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The Off By One Browser is an oldie but goodie that I use all the time as a supplemental browser, especially if I don't trust a particular site. It cannot execute scripts of any sort, it caches everything completely to RAM, and is even small enough to fit on a floppy. Relocate the ob1.ini it creates from the Windows folder to the OffByOne folder, write-protect the HPSW.CKI cookies file (or disable them altogether), and your footprint is pretty much non-existent. It is quite fast and useful on sites where I am mostly interested in reading articles or random surfing. You don't even have to install this; you can run it right off a USB stick if you prefer.

Obviously this isn't going to load YouTube videos or do anything remotely fancy, so it isn't going to complete with the mainstream browsers, but it is a nice browser to have on the side. *posts with it now*

sounds like you want http://offbyone.com/offbyone/ob1_faq.htm

Off by one does ok for simple sites and has SSL. It fits on a floppy. I do wish they'd update it as some websites will not render well.

http://offbyone.com/offbyone/

I have to agree that Win95 is probably going to be the best GUI experience you'll get on such a machine. I ended up doing the same on a Compaq Contura 4/25 (486SX/25 with 8Mb RAM and 320Mb HD, floppy only, no networking apart from RS232 for a modem).

Initially I installed Slackware 3.9, whose critical elements were available as floppy images. I downloaded the rest via dialup modem. You might like to try Zipslack, which is available up to v11 of Slackware and installs on FAT (with the option to change to ext2 later, IIRC). I think up to at least V7 still had floppy images for booting.

I got X running, with help from http://www.linux-laptop.net/ and installed Netscape 3.0 (without WM) - it just about worked.

Alternatively, you could use an svgalib graphical browser like Arachne:
http://www.glennmcc.org/aralinux/
I've used the DOS version with great success on 286 and 386 platforms, but I've not tried the Linux version.

In the end I created a set of Win95 floppies from an install CD, installed the OffByOne browser and it ran at a much more usable speed:
http://offbyone.com/offbyone/

I'm no fan of Windows, but it provided the best UI on that particular laptop.

Rob

It's called Off by One.

You forgot OffByOne.

http://offbyone.com/offbyone/

Especially since one of the PC entries is Maxthon, which is just IE with a whole bunch of crap added to it. For those looking for alternatives in the Windows realm I would suggest Seamonkey for those who want an "all in one" complete with HTML editor, IRC client and Email client. For those looking for speed, especially with older hardware(works well on as little as 400MHz with 128Mb of RAM) or simply want a quick, no frills web browser I would suggest Kmeleon. For those who like social sites such as delicious and flickr I would recommend Flock. And finally for those that would like a tiny browser, one that takes up almost no space and can simply be dropped on a flash drive I would point out OffByOne.

Any one of these IMHO would be better choices than the ones given for Windows in this article. And Maxthon is IMHO just too dangerous due to the fact that IE is still the #1 target out there for malware writers and in XP and below IE is too easy to hit to make it a safe browser for everyday use. But if anyone here hasn't tried the above browsers, give them a go. I have used all of them at one time or another and they each have their uses.

If you are wanting a tiny browser that does images,try OffByOne.It's a really great little browser,with full HTML 3.2 support.

And unlike Lynx, it has the advantage of only running in Windows. Yay. Down with those pesky portable programs !

If you are wanting a tiny browser that does images,try OffByOne.It's a really great little browser,with full HTML 3.2 support. Of course some sites like Yahoo will complain that they can run all their scripts,but the links and images work just fine. And at 1.2Mb with a simple zip folder it is really easy to drop onto a thumbstick for quick browsing on the go. But as always this is my 02c,YMMV

For those on Win95-XP,or those that carry a thumbstick and would like a similar small,ultra fast browser that works great on a stick,might I suggest OffByOne? It is small(1.2Mb),very fast,easy to install to a stick or PC(just unzip),and as a nice bonus it also supports tabs. I have found this to be a great little addition to my thumbstick,and it really flies. But as always this is my 02c,YMMV

http://offbyone.com/offbyone/

Try that. It's a rather amazing browser. The zip will fit on a floppy. The executable will but you won't be able to fit the SSLeay dlls on it.

