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Is there any way to Disable "secure" webites that use HTTPS?



 
 
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  #1  
Old January 17th 17, 11:18 AM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion
[email protected]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2
Default Is there any way to Disable "secure" webites that use HTTPS?

When using the limited browsers available for Windows 98, such as
Firefox 2.x or IE6, it was bad enough trying to open many of the current
websites which are highly bloated with a lot of useless scripts and
other code. Now, it's gotten 100 times worse with so many websites
switching to "secure" mode, meaning they open with HTTPS rather than
HTTP.

I fully understood using security on websites where a person has to
enter a credit card number, such as Ebay, Amazon, and more. But now we
have sites such as Wikipedia opening everything with https. The biggest
joke is that most of the sites using this, are sites which were never
any threat for security. Wikipedia is a good example, when it contains
nothing but text and pictures.

It seems the entire internet has gone crazy with security crap. Not only
is this making it impossible to load most of these secure websites, (or
only part of the page opens), but I am on dialup, and these secure sites
load 2 or 3 times slower than the non-secure sites.

Even my old flip-phone, with limited internet ability, now pops up a
very annoying message repeatedly which says "Entering a non-secure
area". And this is not just to open a new website, it's within the same
page I am viewing presently. For example, if I'm viewing a weather radar
map on Accuweather, and click the ZOOM button to expand the radar map, I
get this most annoying message requiring me to hit the OK button.

But getting back to my computer, I have used several browsers over the
years. Firefox 2.x, K-meleon, Seamonkey are the three is used most. All
of these are now choking on these secure websites. (Or I can use Kernal
Ex and a slightly newer version of Firefox, which is still not able to
handle these new websites.

I also had installed "Slimbrowser" (a front end for IE), old Netscape,
and "Off By One". NONE of these work at all on these https sites.

I have manually tried to remove the "S" from HTTPS, and the site just
goes back to using the "S".

This is my last ditch effort to see if there is any possible way to stop
all this nonsense. Or, is there some browser which will still work on
Win98, and which actually can handle all this excessive security?

If not, I'm shutting off the internet at the end of this month, because
the web has become worthless. And to make matters worse, these
newsgroups are nearly dead too. That leaves email, and I dont really
need email, because I can just send a text from my cellphone, or make a
call. It's been several years since I could shop online, because of this
security crap, and now I cant even read a friggin Wiki page.

I guess the whole answer to solving malware issues on the internet, is
to make it impossible to use the web. That way, after enough people
leave, there wont be any more malware. Malware was always a risk, but at
least the internet was usable. Now, it's become worthless.

I should mention that due to my location, I can not get high-speed
internet. (At least not affordably). And my dialup connection ONLY
connects using Win98. It will not work properly using XP.

If anyone still reads this newsgroup, I'd appreciate any suggestions or
tips to stopping these secure websites, or to some Win98 browser that
will actually work. Thanks!



---
WARNING: This sign has SHARP EDGES. DON'T touch the edges of this sign!
  #2  
Old January 17th 17, 04:24 PM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion
98 Guy[_5_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 34
Default Is there any way to Disable "secure" webites that use HTTPS?

wrote:

You know, it isin't necessary to change your posting handle every time
you post messages to the same newsgroup.

When using the limited browsers available for Windows 98, such as
Firefox 2.x or IE6,


I should mention that due to my location, I can not get high-speed
internet. (At least not affordably). And my dialup connection ONLY
connects using Win98. It will not work properly using XP.

If anyone still reads this newsgroup, I'd appreciate any suggestions
or tips to stopping these secure websites, or to some Win98 browser
that will actually work. Thanks!


First of all, your win-98 computer should have at least 512 mb installed
ram, and up to 1 gb if possible.

Second, go and learn about "KernelEx". It allows some XP programs to
run on win-98. Anyone serious about running Windows-98 as their primary
OS today has had KernelEx installed for the past 5+ years.

Go to MSFN.ORG, go to the Windows 9x discussion forum, and you will see
several KernelEx sub-forums.

