Roughly how the future looks:

......2006-Q2.......2006-Q3.......2006-Q4.......2007-Q1.......2007-Q2


trunk------------------trunk-------------------NT/XPonly------------->


1.9a1(km???)------------1.9--------NT/XPonly---(Firefox_3.0)-1.9.0.x->


1.8(km???)----------(Firefox_2.0)-1.8.1.x-------Win9x/ME--------->2008


1.8.0.4(km1.0)-(Firefox_1.5.0.4)----------1.8.0.x-------[END]


1.7.13(km0.9.13)-(Fx1.0.8)--[END]

Although I am very fond of Opera (have used it extensively for many years), I prefer K-Meleon because I can edit K-Meleon's menus and toolbar-button-menus and context-menus easily.
Opera's toolbar-buttons can be moved or removed, but modifying the menu-items or the menu structure is harder. It can be done, but it is hard enough that I only remember coming across very few (two) websites where that was being done, and I have not gotten up enough courage to do it myself.
It is true that the last time I used Opera it was beta8, so maybe something has improved.

I tried Opera for 2 years. Had problems with webpages not rendering completely. Didn't have a rendering problem with a Gecko based browser ( K-Meleon, Mozilla 1.7xx, SeaMonkey). Last Opera I used was version 8.0.

Interesting suggestion, Ed. Opera is definitely another option for Win9x users, for as long as it does not drop Win9x support.

Offtopic caution: don't talk about Opera's features or bugs in this thread.

Me use WinME. Me like ME. Me like K-mel. No like Opera. Tenor sing too loud. Ubuntu K-mel? When?

@ vpowell
Do not trust me. Check for yourself. The current Opera 8.54 and
the Opera 9 Beta 2 are no better.
Therefore we just need to keep up the K-Meleon support for Win 98
and ME.

Author: guenter (---.net-htp.de):
IMHO these WinDOWs were ok as long as You used alternative shell,
alternative memory mamager, alternative file manager, deinstalled outlook and a lot
of other rubbish ... did i leave anything out : - )

ROFL
It works for me. Just for the record, I am one of those tottering old win98 users, with all the alternate hax.

Ultimately, the decision has been made to use the Cairo-SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) in 1.9.x gecko (although if you look in the contributed builds
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/contrib/latest-trunk/?C=M;O=D
right now they still have a GDI-SVG build of Firefox, "firefox-win32-svg-GDI.zip").
Cairo-SVG is not supported by Win9x/ME, thus 1.9.x gecko based browsers will not run on Win98 or WinME unless we can patch those operating systems to run Cairo.
The 1.8.1.x gecko browsers (which are still called 1.8 gecko right now) SeaMonkey 1.1 and Firefox 2.0, are supposed to run on WinME by design, and, since WinME is Win98 with a cuter face, they should run on Win98. They are supposed to be supported for the next two years ( until approx. June 2008).
The 1.8.0.x gecko browsers (and our K-Meleon 1.0) will be phased out in less than one year.
The 1.7.13 gecko browsers (and our K-Meleon 0.9.13) will be phased out in less than half a year.
@ rmn Opera is a Win98 option but it would be sad to have to direct K-Meleon users away from K-Meleon. That is definitely a last-resort.
@ joe Some of Opera's web-page rendering problems are courtesy of Mr. Gates and his staff. At least this was so for their MSN pages.
http://my.opera.com/community/dev/articles/20030206/

One more page about this problem:
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/svg/build.html
Unfotunately it gives conflicting information, it seems to indicate that Firefox2/Seamonkey1.1 (gre1.8.1) will not run on Win98 unless built for Win98 using
GDI-SVG, but it does explain about the build process, and it has a link to the GDI dll.

http://kmeleonbrowser.org/forum/read.php?f=1&i=38435&t=38435

@bellgamin,

A thread including people who have managed to run K-Meleon with a Linux distro using WINE. Don't know about Ubuntu but the thread is informative if you're looking to use K-Meleon in Linux.