Of course I go to fire it up to make sure it really works on my linux system under wine and wine has been updated to death again.

I think I first ran into The OffByOne browser from a /. post or perhaps from TinyApps.org. I, like you, used Netscape almost exclusively, starting with version 1.22 or so. I agree that the 3.x series was among the best, with its quick ability to disable images and other things. Version 4 added the nice ability to disable cookies (although I was already learning to set cookies.txt to read-only in the 3.x era.)

Anyway, back to the point, OffByOne is self-executable, does not require an installer, and fits on a floppy. Most importantly, it does not rely on any other browser, so it will work just fine out of the box, even if you want to run it on old versions of Windows that did not bundle a browser, like NT 3.51 or 95a. OffByOne maintains that simplified, no-frills approach, so you do not have to worry about Java / Javascript / shockwave flash / etc. getting in your way. It's perfect for forums like this, when you're mostly interested in just reading.

Oh, and it has tabbed browsing too. It's even faster than Opera 6.

I know it won't completely replace Netscape 3, as there are some things it lacks (I'm picky too), but I think you'll find it to be a very nice supplement for your browsing needs. Caching everything to RAM not only keeps your disk from fragmenting, but it also cleans up all traces of your history when you're done with it. :)

If your needs are basic, consider the small footprint of The Off By One browser. It's no-frills, self-executable, does not depend on any browser, and works just fine for most sites. If you like the performance of Netscape 3 with Javascript turned off (I do), then you will love Off By One. As a bonus, it has tabbed browsing too! Think of it as *NIX's Dillo, but for Windows.

And on the topic of Netscape, IMHO they were dead when they released that horrible version that was so buggy and slow( I believe it was NS4). And let us not forget that Netscape was as bad as IE for using their own proprietary hooks which made it hard to render in other browsers. I am so glad that now we have so many choices like Firefox, Seamonkey, Safari, Opera, Kmeleon, etc. Instead of the "Coke VS Pepsi" that was NS VS IE.

And for those that want a "Netscape like" browser, there is always Seamonkey, which is much better and supports most Firefox extensions, including the important ones like noscript. It also makes a great browser for those older folks that are still stuck on older versions of IE and Outlook. I can't count the number of folks I've switched with Seamonkey due to the convenience of being able to check their mail just by clicking on a tab.

It is sad to see a once great come to the end, but IMHO it died a long time ago, and now they are simply pulling the life support. It does make me look back on the good old days, When Peter Norton made great tools and everyone had their own favorite DOS hacks. Now Get Off My Lawn!

But just learn about MS conditional comments then you can treat it like http://offbyone.com/offbyone/ or Links2.
The conditional comments means you can hide you style sheets and javascript from any MS browser you don't want to support so all it sees is bare html3. Then you're in the realm of graceful degradation and unobtrusive javascript.

Options - [uncheck] Enable Meta Refresh

I found this browser off of http://tinyapps.org/ years ago, and it's a great minimalist browser.

If simplicity is what you want, then it does not get much simpler than The Off By One Browser. It's graphical, and perfect for simply browsing sites. What it lacks in things like Javascript, shockwave flash, Java, etc., it more than makes up for with its speed and simplicity. You'll never ever get a pop-up, and I have yet to see any way to get hacked with this simple browser.

The Off By One Browser does exactly what you ask. Best of all, it caches everything into RAM, so there's no disk fragmentation from cache files, and all traces of browsing are cleared when you close it.

I don't know about you, but I use a variety of browsers, depending on which sites I am visiting. I find myself primarily using The Off By One Browser since it is very light on resources and caches everything into RAM. No annoying Java / Javascript / Shockwave flash / etc. gets in my way, and I do not contribute to hard drive fragmentation this way. I use Lynx for message boards since I have no desire to load annoying avatars and other junk. Finally, when I actually visit a site that "needs" the extras, then and only then do I fire up something more sophisticated, like Opera or Firefox.

Am I an "active" user of Firefox if I use it, say, no more than 5 to 10% of the time?

