Used just for surfing and email? Install Ubuntu along side of it (dual boot) Surf with very little concern. Firefox- it's in there. Thunderbird email client also. If needed, you can still boot Xp. I've done that on my laptops. Only run windoze when needed. Ubuntu linux can access the windows partition for pictures, videos, and documents if needed. (Window cannot access the Linux partition) Can also join my windows Home network and share. (via Samba)
I have a win98SE machine that occasionally goes on the web.
"firefox" still works in my win98 machine. Think(??) it's ver 1.6 or so.
"various players" only need one - VLC