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[Justin Gombos <mindfuq AT sbcglobal.net>]

I just compared these two OS/GUI Browser combinations for performance
on a 486dx2-66 w/ 8MB ram.  Both gave very poor results when
attempting to load www.tomshardware.com.

Win95/IE:

It interrupted several times with javascript error popups, the scroll
bar was disfunctional, loading was extremely slow despite the fact
that images didn't load at all.  Text overlapped so severely that the
page was completely unreadable.

BL3/Links2:

Loaded faster than IE, but speed was still unreasonable.  Unlike
Win95, the Xvesa desktop was unable to use the max color and
resolution of the hardware.  There were no nagging error messages, and
page layout was acceptible.  Text was readable, and (some of) the
images loaded correctly; that is, until everything locked up halfway
through loading.  It froze to the point that a cold boot was the only
option.  (BTW, on another webpage Links2 spontaneously terminated
abnormally, so overall reliability may be poor).

Conclusion:

Don't even think about running graphical browser on a 486 with 8MB
RAM.  Perhaps Toms Hardware wasn't the best webpage to test, but the
page uses features that are typical of what's out there.  If someone
wants to seriously consider resurrecting a machine with 8MB RAM, web
browsing is not a practical application.