMs as these are used today, at the very least, reduces the number of steps required to consume any previously documented information. So these are solving at least one problem, especially with today’s Internet where one has to navigate a cruft of irrelevant paragraphs and annoying pop ups to reach the actual nugget of information.

Having said that, since you have shared an anecdote, I would like to share a counter(?) anecdote.

Ever since our workplace allowed the use of LLM-based chatbots, I have never seen those actually help debug any undocumented error or non-traditional environments/configurations. It has always hallucinated incorrectly while I used it to debug such errors.

In fact, I am now so sceptical about the responses, that I just avoid these chatbots entirely, and debug errors using the “old school” way involving traditional search engines.

Similarly, while using it to learn new programming languages or technologies, I always got incorrect responses to indirect questions. I learn that it has incorrectly hallucinated only after verifying the response through implementation. This makes the entire purpose futile.

I do try out the latest launches and improvements as I know the responses will eventually become better. Most recently, I tried out GPT-4o when it got announced. But I still don’t find them useful for the mentioned purposes.

That is a good idea! If all the alternatives fall short, this should be the best way forward.

I am fine with paying for the software as long as it provides the functionality.

It would be unfortunate if the only other option is sacrificing privacy.

Thankfully, some helpful comments have pointed out to software that are available to trial and seem to strike a balance between usability and privacy.

I was well aware of the age of the article and original post.

But I saw no harm in prompting the community to ask for suggestions to a software that is adding bloat in disguise of dumb features.