WebOne

WebOne

About

WebOne is a web proxy designed to allow older "Web 1.0" clients work in a "Web 2.0" world. It's written by Alexander Tauenis, and the main project is hosted here:

• https://github.com/atauenis/webone

WebOne has an extensive list of supported legacy browsers on legacy operating systems, with setups like Netscape Navigator and early builds of Internet Explorer on Windows 95 and Windows NT 3.51. Operating systems like classic MacOS8 and Windows 3.11 should also work with correct TCP/IP setups and compatible browser builds that support standard proxy settings.

The WebOne developers provide their own extensive wiki and documentation on supported systems, which you can find here:

• https://github.com/atauenis/webone/wiki/Compatibility-list#Tested-browsers

System requirements

WebOne is written in Microsoft .NET ("Dot Net"), and requires the .NET Core 3.1.X SDK and runtime environment for Linux (RetroNAS installs this for you). This is fairly heavyweight for a Raspberry Pi style device, and there have been reported problems on older Pis with 256MB of RAM. A 512MB RAM or better model is recommended, and note that compile times might be lengthy on older/smaller single-core RPi devices.

A newer RPi3 or RPi4 will have no problems.

Security

WebOne brings compatibility to computers that existed in an era gone by when encryption was weaker or non-existent, and certain security features like ad-blocking didn't exist. WebOne has some built in settings to block a few bad sites, however there's still a lot of awful stuff on the modern Internet that can cause an old computer harm. Similarly, WebOne breaks encryption and security intentionally (to be more compatible with old browsers that can't do this). So please be very careful when using it to enter usernames and passwords into sites, and don't do anything silly like access your banking and finance tools via old computers (even if you really, really hate new computers).

Installation

Run RetroNAS and choose Install Things -> WebOne.

Take note of your RPi's IP address, as you'll need it for later. WebOne installs and runs as a service, and listens on TCP port 8080 by default (user configurable).

To check that it's running, run RetroNAS and navigate to "Check Services" -> "WebOne". You should see some output like the following:

● webone.service - WebOne HTTP Proxy Server
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/webone.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Wed 2021-12-08 23:05:58 AEST; 1 weeks 2 days ago
       Docs: https://github.com/atauenis/webone/wiki/
   Main PID: 754 (webone)
      Tasks: 9 (limit: 8987)
        CPU: 2min 31.356s
     CGroup: /system.slice/webone.service
             └─754 /opt/retronas/bin/webone/webone --daemon

Dec 08 23:05:58 rpi4-bullseye-64 systemd[1]: Started WebOne HTTP Proxy Server.
Dec 08 23:06:05 rpi4-bullseye-64 webone[754]: WebOne HTTP Proxy Server 0.11.1.0
Dec 08 23:06:05 rpi4-bullseye-64 webone[754]: (C) https://github.com/atauenis/webone
Dec 08 23:06:05 rpi4-bullseye-64 webone[754]: Using configuration file webone.conf.
Dec 08 23:06:06 rpi4-bullseye-64 webone[754]: Using event log file /var/log/webone.log.
Dec 08 23:06:06 rpi4-bullseye-64 webone[754]: Configuration load complete.
Dec 08 23:06:06 rpi4-bullseye-64 webone[754]: The proxy runs in daemon mode. See all messages in the log file.

Usage

Install a compatible web browser in your legacy computer/device/OS/VM, and ensure it has standard proxy settings in its options.

Set the proxy settings for all protocols to point to the IP address of your RPi, and port 8080 (by default). If your proxy settings page has a "use the same setting for all protocols" option, use that option.

From here, test browsing the web! There are good services out there for retro computing enthusiasts that can get you started:

• http://frogfind.com/ - The search engine for vintage computers
• http://www.vogons.org/ - A great community of retro PC and DOS enthusiasts
• http://lowendmac.com/ - Documenting older and lower end Mac hardware
• http://everymac.com/ - Every Mac. All of them.
• http://www.lemonamiga.com/ - Great look at Amiga computers and software
• http://www.lemon64.com/ - Great look at C64 computers and software
• https://archive.org/details/cd-roms - The Internet Archive's CD-ROM Software Collection. Loads of CD ISO images from across the decades of computing.