OffByOne has no clue what Java is, and its Javascript support is extremely limited. It's the safest and lightest graphical browser out there, at least in the Windows world.

Why can't a god damned browser do what it is supposed to? JUST FUCKING BROWSE???

Allow me to direct you to the Off By One Browser. It's a fast, bare-bones, no-frills, no-nonsense browser.

Or, if you're on Linux, take a look at Dillo.

You'll find both browsers quite capable by the standards you requested.

If it's based on IE rendering, that doesn't give me great confidence that this browser is not caching anything on disk.

Personally, I'll stick with the off by one web browser for any local private browsing. It may not be a great web rendering browser, but it's totally contained with it's own rendering engine, will fit on a floppy disk, and everything is stored in RAM and is deleted once the browser closes.

Off-by-one http://offbyone.com/offbyone/ will arbitrarily scale images. Nice little browser in a 1.2 MB package. Perfect for old or resource limited hardware.

to view pages in default layout, just use a browser that doesn't run java. i use off by one.

The OffByOne browser is way lighter on resources, even lighter than Opera. It does tabbed browsing too. Best of all, it's self-executable, caches entirely in RAM, and not reliant on any other browser. It fits nicely on a floppy too. Granted, its features are minimal, but it's great for surfing message boards and slashdot on even an early Pentium with even a quarter of the RAM you have.

The reason these stories on Slashdot are useless is because all of the slashbots here will be screaming "I don't want ads!". Well, tough shit. Advertising is part of our world and culture and they are coming to video games whether you want them to or not.

There are 3 ways to avoid advertising. Here they are:

1) Die. Seriously. Then your problems with advertising will be all over for good. The drawback is that it is permanent [depending on your beliefs in an afterlife.... :) ].

2) Live 'off the grid' on public/private land with NONE of the technological amenities of modern civilization other than (maybe) a P.O. box or other suitable 'mail drop' (but then the ad men will probably get ahold of it and still send you junk mail! :P). I like how the USPS's definiton of '1st Class Mail' only covers bills/invoices/purchase orders/related whatnot, financial statements/legal papers/government correspondence, checks and equivalents, and handwritten personal correspondence. To them, everything else that is not a periodical or parcel of some kind is considered bulk mail and is fair game for recycling/disposal. :)

3) Use the technologies at hand to minimize/eliminate your exposure to advertising. Some examples:

3a) Digital Video Recorders with 'adskip' (if you can still buy 'em or build 'em). If push comes to shove, hang on to your VCRs and use them instead.

3b) DVD Players that ignore Prohibited User Operation(s) (and region codeds as well!). Yay, no more FBI warnings/trailers/long animated menus before the movie! :) (the animated menu on Disney's Lion King DVD is notoriously long! :P) If you live in the USA and are thinking 'FVCK THE DMCA(.pdf)!!!!' there is software out there that will allow you to 'remaster' a commercial DVD to remove 'all' unwanted content. Non-USA world citizens don't have this worry (lucky them!)

3c) Ad blocking hosts file for your webbrowser such as this one. Use a 'surfer friendly' web browser like Off By One that ignores Flash and popup windows because it doesn't understand the SCRIPT and OBJECT HTML tags I am using it now to write this post instead of IE 5 that came with Windows 2000. Slashdot looks like crap in IE 5 so I gave up on it and am now using Off By One to surf Slashdot--much nicer! If you have to/want to use a 3rd party popup blocker, I heartily recommend NoAds

On Windows and tired of email spam? Filter it out with my absolutely free gift back to the Internet community at large who can use it. Since I started using it, my email spam has dropped to essentially zero. Attention Mods. before you mod this post down as spam/karmawhoring, consider 'going after' Roland Piquepaille first who always seems to get a story posted here no matter how trivial it is sometimes...or the multpage 'adfest' stories mentioned here from Tom's Hardware.

P.S. Sorry, I have no solution to public restroom advertising other than to keep your eyes closed while you do your business, use a 100% ad-free bathroom, or risk being arrested for defecating/urinating in public....