Once you've installed KernelEx, you can then install Opera 12.02 (which
I use when Firefox 2.0.0.20 doesn't work) or you can install more recent
versions of Firefox (up to version 9 I think).
  #3  
Old January 17th 17, 04:48 PM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion
R.Wieser
External Usenet User
 
Posts: 111
Default Is there any way to Disable "secure" webites that use HTTPS?

Aye,

This is my last ditch effort to see if there is any possible way
to stop all this nonsense. Or, is there some browser which
will still work on Win98, and which actually can handle all this
excessive security?


Not that I know of (and yes, I've looked around for pretty-much the same)

There are still a few options open to you. I myself am (still) using
Proxomitron (a local filtering proxy), which happens to support an Open SSL
DLL, which has allowed me use my old FF 1.5 to connect to the web, including
most of (but not all) the secure sites.

And if you like you can use that proxy to drop any-and-all HTTPS connections
(don't think you will like the result though)

Than there is a product called "stunnel", which behaves like a simple proxy
to convert non-secure connections to secure ones (have never used it, but it
could be worth a look).

Last, you _could_ set up an XP machine and use the W98 machine as a
pass-thru for it (connection sharing IIRC).

If anyone still reads this newsgroup


Nope, I certainly do not. :-)

Regards,
Rudy Wieser


-- Origional message:
schreef in berichtnieuws
...
When using the limited browsers available for Windows 98, such as
Firefox 2.x or IE6, it was bad enough trying to open many of the current
websites which are highly bloated with a lot of useless scripts and
other code. Now, it's gotten 100 times worse with so many websites
switching to "secure" mode, meaning they open with HTTPS rather than
HTTP.

I fully understood using security on websites where a person has to
enter a credit card number, such as Ebay, Amazon, and more. But now we
have sites such as Wikipedia opening everything with https. The biggest
joke is that most of the sites using this, are sites which were never
any threat for security. Wikipedia is a good example, when it contains
nothing but text and pictures.

It seems the entire internet has gone crazy with security crap. Not only
is this making it impossible to load most of these secure websites, (or
only part of the page opens), but I am on dialup, and these secure sites
load 2 or 3 times slower than the non-secure sites.

Even my old flip-phone, with limited internet ability, now pops up a
very annoying message repeatedly which says "Entering a non-secure
area". And this is not just to open a new website, it's within the same
page I am viewing presently. For example, if I'm viewing a weather radar
map on Accuweather, and click the ZOOM button to expand the radar map, I
get this most annoying message requiring me to hit the OK button.

But getting back to my computer, I have used several browsers over the
years. Firefox 2.x, K-meleon, Seamonkey are the three is used most. All
of these are now choking on these secure websites. (Or I can use Kernal
Ex and a slightly newer version of Firefox, which is still not able to
handle these new websites.

I also had installed "Slimbrowser" (a front end for IE), old Netscape,
and "Off By One". NONE of these work at all on these https sites.

I have manually tried to remove the "S" from HTTPS, and the site just
goes back to using the "S".

This is my last ditch effort to see if there is any possible way to stop
all this nonsense. Or, is there some browser which will still work on
Win98, and which actually can handle all this excessive security?

If not, I'm shutting off the internet at the end of this month, because
the web has become worthless. And to make matters worse, these
newsgroups are nearly dead too. That leaves email, and I dont really
need email, because I can just send a text from my cellphone, or make a
call. It's been several years since I could shop online, because of this
security crap, and now I cant even read a friggin Wiki page.

I guess the whole answer to solving malware issues on the internet, is
to make it impossible to use the web. That way, after enough people
leave, there wont be any more malware. Malware was always a risk, but at
least the internet was usable. Now, it's become worthless.

I should mention that due to my location, I can not get high-speed
internet. (At least not affordably). And my dialup connection ONLY
connects using Win98. It will not work properly using XP.

If anyone still reads this newsgroup, I'd appreciate any suggestions or
tips to stopping these secure websites, or to some Win98 browser that
will actually work. Thanks!



---
WARNING: This sign has SHARP EDGES. DON'T touch the edges of this sign!



