0:00 hello everybody my name is Eric and
0:01 today we're going to be trying out
0:02 Windows 95 on the internet in 2025
0:06 that's right almost 30 years after this
0:08 initially came out uh Windows 95 was the
0:11 first version of Windows that was really
0:13 marketed as being internet ready and
0:16 ready for this new paradigm that at the
0:18 time had just basically started with
0:21 America online so first of all we've got
0:23 this internet shortcut here control
0:27 panel this is the one now it's going to
0:29 try and get connected and remember that
0:30 Windows this old doesn't really is not
0:32 thinking of high-speed internet it's
0:34 thinking of dialog so let's see well no
0:37 we're not using a modem so we'll go
0:38 manual now we can we want to use local
0:41 area network which was incredibly
0:44 uncommon in the
0:46 1990s now we don't want to use email you
0:49 can use email and it will still work but
0:52 you would have to use the absolutely
0:54 ancient pop protocol so we'll go through
0:58 we don't need a proxy server
1:00 and let's see let's see what happens
1:03 let's first of all just sa if this as I
1:04 don't think it has yet so we can look at
1:06 Network and we can see what we need to
1:07 do so here is our ethernet adapter we've
1:09 got that but what we don't have is
1:12 something that is completely essential
1:14 for using the internet and that is TCP
1:16 IP actually doesn't come installed by
1:18 default in this version of Windows now
1:21 we can restart our computer and we
1:22 should have TCP IP one other really
1:25 annoying thing because of oh these are
1:27 just oh no not again yes if you click
1:31 the wrong thing cuz you to use Windows
1:33 95 on a uh reasonably modern system
1:36 you've got to install the patch even in
1:38 a VM because there's a bug with the CPU
1:41 clock speed if it goes above a certain
1:42 frequency so we've just got to do that
1:44 cuz when I installed TCP IP I overwrote
1:47 that now we do have internet but we have
1:51 to enable DNS which isn't supported by
1:53 DHCP on this version uh so we can just
1:56 do that and that should uh make it work
2:01 and after a bunch of troubleshooting uh
2:04 mostly related to my Windows 95 install
2:06 having some issues it all works
2:08 perfectly or well it doesn't quite work
2:11 perfectly now what always amazes me is
2:14 that Google have put a profound amount
2:16 of effort in making sure that google.com
2:19 works on anything I have tried this on
2:21 every browser pretty much since the
2:24 invention of the internet and it has
2:26 always worked unfortunately for us
2:29 Google is the exception rather than the
2:31 rule even Wikipedia a site that's very
2:33 dedicated to open knowledge won't work
2:36 on this browser now a big part of why is
2:40 because of https so let's see how we can
2:43 make this experience more tolerable now
2:46 I should point out that there are other
2:49 sites that will work perfectly fine a
2:51 good example is a really cool project
2:53 called the old net which is designed to
2:56 let you browse the internet how it
2:58 looked in the
3:00 1990s now because these are from the
3:04 1990s a lot of this stuff will work and
3:07 we can go through the Nintendo
3:09 64 so that all works and the TCP IP
3:14 stack is incredibly backwards compatible
3:16 so you can absolutely use whether it is
3:18 a real Windows 95 computer or a virtual
3:21 machine on the same network as a real
3:24 computer with no trouble at all and
3:27 while there's nothing on the homepage of
3:28 my uh Linux systems engine X server we
3:32 can see that it loads perfectly fine so
3:35 now let's try and get some more usable
3:37 stuff going now here I've got retro
3:39 Zilla which is a attempt at making a
3:43 tolerable modern browser on really old
3:46 versions of Windows I'm guessing the
3:48 reason that crashed is because I copy
3:51 and paste I I got it from an ISO and
3:54 that's probably not going to work well
3:56 let's see if we can have better luck
3:57 this time uh so this is retro Zilla and
4:01 it does have a very clear warning that
4:03 it is not uh secure I believe this is by
4:06 the same person who also makes classa
4:08 for w or Mac OS 9 and it works
4:12 reasonably well it is intended to work
4:15 all the way from Windows 2000 up to
4:18 Windows XP but of course there'd be no
4:20 on Windows XP you've got superium which
4:23 is actually secure now thinking of
4:25 Windows XP you might be wondering is
4:27 this as dangerous suppose we'd actually
4:29 EXP Expos this computer to the internet
4:31 with its own IP address the answer is
4:33 surprisingly no the reason is because
4:36 Windows 95 actually doesn't have by
4:38 default any insecure Services you can
4:41 install SMB but there is no worms going
4:45 around the port scan for it because 24/7
4:47 internet connectivity didn't exist when
4:49 Windows 95 was mainstream so you
4:52 actually don't have to worry about that
4:53 on Windows 95 not to say that by any
4:56 stretch of the imagination Windows 95 is
4:58 a secure operating system is not but it
5:00 is going to be exceedingly hard to find
5:03 any malware that's going to run on it
5:05 now we can see if we can play a YouTube
5:07 video on this uh okay okay I think the
5:11 answer on that is a very definitive no
5:13 now there are other browsers we can try
5:16 uh the last version of Opera to support
5:18 Windows 9x is a popular one although I
5:21 don't know if that I think that might
5:22 need Windows 98 so at this point in the
5:24 video you may be thinking there's no way