"The writing is on the wall" Indeed. Legal, for-profit commercial graffiti.... :P

Speaking of HTML 3.2 and backwards compatibility on the web.. Off By One, a lightweighr browser that only supports HTML 3.2 (no javascript either) seems to render a quite acceptable, working version of Google Maps.

Try the standalone OffByOne browser with the "Fake SSL" setting enabled. It seems to get me in just about anywhere....

This article only echoes what I have known for nearly a decade:

Do not EVER, EVER use Internet Explorer! EVER! Not at work, not at home, not in your local library. These people are only just now realizing this?! Forensic experts must really hate me when I use browsers that cache everything into RAM, such as Lynx, Links, OffByOne, et. al.

I don't do this to clear my tracks; I do it because there's less thrashing and fragmentation on the hard disk. Oh yeah, and because IE is the most insecure piece of garbage ever devised. Free yourself of IE (and other useless Windows components) forever with http://litepc.com/.

Not even heard of Maxthon (by the makers of MyIE2 apparently) - I've just tried it for a good hour or so and its actually quite slick.

Supports multiple proxies, autorefresh (these are available as addons to firefox), and has tabs (inc undo), switchable disable of activex, download and ad managers.

Took me a while to find the Gecko engine, but there's details at their forums. Unfortuately its a bloody ActiveX plugin with the Gecko engine in, and its huge!

I'm impressed - Its certainly better than IE - and suitable as a replacement for it, and very quick. Surprisingly, it actually runs WindowsUpdate faster than IE6 does on my PC [after Disabling Windows Advantage, naturally] :)

There's some faults that let it down but working with IE, its probably the best they could do :) - and its good! [although theres no close button the right, which confused me somewhat :)]

Having said that and having used it, I'm still going to stick with Firefox!

Though I am going to keep it installed along with OffByOne - [thanks to Artifakt who i saw mentioned it yesterday] not many features (no iframes, even!) but small enough to run on a floppy! Comes in very useful occassionally!

Duguk

I was starting to think I was the only person still running the full Mozilla suite instead of Firefox
(Proud 1.8.1b tester still wondering where the hell do my bug reports go?). Then I checked the site yesterday, and saw a Mozllla 1.7.11 release was out, dated 1st of August. For all the mammalian Firefox fans, there's still some life in the parent reptile.

OTO, I'll gladly try Opera. Heck, I still keep a working install of the off-by-one browser,
http://www.offbyone.com/
as it beats going back to IE in an emergency. Opera pioneered several browser features, and will probably remain an innovator for at least a few more development cycles.

Side note: If I were running the library, I'd consider switching to a browser that keeps no personal data (cache, cookies, history) in the first place.

The "Off-by-One" browser http://www.offbyone.com/ keeps no on-disk cache, and perhaps the author could be motivated to make the rest transient too.

Anyone know a good way to change the user agent string to anything I want in Opera?

(3) OffByOne

While Opera is certainly a good browser, OffByOne runs circles around it in terms of speed. It's impossible to get an unwanted pop-up in OffByOne. Of course, if graphics aren't needed, Lynx is the natural speed demon.

Off by One is even smaller! But it lacks some functionality.

For a standalone browser that fits on a floppy, OffByOne already does tabbed browsing. Welcome to the 21st century Microsoft!

They didn't bother to test The Off By One Browser which is easily the fastest graphical browser available for Windows. It now supports tabbed browsing, BTW. Lynx, of course, is the fastest browser period. Netscape Navigator Gold was pretty speedy in its time (and still is), but OffByOne runs circles around it in terms of speed.

http://www.offbyone.com/

Got it UPXed into just 750kB. Fully HTML3.2-compatible, jpg/gif/png-support. You won't need more to download some files or seek some infos....

Now I can sleep easier. :-)

Of course, you're safe on older versions of Windows, regardless of browser, as long as you don't update IE. I knew there was a reason for adding Windows for Workgroups 3.11 to my existing setup. :)

There are no safe browsers (yet?), just ones that haven't been picked on much.

