True. You get the latest up-to-date headlines news once you go online and from smartphone news aggregators apps.

I use the Associated Press app on my phone for up to date headline news.

Might be worth looking at distros that can load to ram, it'll take quite a while to boot up, but it'll run much faster, just saying.

Actually I am a big dummy, no wonder I continue to stay at this thread alone which is pretty much the lowest point of the bottom heap of LQ. I figured out this issue before but then forgot about it and go thru it all over again, over and over again. Never learning from past experience. In industry, this is a no no, one must learn exponentially and avoid such serious draw backs. My PC was not hacked, no one cares for such an old and what most consider to be a dumb PC. Anyone can get all info. on this PC directly from Publicdomain for free even and a lot more than what is on this old PC.

Here is the program that uses excess memory, it is videos !!! Youtube etc., I watched titanic related videos recently. Now only the most graphic intense programs need more ram. I only try some slow DOS puzzles, so gaming is out of the question.
So, this PC is ok to use for normal things. The only exception being, if I watch youtube or other videos, then I need to keep an eye out on the ram use. Excess swap use on older PC for no reason, strains the HD. It is best to reboot this PC after watching videos, as the swap continues to be used a lot even after the video is shut off.

That probably explains why I get along just fine with 2 GB of memory and a dual core processor. I don't watch videos, haven't got the time.

I only have 2Gb in each of my most used machines. I don't watch much Video, but if I do I tend to use Puppy to do so!

Both are only 32bit.

I do have a more modern 64bit machine and I am trying to only install the 64 bit equivalents of my preferred software, but it is proving difficult even to find in some cases.

It is disgusting how much of modern software cares more about commerce and looks rather than functionality.

2Gb is excellent, 1Gb is good for just text and audio. The thing with online video I feel is that there are ads, tracking and other things that use up a lot of resources. Normal video viewing offline must be ok, this is just a hunch tho.

Hmm, 2GB of ram is plenty for me to watch YT vids, but if you can't, you could try using yt-downloader to grab them & mplayer/mpv to watch them.

Edit: I was still able to watch YT vids on my old dual core 1.4GHz with 1.5GB ram, until I gave it away the other week.

I watch YT vids because I belong to a couple of forums that use it to post our vids of us playing ukes & harmonicas, (both of which still need a lot of practice).

mplayer is not loading on this distro of Puppy. yt-donwloader never really worked for me.
At this point simple PC reboot after watching videos seems best.
Good suggestion tho, tx for sharing.

Gnu Parallel for command line efficiency:
https://opensource.com/article/18/5/gnu-parallel

Free ebook 23 years of Freedos:
http://www.freedos.org/ebook/

I think I blew the P3 Mobo online video card, that PC needed only like 180W or so PSU, when I built that PC, I used a more powerful PSU not sure exactly how much now. Hence I feel with time, due to excess power the mobo online video card blew. Just a hunch.

That would not be the reason. The power rating of a power supply is there to indicate the MAXIMUM safe power it will supply. Any device will only draw what it needs (unless faulty).
Usually the reason for fitting a more powerful supply is that the tend to be made from better parts and hence provide a smoother voltage and cope with the spike in the mains power better.

This is very good to know, tx indeed.

Thanks this will be a future project for me. This is a vital one considering old computers.

http://puppylinux.org/wikka/GtkYoutubeViewer