Shopping the net on a video games console from 2006: what may probably go incorrect? Because it seems, nearly—however not fairly—every little thing.

Introducing the Wii Web Channel

First, a reminder, as a result of even in case you had been there on the time, you’ve in all probability forgotten most issues in regards to the Wii past Mario Kart and Wii Sports activities. Sure, it supplied extra in addition to these video games; much more than the Swap does in the present day, by some measures.

The Wii’s house menu riffed on a TV metaphor, with a grid of screen-shaped channels to deal with all duties, from enjoying a recreation to checking on the climate. Considered one of these channels—launched simply after launch—was the Web Channel, a model of the Opera browser tailored to the console.

The Web Channel makes use of a direct connection through your router, so there’s no involvement of Nintendo-owned servers throughout this course of. In principle, because of this it can’t be shut off, so the software program ought to proceed to operate. Let’s see if that principle pans out in apply.

Booting Up a Wii for Internet Shopping in 2025

The primary problem going through me was a {hardware} one. Having dragged my outdated Wii out of the attic, and dusted it off, I wanted to plug it right into a TV. The Wii used a composite cable, which is fairly old style by in the present day’s requirements.

This cable has three connectors, coloured crimson, white, and yellow; most trendy TVs lack the ports wanted to plug these in. Fortuitously, my TV is sufficiently old to assist this commonplace, so booting up my Wii for the primary time in nicely over a decade was a simple course of.

Since I hadn’t ever used the Wii with my present router (and even in my present home!), I needed to undergo the method of establishing a brand new connection, however that labored flawlessly. Lastly, I needed to pay money for the Web Channel itself. For some purpose, this wasn’t accessible to me initially, however I may nonetheless add the channel since I’d downloaded it beforehand.

To pay money for the Web Channel, merely open up the Wii Store, bathe in that wonderful eShop music, then navigate to “Titles You’ve Already Downloaded.” Find the channel, then obtain it:

Making an attempt Out Easy Textual content Websites

I started by making an attempt the only potential websites I may consider. The primary was instance.com, a reserved area meant for documentation and related makes use of. This website hosts a really primary, text-only web page with inline types and no JavaScript. As such, it stood the very best probability of succeeding—and it did:

I attempted one other easy website, Txti. Though the location simply shows a “retirement” message, it’s nonetheless accessible utilizing the Wii, so there was hope for different text-based websites.

Coming into URLs with the Wii Distant could be a laborious course of, however plugging in a USB keyboard helps an terrible lot. Even my Mac Magic keyboard was acknowledged, though it is an older lightning-to-USBA mannequin.

Sadly, I used to be much less profitable with different easy websites, like Hacker Information or lobste.rs, which each refused me. Craigslist was one other I held out some hope for, but it surely additionally did not load.

Shopping Extra Complicated Websites

Subsequent, I checked out the Favorites record. This confirmed that I’d made little or no use of the Web Channel earlier than, however a handful of websites was current, probably by default. Yahoo was a no-go, however Google seemed fairly promising:

Search outcome hyperlinks, nevertheless, go through a Google proxy URL, so accessing them requires a little bit of modifying. However, even accessing URLs straight was usually doomed to failure, with a message studying “Handshake failed as a result of the server doesn’t wish to settle for the enabled SSL/TLS protocol variations.”

BBC iPlayer additionally seemed fairly promising, if not precisely error-free. Accessing the location introduced a number of warning messages about expired certificates, and the ultimate display seemed removed from excellent:

Nonetheless, it did handle to load and even let me navigate to particular person exhibits, fueling hope that one thing helpful may come up from the experiment. In the end, although, there was no approach of controlling the video participant, so I couldn’t truly view any video footage in any respect.

Wikipedia was one other website that I believed had promise, given its text-focused nature and its very broad attraction. Sadly, it too suffered from safety errors. Most of those errors had been brought on by websites requiring the newer TLS protocol. The Wii’s Web Channel supported SSL 3.0, and this model of the Opera browser was by no means upgraded to assist TLS, so many trendy web sites are inaccessible.

Are There Any Workarounds?

It’s secure to say that searching the net in your Wii in 2025 is way from passable. Even in case you limit your self to essentially the most primary websites, it’s a really hit-and-miss affair. Most likely your greatest guess is to make use of a “dumb proxy” like FrogFind to fetch websites in your behalf:

FrogFind works fairly nicely on the Wii due to its strategy to backward compatibility. The location is a search engine, however as a substitute of linking straight to every outcome, it proxies outcomes by means of its personal engine. Because of this, FrogFind serves you an easier model of every outcome, with out all of the trimmings that may trigger older browsers to fail.

Since FrogFind handles safe connections to every website, the certificates errors that plagued my earlier makes an attempt had been additionally not current. Every website is downgraded consequently, so this strategy might be not appropriate for any remotely difficult internet apps like iPlayer or Bluesky, however in case you should browse the web on a Wii in 2025, it not less than offers you a combating probability.