  #4  
Old January 17th 17, 11:06 PM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion
Computer Nerd Kev[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 65
Default Is there any way to Disable "secure" webites that use HTTPS?

wrote:
When using the limited browsers available for Windows 98, such as
Firefox 2.x or IE6, it was bad enough trying to open many of the current
websites which are highly bloated with a lot of useless scripts and
other code. Now, it's gotten 100 times worse with so many websites
switching to "secure" mode, meaning they open with HTTPS rather than
HTTP.

I fully understood using security on websites where a person has to
enter a credit card number, such as Ebay, Amazon, and more. But now we
have sites such as Wikipedia opening everything with https. The biggest
joke is that most of the sites using this, are sites which were never
any threat for security. Wikipedia is a good example, when it contains
nothing but text and pictures.


I've been barely restraining myself from posting a rant of my own about
this. There is no reason whatsoever for sites such as Wikipedia to force
HTTPS on users. If they're paranoid enough to think that someone might
be tapping into their connection and changing the content of every page
they try to visit without their knowing, you can give them the _option_
of HTTPS, but why force it on the entire user-base?

I looked online to see if there was some real legitamate reason for using
HTTPS everywhere that I hadn't thought of. The best I could find was that
using it everywhere means that website administrators don't have to figure
out for themselves whether information submitted to websites was sensitive.
Besides implying an incredible ignorance on the part of webmasters, this
ignores the fact that many, if not most, of these newly HTTPSified webpages
don't need information to be submitted by the user at all (except perhaps a
search term which is made a part of the URL and therefore visible to a
watching hacker even with HTTPS used).

Furthermore, with the increase of sites forcing HTTPS when they don't have
to, the number of sites encountered where the security is compromised by
something like an expired security certificate seems to be increasing,
simply because it's another thing to go wrong. This usually invokes the
browser to present a warning about the webpage to the user, and the user
has to manually tell it to go ahead anyway in order to see the webpage.

Becuase the webpages I want to view these days usually don't actually
contain, or prompt the transmission of, anything not secure (anyone
watching the URLs I browse to could simply go to the same webpage and
see what I'm viewing in their own secure HTTPS connection), I've got in
the habit of bypassing these warnings. That means at some point if I'm
in a hurry to buy something online or the like, I might automatically
react to such a warning by bypassing it and thereby put the security
of the personal details I'm about to enter at significant risk from
something like a man-in-the-middle attack. Before HTTPS was everywhere,
I would have treated that warning with the significance it deserved.

Phew, OK rant over. I've been keeping that in for months, in fact I
was even tempted at one point to start a website called something like
antihttps.org, but protests about things people don't understand never
work.

It seems the entire internet has gone crazy with security crap. Not only
is this making it impossible to load most of these secure websites, (or
only part of the page opens), but I am on dialup, and these secure sites
load 2 or 3 times slower than the non-secure sites.


Ouch. I'm on a 3G mobile broardband connection and see a slight slow-down
but it sounds like it's much worse for you.

Even my old flip-phone, with limited internet ability, now pops up a
very annoying message repeatedly which says "Entering a non-secure
area". And this is not just to open a new website, it's within the same
page I am viewing presently. For example, if I'm viewing a weather radar
map on Accuweather, and click the ZOOM button to expand the radar map, I
get this most annoying message requiring me to hit the OK button.

But getting back to my computer, I have used several browsers over the
years. Firefox 2.x, K-meleon, Seamonkey are the three is used most. All
of these are now choking on these secure websites. (Or I can use Kernal
Ex and a slightly newer version of Firefox, which is still not able to
handle these new websites.


I use Firefox 2.0 as well (on Linux actually, Win98 is offline-only for
me). One thing that may be causing you trouble is that SSL3 connections
have been disabled on many servers due to the "POODLE" vulnerability
(which is actually a bit paranoid too because a hacker needs to collect
a very large amount of data in order to exploit POODLE). FF2 defaults
to enabling SSL3, and turning it off in the advanced settings can avoid
upsetting some servers. Unfortunately they're just as likely to require
some newer encryption standard that FF2 doesn't support, but in theory
you should be able to then connect with the TLS protocol and keep
everyone happy.

