Re: Modern browsers on legacy PC's (Split thread from PSU hall of shame)
Negative.
Flash is actually what allows me to still play YouTube on my old PCs. In particular, I still use Flash 10.3. That said, YouTube defaults to HTML5 nowadays, even if the browser doesn't support it. This makes it nearly impossible to watch anything, because HTML5 is built for new hardware and heavily relies on hardware acceleration.
But one workaround I have found is to use a Plug-In for FireFox called YouTube Flash Player (v50 or newer). It basically forces YouTube to use Flash Player. For old PCs that don't support hardware acceleration and/or HTML5, this thing is a godsend. I can actually still watch *some* 720p videos on YouTube (typically the lower bitrate stuff). 480p is no problem at all. With HTML5, even 360p is a slideshow on the same old machines.
So old hardware is still not that useless nowadays. You just have to know the workarounds.
Yes, I can grab a $50 laptop with an i3 and 4 GB of RAM in it, and that will sure as heck beat my P4 stuff any day. But why don't I? Because most new stuff nowadays is built like shit. I work in a big national computer store chain right now, and all I can say is that new stuff is just built like shit and not worth getting. No seriously, I'm talking about shit like laptops that are 1 year old and their crappy China-made batteries are already bulging and on their way to either catch fire or break something (for MacBooks, you get a nice cracked Trackpad, and sometimes screen - enjoy the repair costs for that, folks!) Oh, and let's not forget the ultra-thin laptops that run their soldered CPUs at 70+ Celsius (some of the really small ones even hit over 80C). Let's see how long those last.
Yahoo, AOL, MSN... they all suck. Even the latest i7's we have at work seem to hesitate for a second or so when loading the browser with those pages.
Originally posted by eccerr0r
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Flash is actually what allows me to still play YouTube on my old PCs. In particular, I still use Flash 10.3. That said, YouTube defaults to HTML5 nowadays, even if the browser doesn't support it. This makes it nearly impossible to watch anything, because HTML5 is built for new hardware and heavily relies on hardware acceleration.
But one workaround I have found is to use a Plug-In for FireFox called YouTube Flash Player (v50 or newer). It basically forces YouTube to use Flash Player. For old PCs that don't support hardware acceleration and/or HTML5, this thing is a godsend. I can actually still watch *some* 720p videos on YouTube (typically the lower bitrate stuff). 480p is no problem at all. With HTML5, even 360p is a slideshow on the same old machines.
So old hardware is still not that useless nowadays. You just have to know the workarounds.
Yes, I can grab a $50 laptop with an i3 and 4 GB of RAM in it, and that will sure as heck beat my P4 stuff any day. But why don't I? Because most new stuff nowadays is built like shit. I work in a big national computer store chain right now, and all I can say is that new stuff is just built like shit and not worth getting. No seriously, I'm talking about shit like laptops that are 1 year old and their crappy China-made batteries are already bulging and on their way to either catch fire or break something (for MacBooks, you get a nice cracked Trackpad, and sometimes screen - enjoy the repair costs for that, folks!) Oh, and let's not forget the ultra-thin laptops that run their soldered CPUs at 70+ Celsius (some of the really small ones even hit over 80C). Let's see how long those last.
Originally posted by eccerr0r
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