YouTube Transcript:
Can Windows 95 Browse the Modern Internet in 2025?

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