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Resolved Question

Is there a browser that plays well with XP?

by Feb 16, 2015 7:32AM PST

HP e-pc 40; XP Pro SP3;Firefox, IE8 (I know that XP & IE8 are no longer supported)

I have tried getting Chrome, but I need to install it on an external hard drive & it is not possible to change the default. It seems to require a massive amount of resources, e.g. all the CPU's RAM.

I am unable to log into Microsoft's site to get some help, so I came here.

Is anyone able to help here? Thanks.

Discussion is locked

hikergirl has chosen the best answer to their question. View answer
6 Posts
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Best Answer

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No. Here's why.
by Forum moderator Feb 16, 2015 7:47AM PST

As folk demanded more performance the move was to use as much ram as possible. RAM beats HDD every time.

Chrome here is not that big as to the HDD space so why the call to put it on the external drive?

But if you must, http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/google_chrome_portable. That's 150MB. Just last month we bought a 500GB laptop HDD for about 45 bucks so that works out to about 2 cents of drive space. You can see why no one will blink an eye if Chrome was twice that size.

So, Chrome is a memory hog. Nothing new there. https://www.google.com/#q=limit%20chrome%20memory%20usage
Bob

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My system doesn't qualify to install Chrome
by hikergirl Feb 17, 2015 6:14AM PST

Chrome sets out its parameters, as with most any other software of a given size I have installed.
It wants XP SP2 or higher; Intel Pentium 4 or higher; free disc space of 350MB; RAM of 512 MB (the entire HDD).

You are helping me in another forum: Notebook or Desktop

If I can find something I can afford and it meets my needs, then I won't need to bother with finding another browser (I am fed up with all the unresponsive scripts FF allows to run for hours on end).

From what I have read from your portableapps link, I think I need a degree in computer science. I'm going to have to put up with what I have until I find a replacement. So, thank you for the Amazon link to the best choices out there.

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That sort of machine is now hard to find.
by r. proffitt Forum moderator Feb 17, 2015 6:35AM PST
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Re: browser
by Kees_B Forum moderator Mar 15, 2015 7:20AM PDT

The manuals for HP e-pc 40 date from Januari 2000. A 20 GB hard disk isn't much for XP SP3, but it should work. But I would not run XP in 128 MB RAM, and certainly not with any modern browser. My Firefox, as I write this in Windows 7, uses 464 MB (out of 4 GB).

The answer to the question "a browser for XP?" is "surely". Both IE8 and Firefox run fine on my XP machine that has 2 GB RAM, and 1 GB would be fine also. But a PC with 128 MB of RAM surely is outdated and unusable nowadays. So for that PC of the OP, the answer is "no".

Kees

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Regular Chrome does not allow XP
by hikergirl Mar 16, 2015 2:09AM PDT

As I have been forced to upgrade (b/c AT&T never disclosed that the U-Verse will not run on the old HDD), I now have Chrome on 8.1. It works very nicely and, similar to FF, allows me to choose if I want it to remember passwords. And, it also has tabs. I'm happy.

By the way, only the Chrome app would accept XP - not the regular Chrome software. After reading the instructions for installing the app, I felt I needed a degree in computer science to understand it.

But, now, all is well.

Thanks for everyone's digging and reporting on my behalf.

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Still wonder what's up here.
by r. proffitt Forum moderator Mar 16, 2015 2:21AM PDT
http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/16/4844466/google-continuing-chrome-updates-windows-xp-through-april-2015

While the machine looks dated, it should work but slowly. 128MB RAM is 8% of the lowest amount of RAM I see on today's machines. What may work is the OS (XP) with all the updates Microsoft offered. There is only one low ram use browser that's been kicked around for decades now. Some debate if it's a browser.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynx_%28web_browser%29

It's about as light and in fact the lowest memory use web browser I've seen since about 1995.
Bob
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