I also had installed "Slimbrowser" (a front end for IE), old Netscape,
and "Off By One". NONE of these work at all on these https sites.

I have manually tried to remove the "S" from HTTPS, and the site just
goes back to using the "S".


Yes, the webmasters have disabled non-secure connections to their server
altogether, so only HTTPS will work. Thankfully not all of them are
that silly about it though and keep both HTTP and HTTPS connections
enabled.

This is my last ditch effort to see if there is any possible way to stop
all this nonsense. Or, is there some browser which will still work on
Win98, and which actually can handle all this excessive security?


One option is to use a web proxy server that will sit in the middle and
make the HTTPS connection to the destination, then relay that to you
via HTTP. More often this is used by the same "security concious" users
who want HTTPS, so many popular services don't have HTTP enabled. Some
should though. You should be able to configure your browser to
autmatically use a proxy, or you can use a website based service. I
found this one that doesn't seem to force HTTPS:
http://www.ploxey.com
-Hey works well, why haven't I been doing this myself?...

Found he
http://www.proxy4free.com/list/webproxy1.html
-Many of these sites don't last for long.

There's also some Windows software (forgot the name) that makes it
very easy to set up your own proxy server. Perhaps you have a
friend with a fixed IP internet connection and a computer that's
on all the time?

If not, I'm shutting off the internet at the end of this month, because
the web has become worthless. And to make matters worse, these
newsgroups are nearly dead too. That leaves email, and I dont really
need email, because I can just send a text from my cellphone, or make a
call. It's been several years since I could shop online, because of this
security crap, and now I cant even read a friggin Wiki page.


I made a breif attempt to find a mirror of Wikipedia that could connect
on HTTP. Unfortunately there are hundreds of them and most only have a
small subset of the content. There may well be one, but it'll be a job
to find it amongst the noise.

It's possible to download Wikipedia for use offline. You'll want to find
a faster connection to do that with though, on Dial-up it would probably
take a lifetime.

--
__ __
#_ |\| | _#
  #5  
Old January 18th 17, 12:44 PM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion
JJ[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 36
Default Is there any way to Disable "secure" webites that use HTTPS?

On Tue, 17 Jan 2017 04:18:10 -0600, wrote:
When using the limited browsers available for Windows 98, such as
Firefox 2.x or IE6, it was bad enough trying to open many of the current
websites which are highly bloated with a lot of useless scripts and
other code. Now, it's gotten 100 times worse with so many websites
switching to "secure" mode, meaning they open with HTTPS rather than
HTTP.

I fully understood using security on websites where a person has to
enter a credit card number, such as Ebay, Amazon, and more. But now we
have sites such as Wikipedia opening everything with https. The biggest
joke is that most of the sites using this, are sites which were never
any threat for security. Wikipedia is a good example, when it contains
nothing but text and pictures.

It seems the entire internet has gone crazy with security crap. Not only
is this making it impossible to load most of these secure websites, (or
only part of the page opens), but I am on dialup, and these secure sites
load 2 or 3 times slower than the non-secure sites.

Even my old flip-phone, with limited internet ability, now pops up a
very annoying message repeatedly which says "Entering a non-secure
area". And this is not just to open a new website, it's within the same
page I am viewing presently. For example, if I'm viewing a weather radar
map on Accuweather, and click the ZOOM button to expand the radar map, I
get this most annoying message requiring me to hit the OK button.

But getting back to my computer, I have used several browsers over the
years. Firefox 2.x, K-meleon, Seamonkey are the three is used most. All
of these are now choking on these secure websites. (Or I can use Kernal
Ex and a slightly newer version of Firefox, which is still not able to
handle these new websites.

I also had installed "Slimbrowser" (a front end for IE), old Netscape,
and "Off By One". NONE of these work at all on these https sites.

I have manually tried to remove the "S" from HTTPS, and the site just
goes back to using the "S".

This is my last ditch effort to see if there is any possible way to stop
all this nonsense. Or, is there some browser which will still work on
Win98, and which actually can handle all this excessive security?

