retro.someguynamedross.com

WordPress for older devices and browsers

15/05/2025 by Ross

Categories: Uncategorized

Why WordPress?

Writing a blog with bespoke HTML would be the best option for compatibility with older browsers, though this would be at the expense of time and effort when adding new content.

By bending WordPress to my will I can straddle the fence between modern and legacy, having a convenient way to add content while still working on older devices.

It is worth noting that while the site is made to work on older devices, the addition of content will always be done from a modern device - The admin areas of this WordPress instance are configured with SSL, so will not work on older devices.

I've attempted to have WordPress present as basic a page as possible, though some modern elements made sneak through. Luckily, HTML was designed to degrade gracefully, and the site displays quite well on the older devices and systems I've tested so far:

• PowerBook 1400c:
  • OS: Mac OS 8.6
  • Browser: Netscape Navigator 2.02 and MS Internet Explorer 4
• Toshiba Libretto 100CT
  • OS: Windows 98
  • Browser: MS Internet Explorer 5
• Linux VM:
  • OS: Alpine Linux
  • Browser: Lynx

If you've tested on any of your older devices I would love to hear about it! Please feel free to comment at the bottom of this page, and I'll add it to the list above.

Technical Notes

Here are the key details and adjustments required to get WordPress working on older devices. This is mostly for my own reference, though I figured it was worth sharing for anyone interested in creating a similar site.

WordPress

This site is a vanilla WordPress install, running on a typical LEMP stack.

Theme

The bulk of the heavy lifting is done by a custom WordPress plugin that spits out pages as close as possible to HTML1.0, striping as many of the modern features and functions,  resulting in a page that should load nicely in even the earliest browsers.

I'm no PHP developer, so I employed the 'services' of my friendly neighbourhood LLM, and had this theme working in a couple of hours.

I was originally using the theme 'WP Web 1.0', created by bhtooefr - available here: bhtooefr.org

WordPress Settings

The following settings were added to the wp-config.php file:

define('WP_HOME', 'http://retro.someguynamedross.com');#Force http:// for 'Home'
define('WP_SITEURL', 'http://retro.someguynamedross.com');#Force http:// for 'Site URL'
define('WP_CONTENT_URL', 'http://retro.someguynamedross.com/wp-content');#Force http:// for 'Content URL'
define( 'FORCE_SSL_LOGIN', true );#Require HTTPS for login page
define( 'FORCE_SSL_ADMIN', true );#Require HTTPS for admin pages

Plugins

The following plugins are in use:

• Unbloater
  • Plugin details: https://wordpress.org/plugins/unbloater/
  • Used to disable a handful of features which cause issues on older devices.
  • Key options disabled: DNS Prefetch, jQuery Migrate, and Emojis.
• Find-and-replace - Various WordPress plugins.
  • Used 2-3 different plugins, to varying levels of success.
  • Performed a 'Find-and-Replace' on all instances of 'https://' with 'http://' in the database and links/URLs on pages.

Server Configuration

Nginx also needed some adjustments to allow HTTP traffic through without the typical SSL auto-upgrade behaviour.

Other Issues

Most modern browsers force SSL upgrades for security reasons, though the site should handle this gracefully and display normally.

Older browsers should just following the links as they are provided, and not upgrade to SSL automatically.

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