If you're dealing with weird legacy 9x systems in 2026, another headache you've probably run into is getting them to talk to the modern web (since modern TLS and JS completely break old browsers).
I actually built a win9x compatibility mode into BrowserBox specifically for this kind of weirdness. You run the server on a modern system and launch it with bbx win9x-run, and it proxies the modern web to legacy clients. It works surprisingly well with IE5, IE6, and old Netscape on Windows 95/98/NT. Might be a fun addition to your retro utility belt!
Kernel-Ex and Basilisk and friends (Serpent browser or whatever it's called) plus some TLS stuff can browse the modern web just fine. JS, OTOH... get NoScript ASAP and block selectively.
Or better, ditch the web completely and head to Gopher/Gemini.
I agree there seem to be other options. But they all have fractal-edged interfaces to the legacy stuff, and you need to be careful about, as you said, script issues and vulns. That's the BrowserBox advantage - a fully modern, remote rendering system that can still be accessed from the legacy box, but securely. And easy setup. Admittedly, doing it the way you're doing is probably free - BrowserBox is not free - but it saves you lots of this delicate management of config, etc. Because the interface model is cleaner: just one HTTP endpoint that legacy browsers can actually access, streaming them fully modern browsing that's rendered elsewhere, securely.
I get the degradation to Gopher as a way to solve many issues, but many things just don't work there. And it may have its own vulnerabilities.
Ah! I solved that easily enough. Internet Explorer 8 works okay for the webby front ends to operate the transmitter equipment. How do you run that, in this day and age, safely?
Run it in Windows XP, in a VM.
Now here's the clever bit - qemu will allow you to expose the keyboard, mouse, and framebuffer as a VNC server. So you set up Apache Guacamole to point a VNC client at the VM, and then "normal people" can log in, operate the transmitter, and log out again.
You can do a lot of sneaky things with that, including setting up headless X, running VNC on it pointed at your qemu VM, and then streaming the headless X servers's framebuffer out with ffmpeg.
Yes sometimes work can be a bit boring with not much to do, why do you ask?
That is pretty cool, man. VM with XP in QEMU sending VNC frames to Guacamole clients on the web.
BrowserBox is basically the same pattern as this setup (streaming graphics from some browsing substrate somewhere to web clients) except architecture is different: a modern box on the same private network runs the BrowserBox server, and the win box (QEMUd or otherwise) connects to its http endpoint, using whatever browser it has (tested back to IE5 even, tho that's a way more buggy browser than IE6. IE8 should be golden). That way you get the full modern web, no compromises. But crucially the web is not actually accessing your legacy box. So, no comrp0mises, ie., no easy vulns. Especially a concern for older browsers. Plus, we've got policy controls to lock down capabilities (copy, paste, URL lists, internal IP access controls, etc).
In your case it sounds like you are running the webby servers on the XP box, too, so BrowserBox would link back into those over the same private network, render them on the modern box, send it back to the XP box, then clients can connect over the QEMU VNC bridge you already have.
Alternately you could just do away with the Win XP browsing, and have BrowserBox connect to your webby endpoints for transmitters wherever you run them, and then expose that browsing graphics stream to clients over whatever endpoint you want. Many options!
I like your ffmpeg out setup. How did that go? Share more about that? Pretty interesting, I love this old architectures, and legacy systems compatibility quests.
I should do a blog post and stick it on here, right?
> In your case it sounds like you are running the webby servers on the XP box, too,
Yeah - it's a web front end to some specialised software written on I guess Microsoft C++ (if I had time, enthusiasm, and a copy of it lying around I suppose I'd wave Ghidra at it and see what happens).
I'll look into BrowserBox, that sounds handy.
> I like your ffmpeg out setup. How did that go? Share more about that? Pretty interesting, I love this old architectures, and legacy systems compatibility quests.
Surprisingly well. I think you could probably stream it straight to Twitch or something if you wanted. Yeah, this sounds like a blog post.
There is a section of the Forties Pipeline where they have a huge amount of gas handling plant in central Scotland. Last time I was on site (admittedly 15 years ago but I don't see this changing soon) the SCADA outstations were run by absolutely minty box fresh VAXStation 3100s. Plastic not even peeled off the front panel badges fresh.
Still got those in this part of the world sharing space with state of the art autonomous 100+ tonne robo trucks.