IF you don't need a graphical browser, you might want to try out MacLynx, a port to the Mac of the well-known Lynx text-only web browser.
Note that some black and white Macs can run later graphical browsers, at least in theory. Although machines like the SE/30 don't have colour, they do have Color QuickDraw capability, which means that, for instance, older versions of the Netscape Navigator browser will be OK. The problem is likely to be their enormous appetite for RAM, which an old Mac may not have. In that case Netscape Navigator 2.02 may be a solution - its suggested memory requirement is 4296k, but the minimum is only 2560k.
All of the browsers detailed on this page require a Mac running System 7. If you still use System 6, the only option is MacWWW (also known as "Samba").
Download NCSA Mosaic 1.0.3
But MacWeb can't display inline graphics at all on 68000 Macs with mono screens (though there's a partial workaround - see later). It also requires System 7. Black & white 68030 machines like the SE/30 have no trouble with graphics, though.
TradeWave, the company that released MacWeb, no longer distributes it as a standalone browser, but these versions are still available for download on the net:
Download MacWeb 1.00A3.2
Download MacWeb 1.1.1E
Download MacWeb 2.0
Download French version of MacWeb 1.1.1E
Download French version of MacWeb 2.0.
If you're going to use MacWeb 2.0 on a black and white Mac with 68000 CPU like the SE, MacWeb 2.0c patch fixes an annoying screen-handling bug (see "So which MacWeb version should I use?" below). You don't need it on mono Macs that understand Color QuickDraw, like the SE/30. The patch works on both English and French versions of MacWeb 2.0 (thanks, Gilles).
MacWeb 2.0 was also distributed on the CD that came with the February 1997 US edition of Macworld magazine (not the ones sent abroad, though). It may be hidden deep within the folder structure, or even inside an archive file. Look for the AOL section and hunt around - it's there somewhere. MacWeb 2.0 uses the Internet Config program for many of its settings. This may also come on the Macworld CD, but is not included in the MacWeb2.sit.hqx archives above. You can get it from just about any Mac shareware archive, though, or here:
Download Internet Config 1.4
There have been reports that 1.1.1E crashes when saving prefs. It doesn't crash on my SE with a 68020 accelerator, but you might be safer with one of the other versions.
MacWeb 2.0 has many more features than the earlier versions, but this comes at a price. Previously, MacWeb ignored the many HTML "tags" it didn't know how to handle, like tables, image alignment etc. This was one of the reasons it displayed pages much faster than the increasingly bloated Netscape. With version 2.0, MacWeb now interprets many of these tags, and so takes much longer to render heavily-formatted pages in the browser window. In extreme cases this 'pagination' can take so long you may think your Mac has crashed - it probably hasn't, but if you're paying for a dial-up net connection this isn't much comfort. To set against that, many of these fancy-formatted web sites are impossible to make sense of without the formatting, and before MacWeb 2.0 I tended to avoid them. Now they look OK, if not always worth the wait....
On black and white Macs with 68000 CPUs MacWeb 2.0 sometimes "blacks out" all or part of its window when you're navigating around a web page. This seems to be caused by HTML code that sets a colour for the page background. The most reliable way I've found to deal with it is to move the horizontal scroll box all the way to the right so that the (blacked-out) text disappears off to the left, then move the scroll box back again. When the text reappears, it's OK. This has worked for me every time.
A better solution has been provided by Antoine Hebert, whose MacWeb 2.0c patch fixes the bug. It makes MacWeb 2.0 ignore page background colours, and is only needed if MacWeb is running on a black and white Mac with 68000 CPU like the SE. You don't need it on mono Macs that understand Color QuickDraw, like the SE/30.
Another glitch - MacWeb 2.0 doesn't seem to handle radio buttons or checkboxes in web page forms on black and white Macs. This is very annoying, since earlier versions handled them just fine!
In short, the two earlier MacWeb versions are faster but limited, while MacWeb 2.0, though it can be slow and temperamental, is much better at coping with today's Web. So far I've found v2.0 worth the hassle. In addition, MacWeb 2.0 comes with documentation - the others didn't. Selecting "MacWeb Help" under the Help menu won't do anything. It used to connect to the TradeWave server which merely sent the message "Document under construction". Now it just provides a link to this page.
In fact, many of the links to web pages in MacWeb's various menus are now out of date. It should be possible to change them to something useful (I haven't tried it yet), but you'll need to use Apple's ResEdit utility to patch the MacWeb application itself. If you're comfortable using ResEdit, or want to experiment on a copy of the MacWeb file, try this ....