Vincent: k-m 1.0 runs with gecko 1.8.1.x also (not only with 1.9.x & 1.8.0.x.)
That gives us two years ;-)
Two years from now Reactos will IMHO be productive :-)

There sems to be also a k-m 0.9 that runs with 1.8 - 1.9 GRE series.
So there are k-m 1.0 and 0.9 that can be updated with new GRE while
the GRE are available. Even if k-m after that will have to use cairo.

Fred runs 0.9 under wine.

Opera is IMHO more resource hungry than k-m.
So i assume not the real viable alternative to k-meleon
when hardware is the main reason to run win98 and k-meleon.

ED: 0.8.2 was faster than Opera when k-m was new. Then new Operas came.
and 0.8.2 was not faster any more, that is why Dorian made 0.8.2+1.8engine.

0.9.+1.7x GRE is slower than Opera on modern systems.
But k-m 0.9 and 1.0 that use new GRE can be faster. Hao´s has messured it.
Performance is not as essential; each broswer has week and good points.
The question is: fits this browser to my serfing patterns and system configuration.

The only reason I use K-meleon is that it works with Windows 98 and not because it works with 2000 and XP. I won't even download other browsers that only work with 2000 and XP. And if K-meleon only works with 2000 and XP, I will never download any newer version of it again.

George:
Newer is not always better.
I used my old 0.8.2+ for specific things untill half way through last year.
It is still installed and ready to start now : - )

You can update GRE for 2 more years into future or more.
Either update is done for all - by ppl such as AL, Brian, Fred ...
or You do it Youself.

The problem is that later there will be no GRE for k-m when Mozilla.org go to Cairo. All other lean browsers on Gecko basis will then just be the same age.
No new GRE available. So it could be like You say in the end. You just keep using
the last update of k-m on the 98 machine.

Some time soon Mozilla wants to use new compilers and the new free MS compiler that are used by Mozilla.org will probably make much bigger code - so some here may even reject the new GREs for this reason.


.

"Opera is IMHO more resource hungry than k-m."

Not trying to start a flamewar or anything, but on my PC running XP, Opera uses less than half of the resources that K-M uses.
But that's a problem with Gecko, it's very memory hungry no matter how you use it.

Gecko settings are affaik set to keep RAM.
So browser can run with much less that it tries to goble up while running ;-)

You can force k-m to release this RAM by minimizing him.
After that You see a much smaller RAM usage for doing the same job.
Like writing here - on my system it can be around 20 mb or 5 mb depending.

Past k-m have been bleeding if I have understood Dorian correctly. Recent k-m have reduced chrome which makes more speed and afaik uses less resources.

( and was not intended as flame -maybe You can post what RAM and CPU time which Opera uses as compared with which k-m when rendering this page. )

Guenter,

So in essense, you are saying that KM even without using the 1.9 new GRE will be alive for the next two years.

And if I read this correctly, with nightly bugfixes from 1.7xxx Gecko we can keep KM 0.9 going too.

I'm currently using KM 0.9 (Brian's patches and a Fred version for new tools) and Dorian's latest 1.0 RC. Dorian is currently using 1.8.0.4 and that works pretty good even though it is not the final product. Since he is working on 1.8.1.xxxx, I expect equally good things there. That gets us to the two years you mentioned in your post.

So the way I see it, we have time to look for ways to survive and perhaps thrive as others see the end of the road with the Mozilla Foundation's decision to follow Microsoft's decision to dump older operating systems.

Interesting comparison of Firefox and Opera 9

http://gomeler.com/2006/06/20/opera-9-another-choice/

Memory and Resource Usage

With all applications that I run, this is one of the most important factors in deciding how I feel about the application. To test this I used Firefox and Opera simultaneously on separate screens and then began opening up tabs and loading pages. With CNN.com and Gomeler.com open in both browsers, Opera was using 36MB of memory while Firefox was using 28MB. Then with 5 tabs open Firefox jumped to 52MB while Opera rose to 41MB of memory used. Then I opened up 20 tabs in each browser and then let the memory resources settle into what I figured was their stable state. Firefox settled in around 140MB while Opera settled in around 78MB, almost half of Firefox. However the big story here was CPU usage. Using a 2.8GHz AMD single-core processor, Firefox was sapping nearly 35% of my CPU cycles while Opera hovered around 2%. To some people this could be very important so take this for whatever it means to you. For one last test, I closed every tab besides the first and then I let the memory usage settle again. This time Opera dropped to 61MB while Firefox dropped to 69MB. I suppose these results are due to Opera not clearing out its trash upon closing so keep this in mind, however both browsers are victims of this.

