2018 and PowerPC Macs

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 2018

It's no surprise that with every passing year PowerPC Mac's become ever more obsolete as do all computers, but for a brief period around 2012-2014 they saw a reamergence because of their price point, which made them a legitimate financial option despite their limited functionality.

In 2018 this is not the case, a PowerPC Mac isn't close to worth compared to any Chromebook, Smartphone, or low end Laptop on the market, or in a used local market pretty much everywhere in the western world.

It can be valuable if you have no other option though, and I have absolutely no data, but I feel like what is happening right now is that people are getting these laptops for very cheap / for free and trying to make use of them since they have no other option, in with the world working on the internet it's very hard to make use of them to do modern things.

BUT

That does not mean that PowerPC Macs aren't useful, and don't have use. The functionality for which they where made for and used for during their time, they can still do. You have to be lucky enough or find a download link to get any of the old software that ran on, but those things, that work, that used to be done on these computers, isn't as valuable in the world I live in today. I live in a Middle Class area in America.


What if ?

I had the thought of their obscure uses is lower end communicates / countries, and the randomness of the hands they must have fallen into to obtain a PowerPC Mac and then to make use of it, I could easily see businesses using the computers for every day use, and using specific old accounting software, I mean hell if you can run spreadsheet software which there is tons of free and (not) that works on a PowerPC Mac that could drastically transform your business.

What about obscure personal use? It's way harder to come of with a what if for that, but in my personal case, I was about 16-17 and had order a PowerBook G4, along with a new gaming pc, I was very curious about the PowerPC Mac's at the time, and figured it should work as an ok laptop, and was only $200 at the time, but the PowerBook came in the mail way sooner than the Gaming PC, so I had to find games that worked on it, the game I played the most on it was Quake 3, I have really bad internet and nothing else to do, but could have lots of fun playing the bots in Quake 3 to pass the time.

I'm sure that a PowerPC Mac can be used for Video and Audio production in 2018, but it would be very modest.


If you are using a PowerPC Mac as your main / only computer / use it for a specific use I would be really interested to hear what about, comment below and let us know!

ALL Programs for Viewing the Web Comfortably on PowerPC Mac

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[ Webkit ] [1]
[ ClicktoFlash ] [1]
[ Glimmer Blocker ] [1]
[ Ninjakit ] [1]
[ ViewTube ] [1]

These are the programs you will need, download all of them  and I'll show you how and why to use them below ([1]'s are secondary links incase the primary ones die).

webkit

[ Webkit ]
Webkit is probably going to become your primary Web Browser, it is simply the fastest, so Webkit like all the Applications you are installing are basically Custom Versions made to run on PowerPC Macs of previously standard software, in Webkit's case it's a Custom (Updated) Version of Safari.

So once you have Webkit installed, you need to add 3 Plugins that make viewing the web a lot faster, first is:

clicktoflash

[ ClicktoFlash ]
Pretty much does what it says, makes all Flash Objects on a website a box with the word "Flash" in the middle, and you click on it to load, rather than having it load with the entire site.
adblocker

[ Glimmer Blocker ]
This is the Custom Ad-Blocker, uses less resources than the normal one, etc.

ninjakit

[ Ninjakit] 
Ninjakit is the custom Greasemonkey script runner for Webkit, and with it we want to run this Script :

[ ViewTube]
Viewing Online Videos now loads through a local player such as Quicktime Player, rather than through Flash or HTML5. (click install after you have Ninjakit installed, and have restarted WebKit)

So that's everything you need for Webkit, with all of this installed it makes it as almost as simple as if you where Web Browsing on a modern computer.


Now on to TenFourFox, this is what you will run to " Just make things work" , in combination with TenFourFoxBox it can make Modern sites load what you thought you couldn't on a PowerPC Mac.

tenfourfox

[ TenFourFox ]
If you are to use this as your main browser, you "can" load youtube videos in HTML5, but you can use the same [ Viewtube ] script, but videos will not load on the page in TenFourFox, you have to press " Get ", and it downloads the video which you can then play locally. Other than that I don't have much experience of browsing with TenFourFox, the main use of it for me is:

[ TenFourFoxBox ]
What this does is let you load a single site in isolation, without all the materials of a Web Browser, and with the compatibility of TenFourFox, so if you NEED / want to run, say a site that uses all flash, or something resource intensive like Google Docs, you will get the best results by running them in TenFourFoxBox.
tenfourfoxbox
Sites I recommend to run in TenFourFoxBox:

  • Google Drive
  • Google Maps
  • Web Skype
  • GrooveSharks
  • Twitter




Other Links you might find useful
[ PPC Media Center 5.0 ] [1]
[1] [2] [3]

Tips for getting Better and Faster Access to the Web on a PowerPC Mac

1 comments
I have many guides on this site telling you how to speed up your PowerPC Mac, but this post is specifically for speeding up your Web Browsing experience. 

>> [ ALL Programs for Viewing the Web Comfortably on PowerPC Mac ] <<

So first off, the Web browser you should be using for your specific PPC Mac:
All these Web Browsers have some sort of Ad Blocker / Flash Blocker, you should have this enabled and only disable it on sites in which you need the content on it to be loaded through flash (also disabling ad blocking on this site would really help me)

Caching a Site
This happens on its own where the web browser will save parts of a page that you visit a lot so that it doesn't have to load it over and over, 

  • Requires TenFourFox Install
This allows you to load a single website in isolation. since most websites such as Google Maps can be a big job for a PowerPC Mac, it's nice to give it all the power just to that one task as possible. I don't recommend running TenFourFox on anything below G4, but experience may vary, try it out and see how it works for your specific machine.

Mobile Versions of Websites

Most Popular websites will have a mobile version of them which can be viewed on a desktop, alot of them will either start with a "m." in the front of the url such as: www.m.cnn.com , and some will have the m at the end of the url such as: http://docs.google.com/m .

To find the specific URL of the Mobile Version of a Website you can just google something like "Mobile version of CNN website" , and sometimes you will have to copy the URL instead of just clicking it on google the site will read that your device is a desktop not a smart and therefore load the desktop version of the website, but if you manually put in the URL then it should load the Mobile Site.



A lot of PowerPC Macs just don't have a system battery, and the internal clock will get reset everytime you restart it, so setting it to normal time will fix that which this guide shows how to do. If the internal clock is messed up the computer just gets really confused I guess.




In General 

Don't have more than a few tabs open, plug into ethernet if you can always better than wireless, and the less other programs open while Web Browsing the better. Hope this helps if you have any other questions / problem you need help with please let me know!  




Make Google Drive work/faster on PowerPC Mac

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Google Drive

Clicking the link above will load the Mobile version of Google Drive, so while selecting / creating files will all be loaded in a much lighter version of the site, however, google doesn't have a mobile version of  editors for the many services in Google Drive ( Docs, Slides, etc).

Also see >> [ ALL Programs for Viewing the Web Comfortably on PowerPC Mac ] <<

Light Weight Word Processor for PowerPC Mac

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bean word processor

If you are looking for something to create a basic document that is a little more than TextEdit, but a little less than Microsoft Office 2008/ Libre Office / Open Office, than this will work great for you.