One already exists:

The Off By One web browser

It contains no Java, JavaScript, or ActiveX support so *NO* problems can come from those areas by using Off By One.

check out http://www.offbyone.com

its 1mb, can run off a disk/network whatever, runs on most all windows. only http 3.2 standards, but thats images+frames, so its nicer than lynx ;p

Use Lynx or OffByOne - problem solved.

Lynx is a text-only web browser.

Off By One is a script-free web browser.

Both browsers are immune to popups--hence no need for a popup blocker for the two leading browsers or 'New Online Ad Technology To Bypass Popup Blockers'.

Your wish has been granted.

No, Off By One is the supermodel: Packaged in one self-contained 1.1MB application. Can be compressed down to about 400KB for distribution.

Oh sure, it doesn't support all of HTML 4, JavaScript, or flash, but then a supermodel can't do sumo wrestling.

The most important tool I've found is Off By One which is a 1.1 mb browser that can run right off the CD. Also it's free as in beer and does SSL. Very handy

URL: http://dunkels.com/adam/contiki/links.html

System information and emulators

Commodore 64/128

The Commodore 64 is based on the 6510 CPU, which is a 6502-derived 8-bit CPU. It has 64k of RAM and 16k ROM which includes a BASIC interpreter and some basic I/O services. Graphics is provided by the VIC chip which has 16 colors and a maximum resolution of 320x200 in hi-res mode. It provides a 40x25 raster of characters in character mode. The three voices of digital sound is produced by the SID chip.

The Commodore 128 is an extended version of the Commodore 64 that contains a 8510 CPU which is capable of 2 MHz operation and can address 128k RAM (hence the name Commodore 128). It also has a Commodore 64 compatibility mode which is extremely similar to a regular C64 but with a few minor differences.

The SuperCPU is a 20 MHz 16-bit 65816-based computer that is plugged into the back of the Commodore 64 or 128. It uses the C64 keyboard and joysticks for input and the VIC and SID chips for audiovisual output. The SuperCPU is capable of addressing several megabytes of memory and is usually used together with a 16 megabytes RAM expansion board.

There are no SuperCPU emulators avaliable.

• The VICE emulator is capable of emulating a large number of Commodore machines. It emulates the C64, the C128, the VIC20, most of the PET models, and the CBM-II. VICE runs under Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, and a number of other host systems.
  
• Joakim Eriksson's Web C64 emulator, written in Java, runs as an applet within a web browser.
  
• Per Håkan Sundell's CCS64 emulator works under Windows and DOS.
  
• The ec64 emulator is developed for Linux and was originally written entirely in x86 assembler.
  
• An article by Simon N Goodwin about C64 emulators.
  
• The Commodore emulators category in the Dmoz has more links.
  

Commodore 64/128

There are plenty of alternative operating systems for the C64, mostly written in 6502 assembler. Some of them are far from complete, however, and only appear as dark shadows on a few web pages - MagerValp's SMOS and my own osT are among those.

• GEOS from 1986 probably is the most well-known graphical operating system for the C64. It is still sold commercially by CMDKEY.com.
  
• LUnix NG is an open-source multi-tasking operating system with TCP/IP/PPP-support, a *nix-like command shell, and a number of *nix-like utilities such as ls and cp.
• Craig Bruce's ACE is a text-based single-tasking operating system for the 64 and the 128. It provides a *nix-like command shell, a text-editor, a terminal program for the SwiftLink RS232 interface, as well as device drivers for a lot of devices
  
• GeckOS/A65 is a multi-tasking operating system with TCP/IP support and a *nix-like command shell.
  
• Wheels is a version of GEOS that requires RAM expansion to run.

With its 20 MHz and megabytes of memory, the SuperCPU is powerful enough to run fully-fledged graphical operating systems that rival early Machintosh or Microsoft Windows systems.

• Wings is a TCP/IP-enabled graphical operating system for the SuperCPU. It includes a MOD music player, JPEG viewer, web page download utility, etc.
• JOS is an older version of Wings.
  