Open MacWeb's STR# resources, where you'll find the editable menu and Help strings with their corresponding URLs. The two resources you need to change are:
MacWeb 2.0
STR# 256 (Help menu)
STR# 258 (Tradewave links)
MacWeb 1.1.1.E
STR# 256 (Help menu)
STR# 257 (Tradewave links)
One problem I've found with all versions is that when you paste rather than type a URL into the "Open URL" window, it often doesn't work. But, if you delete one or more characters (e.g., the last letter) of the pasted text, then replace it again, it does work - as if MacWeb assumes the input window is empty if it hasn't detected any character-key-presses.
You can do this from within MacWeb, if you ever get past the repeating-dialogs problem (if not, see below). Select preferences, under the Edit menu. Go to Format prefs and uncheck "Autoload images". Now the default help page will still be loaded on start-up, but MacWeb won't try to display its graphics.
If you don't want a default page to open at all, go to General prefs and click on the underlined words "Home URL". Internet Config will launch and you can delete any entry there for "WWW Home Page". Close the window and go back to MacWeb.
Now go to MacWeb's File-map prefs and click on the underlined words "File Mappings". This will switch you back to the relevant part of Internet Config. Find an entry for the file extension ".gif" and click on Change. Now uncheck the box that says "Post process". You could do the same for ".jpg", ".jpe", and ".jpeg" to stop MacWeb trying to find a helper for JPEG images too. Save changes and quit Internet Config.
An alternative method is to change the "WWW Home Page" and "File Mappings" prefs directly in Internet Config without involving MacWeb. You'll find them under "Other Services" and "File Mappings".
Download GIFConverter 2.3.7
Download GIFwatcher 2.2.0
Problem is, only applications can be selected as "helpers" for MacWeb, and GIFwatcher isn't an application - it's an old-style desk accessory and won't appear in the file list if you try to select it as a helper. Not to worry, a shareware package called "DA Piggyback" can transform DAs into applications.
Download DA Piggyback 1.2
One point worth noting is that you can't reliably change GIFwatcher's default settings (including the initial window size or position) once the DA has been converted to an application - you have to set it up the way you want first, then run it through DA PiggyBack. Also, you might have to click on GIFwatcher's title-bar to select its window from MacWeb - clicking elsewhere in the window sometimes has no effect.
Once you've turned GIFwatcher into an application, open its "Get info" window in the Finder and give it a Preferred and Minimum memory partition of about 150k. This should be enough for most Web page GIFs. You can ignore any warning that you've allowed less memory than the suggested amount.
What you need to do next depends on which version of MacWeb you're using.
With versions before MacWeb 2.0, choose "Helpers..." from the Edit menu. You're presented with a list of "MIME types". Select "image/gif" and click on Edit. On the next screen, click on "More choices". Make sure the "Don't Launch" checkbox is unchecked. Then, just below and to the right of where it says "Launch the application with this signature: ", click on "Select...". Find GIFwatcher and open it. Now keep clicking "OK" until all the helper windows disappear. Next, under the file menu, select "Preferences", then "Format", and turn "Autoload images" off - you must view each GIF separately with no clickable links.
With MacWeb 2.0, "helper" settings are controlled through Internet Config. Under MacWeb's Edit menu select Preferences and scroll down the list on the left to "File map". Click on it, then on the words "File Mappings". Internet Config launches and displays a list of file suffixes and their related file types and helper applications. Scroll down the list till you see the file extension ".gif" and select it. Click on "Change". Make sure the "Post Process" box is checked, then click on the large button directly to the right, which will show the name of some default image-viewing program, probably JPEGView. A file-selector dialogue appears, so find GIFwatcher and open it. Now click on "OK", then close the "File Mappings" window. From the menu bar choose "File" and "Save", then quit Internet Config.
The next time you click on a web page GIF image icon in MacWeb 2.0, GIFwatcher will launch automatically and display it. In MacWeb versions before 2.0, you must command-click on the icon.
Download JPEG Convert 1.0
Download Text Capture FKEY 2.3
Open a copy of MacWeb with ResEdit and edit STR# resource number 803 (labelled "Proxy Info"). You can configure MacWeb for ftp, gopher, http and WAIS. Strings are of the form:
protocol;http_proxy_urle.g.
http;http://wwwcache.lut.ac.uk:3128/ gopher;http://wwwcache.lut.ac.uk:3128/ ftp;http://wwwcache.lut.ac.uk:3128/ wais;http://wwwcache.lut.ac.uk:8001/Don't use these URLs, they're just examples! Use ones provided by your network administrator or ISP. "No proxy" is also supported - edit STR# resource 804, e.g.
*.ac.uk *.comThis means don't use the proxy server for any URLs that end in .ac.uk or .com .
Download ResEdit 2.1.3
The Mac SE Support Pages, maintained by Chris Adams
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