If not, I'm shutting off the internet at the end of this month, because
the web has become worthless. And to make matters worse, these
newsgroups are nearly dead too. That leaves email, and I dont really
need email, because I can just send a text from my cellphone, or make a
call. It's been several years since I could shop online, because of this
security crap, and now I cant even read a friggin Wiki page.

I guess the whole answer to solving malware issues on the internet, is
to make it impossible to use the web. That way, after enough people
leave, there wont be any more malware. Malware was always a risk, but at
least the internet was usable. Now, it's become worthless.

I should mention that due to my location, I can not get high-speed
internet. (At least not affordably). And my dialup connection ONLY
connects using Win98. It will not work properly using XP.

If anyone still reads this newsgroup, I'd appreciate any suggestions or
tips to stopping these secure websites, or to some Win98 browser that
will actually work. Thanks!


Back when I still use GPRS at 10KiB/s, I use Toonel proxy which compresses
the transferred data in a non standard method. It uses a Toonel-specific
remote proxy server where it can re-encode JPEG and GIF images to have a
lower quality of your choosing so that the data size is smaller, aside from
compression level for general data type. Although HTTPS encrypts data and
encrypted data is difficuly to compress, not all sites require HTTPS to
access. IME, Toonel can cut the data size transferred by 25% to 45%. The
Toonel server itself is pretty slow for broadband connection, but it's fast
enough for non broadband.

But with nowadays bloated and complicated sites, the most effective way to
lower the transferred data is to use content blocking via web browser
addon(s), and/or filtering proxy such as Privoxy. Privoxy is an old open
source software and the project has become dormant, but the software still
works and useful.

For the web browser, I'd recommend Firefox (or its forks) because its
browser addon system is much more capable at content blocking than Chrome
and its forks.
  #6  
Old January 19th 17, 03:06 AM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion
98 Guy[_5_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 34
Default Is there any way to Disable "secure" webites that use HTTPS?

"R.Wieser" wrote:

There are still a few options open to you. I myself am (still) using
Proxomitron (a local filtering proxy), which happens to support an
Open SSL DLL, which has allowed me use my old FF 1.5 to connect to
the web, including most of (but not all) the secure sites.


Why are you using FF 1.5 instead of FF 2.0.0.20?

FF 2 will run on Win-98 without needing any mods (like KernelEx).

Opera 12.02 will run on win-98 (with Kex).

And why did you needlessly full-quote the entire message at the bottom
of your poast?
  #7  
Old January 19th 17, 03:09 AM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion
98 Guy[_5_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 34
Default Is there any way to Disable "secure" webites that use HTTPS?

There is a "Remember Mismatched Domains" add-on that works on FF2 that
adds a "don't ask me again" option to the Domain Name Mismatch Security
Error window".

I find that it helps when you make use of a decent HOSTS file to block a
lot of tracking and ad-serving ****.
  #8  
Old January 19th 17, 08:09 AM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion
R.Wieser
External Usenet User
 
Posts: 111
Default Is there any way to Disable "secure" webites that use HTTPS?

98 Guy,

Why are you using FF 1.5 instead of FF 2.0.0.20?


I'm one of those "if it ain't broken, don't fix it" kind of guys. FF1.5
has done everything I need of it, so I had no reason to get me the next
"even better" shiny.

And why did you needlessly full-quote the entire message at
the bottom of your poast?


"needlessly full-quote" ? You already made up your mind I see. That means
that anything I would have to offer as an explanation/reason would most
likely be rejected, and thus be wasted time. Tell me, why do you ask me to
waste my time ?

Regards,
Rudy Wieser


-- Origional message:
98 Guy schreef in berichtnieuws ...
"R.Wieser" wrote:

There are still a few options open to you. I myself am (still) using
Proxomitron (a local filtering proxy), which happens to support an
Open SSL DLL, which has allowed me use my old FF 1.5 to connect to
the web, including most of (but not all) the secure sites.


Why are you using FF 1.5 instead of FF 2.0.0.20?

FF 2 will run on Win-98 without needing any mods (like KernelEx).

Opera 12.02 will run on win-98 (with Kex).

And why did you needlessly full-quote the entire message at the bottom
of your poast?



 




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