view https web pages with Mac OS 9.2 - 10.3

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view https web pages with Mac OS 9.2 - 10.3

I recently booted up my G4 Cube (450 mhz version) and with help from this community, specially Jan Hedlund, I was able to find answers for connecting my cube to Ethernet as well as getting my airport card to talk to my old AirPort Express Router. Many thanks Jan.

I have also read Jan’s responses about using old browsers on these Mac systems to browse the internet. I understand I there is a general problem with Mac OS 10.3 (and earlier) browsers to access secure (https) sites. I have been able to see that my connection works by accessing some of the few plain (http) sites still available.

This leads me to my question. My G4 will run up to 10.3, some have put 10.4 on it and it will work (specs say 10.3 is last it will run). Is it worth going from 10.3 Panther to 10.4 Tiger so that I may be able to browse web sites? If not, are there any other work arounds for this problem with the https sites?

Many thanks in advance to all.

Posted on Nov 1, 2025 5:09 PM

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Answer 1

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John Galt

Level 10

154,868 points

Nov 1, 2025 5:55 PM in response to Jondragon44

Is it worth going from 10.3 Panther to 10.4 Tiger so that I may be able to browse web sites? If not, are there any other work arounds for this problem with the https sites?

Don't think so. The TLS cryptographic protocol standard implemented in nearly all webpages today did not exist at the time. Apple decided hardware limitations of those older Macs made them unsuitable for any browser software available at the time for the required encryption algorithms. Those browsers included Microsoft Internet Explorer in addition to Firefox and Safari.

Although you may be able to find archived versions of Firefox that will install and run on that Mac, it will not load any pages using TLS (the https:// protocol).

Example, not tested: https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/1.5.0.1rc1/

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