5:26 we are ever going to get a usable
5:28 browsing system out out of Windows 95
5:31 and if the only system we could use for
5:34 the end to end was Windows 95 you would
5:36 be correct but I do have a trick up my
5:39 sleeve and I'm going to show you cuz I
5:41 think it's actually really cool so there
5:42 is a project called Web one and lucky
5:44 for us it's actually on the aul so we
5:45 can just install it directly to install
5:48 net and it is a net app that will
5:51 make a web proxy where it will handle
5:54 the hard stuff that can't be done on
5:56 Windows 995 and then it will send images
5:58 of it over to the Windows 95 system so
6:00 let's try this out so what do we have to
6:02 do to make this work in Windows 95 well
6:04 we have to enable a proxy so that our
6:07 Windows 95 system will reach my host go
6:10 to internet settings and we go connect
6:12 through a proxy server and we go HTTP
6:16 and this is the right version because
6:18 this is intended for really old
6:19 operating systems and then we go 880
6:21 with any luck and it will also
6:23 automatically go to archive.org if it
6:25 can't load the current one now let's see
6:28 what happens if we go to YouTube on this
6:31 system seems to give us a script
6:34 error but okay we're getting a warning
6:37 that our browser isn't supported anymore
6:40 yeah that makes sense now let's try
6:42 Wikipedia well at least it loaded what
6:44 about
6:47 CNN well that's right you can actually
6:49 just you can just skip blue screens on
6:51 this version of Windows that's actually
6:52 really cool okay but it did kind of
6:55 break okay now let's try more websites
6:59 so this is Apple and as you can see it
7:01 doesn't look quite right
7:03 but it does work the reason why this
7:07 works is well one of the tricks that
7:10 this proxy uses that makes this work and
7:12 we can also go back to Retro Zilla which
7:15 hopefully won't crash on us anymore I
7:17 think I fixed the problem let's see
7:18 about Reddit well is it usable I mean
7:22 that's kind of subjective I I think uh
7:25 everything's here so that's progress so
7:27 we got Reddit which is actually assuming
7:31 this is internally loading the new
7:32 layout one of the more difficult
7:34 websites let's try BBC let's try my own
7:37 website
7:39 uh yeah that that doesn't really work at
7:42 all I'm kind of curious what it sees as
7:44 the source code for the page okay the
7:46 source code is right so it's just this
7:49 version of Internet Explorer is just too
7:51 old I think on Windows 98 this would all
7:53 work pretty much perfectly but Windows
7:56 95 was more of a novelty try VX
7:58 Underground it's.org not.net what am I
8:01 doing oh there's where you could donate
8:03 so that doesn't that hasn't quite
8:06 worked I wonder if this is partially a
8:08 resolution error cuz we I did install
8:10 the graphics drivers so I can turn up
8:11 the resolution if that would make things
8:13 better let's try
8:15 1600p now we've got a bigger view
8:18 space hasn't really made anything better
8:21 but we can try more of that and now we
8:23 do actually get a semi-usable homepage
8:26 for apple.com so let's see you know what
8:28 it's time to finally move on from
8:31 Windows 995 I just saw the get a Mac ad
8:34 and we decided let's see if we could uh
8:36 maybe oh oh wow these images are really
8:39 wrong it's if we wanted the store I
8:41 think it's I think that's right okay
8:42 let's just see if we can find any
8:44 shopping this should be the actual uh bu
8:47 domain yeah that's what we want no we're
8:49 not really going to find anything of
8:52 much use but we at least get an overview
8:55 or you could call this phone number so
8:57 at least that you would be able to find
8:58 the phone number so you could actually
9:00 buy something modern let's try Hacker
9:02 News That's wow it works crashed
9:04 Internet Explorer but it did work so
9:07 that was pretty impressive the szip szip
9:10 website is pretty Bare Bones let's see
9:12 if we can actually download something
9:14 from it that there just may not be oh no
9:16 it is
9:17 possible okay of course that's not going
9:19 to run because we're we're a couple
9:22 decades off I don't know if there's a
9:24 really old version on here that might
9:26 well we can try it don't think any
9:28 version of seven zip runs on Windows 95
9:30 okay I am being pleasantly surprised
9:32 does that actually work yes okay I did
9:35 not know that any version of 7 random
9:37 would is 95 wow so I think that's going
9:39 to be the end of the video mostly cuz
9:41 the VM uh is really not liking this but
9:44 I am genuinely impressed that with the
9:47 power of web 1 you actually can browse
9:50 some Modern websites on Windows
9:53 95 anything super interactive or that
9:56 requires a ton of modern JavaScript
9:57 isn't going to work but if you if the
10:01 site is simple and follows it doesn't
10:03 have to be compatible with Internet
10:06 Explorer 3 but if it would follow HTML
10:09 designs that were reasonable 20 years
10:11 ago uh it will in fact work so that's
10:14 going to be all for this video uh do I
10:16 recommend it no is it secure no uh but
10:19 is it workable sure so that's going to
10:21 be all for this video please do leave a
10:23 like if you enjoyed it tell me in the
10:25 comments below what you thought uh if
10:27 you want me to try this with other
10:28 really old op operating systems like Mac
10:30 OS 9 or ancient versions of Linux let me
10:33 know that's all for me for now bye
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