TCP/IP and PPP connectivity

To surf the web, send or read email, etc., the first step is to actually get in touch with the Internet. This requires both physical access to an ISP, either via a modem and a phone-line or an Ethernet broadband connection, and the TCP/IP software running on the C64.

There are a number of programs that make it possible to reach the Internet with a C64/C128.

• LUnix NG contains a TCP/IP stack and a PPP implementation which makes it possible to reach the Internet using a modem and a dial-up ISP.
  
• GeckOS/A65 also contains a TCP/IP stack, but no PPP dialer.
  
• My own uIP TCP/IP stack has been used for some time to run a web server on a Commodore 64. uIP currently does not include a PPP dialer.
  
• Novaterm 10 contains a PPP dialer and enough TCP/IP code to be able to run telnet over the Internet.
  

SuperCPU

All of the above mentioned SuperCPU operating systems have TCP/IP support.

• The Wave is a web browser for the SuperCPU (and not for the Commodore 64/128 as the web page claims) that runs under the Wheels operating systems. Here is another page with information about The Wave (that also falsely claims that The Wave is for the Commodore 64/128). The latter page also includes screenshots of The Wave in action.
  

Small graphical user-interfaces (GUIs)

User interfaces for embedded systems range from the simple buttons on the front of a washing machine to those of fully fledged web browser type interfaces on information stations. The underlying technology varies from simple electronic circuits to full-scale PC compatibles.

• PicoGUI is a GUI architecture designed for embedded systems to desktop machines. It does not require any supporting GUI system and can be used on anything from graphical screens to text based systems. Their smallest target system are handheld terminals and the compiled object code size is on the order of hundreds of kilobytes.
  
• Microwindows/NanoGUI is a graphical user interface system designed to run without support from an underlying system. On 16-bit systems Microwindows is about 64k large.
  

The smallest web browsers are usually specially designed for the limitations of embedded systems and other specialized computers such as car navigation systems, set-top boxes and medical equipment. There are also a few small web browsers for old DOS PCs available.

• Interniche's NicheView Portable Embedded Web Browser is probably the smallest full-featured web browser around with its 35 kilobytes code footprint. There is also an additional JavaScript module available.
  
• AU-systems' AU Mobile Internet Browser supports both HTML/TCP/IP and WML/WAP as well as SSL. It occupies 340 kilobytes of code (plus an additional 190 kilobytes for the protocol stacks) and uses 5 kilobytes of RAM when idle (plus 8 kilobytes used by the protocol stacks). Extra RAM is used when downloading web pages.
  
• The Fusion WebPilot Embedded Micro-Browser supports much of the features found in modern web browsers including frames, authentication, and JavaScript. The web page does not specify memory footprint.
  
• MicroDigial's Graphical MicroBrowser supports tables, frames, images as well as FTP as uses 260 kilobytes of code memory and requires a minimum of 210 kilobytes of RAM apart from that. A demo version is available.
  
• The 2net Alice Web Browser is intended for handheld computers and PC based architectures and requires 400 kilobyte of free RAM and 200 kilobytes of code memory. It includes a TCP/IP stack.
  
• WebBoy is a fully-fledged browser with SSL support intended for 386 DOS boxes with more than 4 megabytes of memory. Includes a TCP/IP stack.
  
• The Arachne web browser runs under MS-DOS or Linux and requires at least 1 megabyte of memory. Does not include a TCP/IP/PPP stack.
  
• Lynx is probably the most well-known text-based web browser around. It is ported to many different operating systems and architectures including MS-DOS.
  
• The Off by One Web Browser has been labeled as the smallest web browser ever, but is quite large in comparison with other small web browsers. It is 1.1 megabytes large and requires support from an underlying Windows operating system.
  
• Mirko Sobe's BOSS-X HTML browser for 8-bit Ataris is not a full web browser, but an off-line HTML viewer with hyperlinking abilities written in three days.
  
• The pre-alpha v0.3 GEMWeb browser supports 640x480x16 VGA.
  
• The Atari Phoenix Web Browser is a non-existant vapor-ware web browser project intended for the 8-bit Ataris.
  

Not when you're using a browser that doesn't come with flash...