any security threats running Win98SE with IE 5.5 nowadays?

Man that's pretty risky since those versions are full of holes and have been exploited out the Ying Yang. Granted you may not be doing anything important but you'll be loaded with malware (with a keylogger or two) in no time after connecting to the 'net. MS stopped supporting it long ago so there are no patches are available to fix/protect.

 

Because M$ does not support Win 98 anymore they have not released any security patches for any potentially new security threats

 

bahh, pessimists;

1) if your zone alarm is functioning fine
2) you never go to any site other than AAA sites (Fchat doesn't qualify, imo)
3) only visit websites are never hacked to download code in the background (some banks were)
4) you never open emails, stream any content, or use any other application on the net
5) don't accept cookies
6) never look at a website with "appealing" content

Then you'd be fine. Feeling lucky?

 

Time to spend the $$ and get a new lap top. take the 98SE machine and use it for the 1st annual computer toss!

 

You could try and stretch the PC and put XP on it, 233 is on the bottom of the minimum specs though.

 

Wait a 2nd though - he's willing to play the odds, and could be a sweet little honey pot experiment

I'd feel safer with a real browser - Firefox for me, but there are others. Not sure if they'd run on 10 year old o/s. Are there any free a/v scanners that'll run in that environment? I use Trend Micro's freebie every now and then, but it'll want java or active-x and a current browser.

James: get to know every dll in your application list, their memory usage, and what normal is. Shouldn't be more than a dozen or so in there I'd think. Only recovery from a possible infection is re-installing everything fresh (not upgrade, not fix, but new install of all apps). Don't open messages from names that sound almost like old g/f that say "I love you" . Also keep an eye on your network traffic to see if the PC's doing anything when it shouldn't - there's 100's of thousands of hijacked old pc's like this out there, that are being rented by the hour to, well, not your friends. Never use your cc on this thing, or a banking password.

Windows 2000 or XP came out with guest accounts - those are a good way to keep damage to a minimum.

Probably easier to load a Linux image on it, then be cool and current.

 

No offense but for $100 you can get a Pentium 4 PC that will be infinitely faster than some P2 pos.

 

gimme your IP address and i'll tell you

if you must, at least that's better than running WinME.