Thanx Jack, nice info-find.
After what i see on my old p500 k-m is rather like Opera.
But maybe it is differnt on newer machines or depends on the content You open?

ndebord affaik more or less Yes (but maybe not with 1.7.x for all that long).

PPL can expect to be able to update both 0.9 (that uses 1.8.x, they were used for inofficial themes Hao, Fred and development early in last year) or one of Dorians current or past 1.0 builds. 1.8.1.x are schedule to be used by SeaMonkey and FFox untill the 1.9. change. And 1.8.1.x will have 98 support. (Unless Mozilla changes their mind.)

I tried their test build GRE & it looks like the 1.8.1.x line works with our mentioned exes. To me this means even if Dorians has trouble to find other 98 testers but You and cannot include 98 support into future exes because of that or other reasons - 98 support can be updated by users knowing as little as us two ;- )

Mozilla may maintain nightly fixes for 1.7.x for embed applications - for
unknown time -maybe less than 2 years. Since they want to keep a foot in embed projects market. k-m is an embed application. Mozilla is likely to give embed applications developers enough time to switch to XUL-Runner. XUL-Runners are from 1.8 GRE at the moment and can potentially drive all k-m that can use that GRE ; -)

Apart from that from what i have seen in the past Dorian is likely to include 98 support while he can without making the whole k-m progress too slow.

All current "release versions" of xulRunner are based on gecko "1.8.0.x" (as are SeaMonkey1.0.2 and Firefox 1.5.0.5 which support Win98/ME). The media player Songbird is (AFAIK) based on gecko 1.8.0.1
h t t p : / / ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/xulrunner/releases/?C=M;O=D

There are "nightly versions"of xulRunner based on the work towards gecko 1.8.1
(now still called gecko "1.8", soon to be called gecko "1.8.1.x" - equivalent to SeaMonkey1.1/Firefox 2, which will support Win98/ME).
h t t p : / / ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/xulrunner/nightly/latest-mozilla1.8/?C=M;O=D

There are "nightly versions"of xulRunner based on gecko "1.9.a1" (equivalent to SeaMonkey1.5/Firefox 3, which is designed to support WinNT/XP/Vista only)
h t t p : / / ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/xulrunner/nightly/latest-trunk/?C=M;O=D

But the "production versions" of xulRunner will be based on gecko "1.9.x" (WinNT/XP/Vista only).
see h t t p : / / wiki.mozilla.org/XULRunner:Roadmap#XULRunner_1.9

Guenter,

Much as I like KM 1.7.13, in terms of stability and working macros, etc., but the difference in speed that KM 1.0RC1 offers is measurable on my W98se aging laptop and some of the bugs that were never going to be fix in KM 0.9 are not there any longer (vanishing layer and unexpected crash error), so whenever they get the new one fixed up to their satisfaction, I will gladly make the move. Making sure the search engine macros work across versions is a late-breaking change that I heartily endorse.

So I am not worried about KM 1.7.13 sticking around for long. I figure we'll be enjoying RCs for a while, as Dorian works out whether or not to stick with 1.8.04 or to go to 1.8.1 for the official K-Meleon 1.0 release. Whatever his schedule turns out to be, is perfectly fine with me as the latest round of RCs are pretty darn good IMO!

N

Perhaps I should have posted this here instead:


RE: Bookmarks Plugin Isn't Showing Up
http://kmeleonbrowser.org/forum/read.php?f=1&i=22204&t=22204

In this thread it recommends using a free trial of Norton Utilities
to add needed DLL to Win 98.
Believe I have tried everything on the Norton website.
Most say they will work on Win 98.
None will.
Whenever trying to install they say you need Win 2000, etc.
Does anyone have ideas?
Perhaps something from Mcfee?

As kko posted in his new posting in the other thread with
your question, install VC6redistSetup.exe from here :

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=259403

as recommended in the Wiki under "known issues/problems" here :

http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/wiki/?id=ReleaseNotes081

Fred