What is the best browser for PowerPC?

Have you tried TenFourFox?

Well, it depends on what OS your mac is running. If you are running Tiger then TenFourFox is good. If you are running Panther or earlier then your best bet is to run Classilla under classic. And if you are running Leopard then you have (at last check anyway) either TenFourFox or Omniweb (Omniweb is only useful with larger displays because of its layout). Under OS9 you really only have Classilla.

I totally agree with swinsor. I'd like to point out that if you are hoping to use any bells and whistles, you are mostly out of luck. Flash is officially unsupported for PPC architecture in this day and age, although there are some workarounds such as Flash 11 hacks, HTML 5 (TenFourFox support is limited.) Another issue with Flash is the fact that TenFourFox hasn't supported plugins for at least a couple releases. I'll look around for the info on the workarounds and post back here if I remember.

Personally, I have an eMac running on 768mb RAM and 1.0Ghz G4. TenFourFox works for most things I would need it to do on the eMac but as great as the browser is, on my eMac, performance is lacking. I could upgrade the RAM a bit or attempt a processor overclock, but for right now I just stick to pretty basic browsing.

An alternative to TenFourFox is Camino. It requires 10.4 or greater, but it runs on PPC. Performance is about the same, though if I remember correctly, it does support an older version of Flash. The trade off is security vulnerabilities, low performance, and an annoying message on Youtube asking you to upgrade.

Classilla is what I use if I have the urge to browse facebook on the eMac. It works by providing mobile versions of websites, reducing stress on these older machines, and increasing performance. This feature can be turned off if need be, but I haven't had a reason to yet. If you know a bit of HTML/Javascript, you can even write customized scripts that will allow Classilla to better handle your favorite websites.

Interestingly, I've found a few pretty reliable solutions for popular, resource intensive sites. For Youtube, I use Mactubes. It is a standalone application that acts as a frontend for youtube browsing. It is sort of like a video player with all the basic functionality of Youtube that requires fewer resources. Video playback quality is still contingent upon your computer specs, for example, I find my sweet spot is 1024x768 resolution with videos playing windowed at 240p. It doesn't look as bad as you might imagine.

I often use my eMac as a Pandora machine. I know PandoraMan is an application like MacTubes but I've not had any luck getting it to work. If you use the Flash 11 hack for 10.4.11 floating around the net, the proper website runs almost without fail. I've noticed that sometimes if the tab or windows isn't currently active or at the front so to speak, the next song on the station needs to be manually queued by clicking the next button. I think this will use a skip for the hour. Overall, it works well enough.

Hope that wasn't information overload.

-Jeff

For anyone who wishes to use the modified version of Flash player to trick websites into thinking you are using a modern version of flash(Not Recommended!) the rather hard to find link (at least for me?! I ended up editing my own copy of flash at some point but that copy is long gone) is here. As for enabling plugins in TenFourFox you used to be able to use the about:config page but if I remember correctly, that method was disabled in the latest release.