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upstream noticed this and will be fixed in my next build. Ref: https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=70&t=32597

Having finally got Windows 7 to my liking, I decided to look into any telemetry that the OS has installed. From what I read it's not as bad as Windows 10 and 11. I found this article discussing '11 Free Tools' to use. 11 Free Tools To Disable and Stop Windows from Spying and Tracking You https://www.geckoandfly.com/25083/free-tools-disable-stop-windows-spying-tracking-you/ Number 2 on the list is a tool called Blackbird ... Blackbird v6 (64bit). It works on Windows 7 as well as higher, they do also list Vista. Nice write-up about it here and other places. It will make a backup before removing anything. I also have my own backup on a flash drive before using it. It seemed to work really good and appears to be safe to use and run. MajorGeeks has it listed to work on Windows 11|10|8|7 but I can't be sure how accurate that information is. Just wondering about any thoughts on Blackbird? It seems to be really safe to use. I used it almost two weeks ago before I posted about it here and have not noticed any problems. It does remove a lot of items and all the items changed or removed are posted. Information from the link above does not list it working on Windows 11 as MajorGeeks does. I put their information below: Blocks Telemetry Completely – Block Windows spyware, on both the application and network level, without editing the HOSTS file or firewall settings and remove all Windows telemetry updates. Supports Wireless and Ethernet connections, IPv4/IPv6. Removes Windows Ads – Remove all Windows built-in advertising and any pre-installed app you want. Stop your PC from downloading and installing sponsored software in the background. Restores Privacy – Prevent diagnostic data, passwords, contacts, URL, SMS, handwriting, location, and P2P-update sharing. Remove all unique ID tracking tokens. Disable 60+ data collection tasks and consequently speed up your PC. Portable, Restorable, Flexible – No installation, with a focus on leaving the smallest possible footprint, Blackbird is a single, portable exe with granular switches available. Want to restore everything back? They got you covered. Works on Windows Vista, 7, 8/8.1, 10 (Home/Pro/Ent/Edu) How Blackbird Works Without going into too much detail, Blackbird employs some known and less-known techniques to fully disarm Windows while leaving the smallest possible footprint. For instance, Blackbird does not edit the HOSTS file in any way, nor does it mess with your firewall settings. It does not run in the background, instead relying on persistent routes and resolving hostnames to IP addresses each time Blackbird is applied by the user. After usage no new files are left behind on your computer and you can safely delete blackbird.exe. Blackbird has succeded when you forget it was ever there. Everything our software does can be restored using the software itself or manually by hand. *Dev.notice: Please don't do this manually, it will take forever and is confusing. There are other tools that claim to block Windows spying but they are cumbersome to use and not as powerful or are limited in scope. So we took Windows apart, piece by piece, analyzed web traffic, system calls, file changes, etc, compared different configurations, designed and built a stand-alone tool and spent hundreds of hours on beta testing so anyone can use it and it gets the job done right. What Blackbird Does > Disables OneDrive > Disables Cortana > Disables Bing-integration > Disables all AutoLoggers > Disables Wi-Fi Sense > Disables system-wide telemetry (on all editions of Windows 10 and older) > Disables all OS advertising (tips, pop-ups, suggested apps, etc.) > Disables all Xbox Live services > Disables web content evaluation ("SmartScreen") and prevents URL check-in > Disables Windows Media online DRM > Disables Windows P2P Update sharing > Disables hidden Windows metric startup tasks > Disables all diagnostic tracking services > Disables all application metric-data collection agents > Prevents system read access to already collected diagnostic data > Prevents any location/contacts/messages/handwritting/password sharing > Prevents cross-device synchronization (ie; Windows Phone auto-syncing with PC account data) > Removes GWX and Windows 10 upgrade pop-ups > Removes Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) > Removes your unique ad-tracking ID token > Removes a bunch of Windows Vista, 7, 8, 8.1 telemetry updates (View full list here) > Removes Superfish, eDellRoot, HP Touchpoint Analytics, VisualDiscovery and other security risks > Removes all pre-install Windows 10 Upgrade files/folders on Windows 7, 8, 8.1 > Blocks 500+ different tracking/telemetry/ad servers (View full list here) > Patches various data leaks (IE/Edge, Explorer, Defender, MRT, SMB) > Applies various network tweaks (enables RSS,ctcp,tcp-offload,ECN) INCLUDES: > Blackbird App Manager (Windows 10 only) : Block any system application the easy & user-friendly way. > Blackbird STD : Force removal of stubborn spy tasks. > Backup & Restore : Save current system settings to an external file restorable at any time. Try Blackbird Windows Privacy and Security ... Blackbird is THE BEST! *** I also found a 'ready to use' script at this link discussion. Remove ALL telemetry updates from Windows 7 & 8 and 8.1 https://windowsforum.com/threads/remove-all-telemetry-updates-from-windows-7-8-and-8-1.228360/ ... there is a list of items removed and at the bottom is a link to get the script ready to download and use. I also ran this script after running Blackbird and so far everything seems to be OK on my computer. I'm many years late getting involved with Windows 7 but with Windows XP ... which I still like, the web pages are really becoming a problem with daily use. It can be OK with Javascript disabled but I'm sure it will only get worse and not better with XP. So maybe there are others here that can use these tools and script on Windows 7. I'm sure it's not 100% but it has to be better than what I had before after running Blackbird and the script download. ...

Greetings. https://mega.nz/folder/itlRGKyB#8XNJOvlebW8ghCjaiJrk0w https://mega.nz/file/PhMAEZ7L#8PoBTs7sTt2e7wb3tRotEZhTv9TildrgZTt_lD_kvGI This is archives of all that i'd used to compile wheels undef WinXP. I`d build it at Visual studio 2017 with installed v140_xp toolset For building wheels i have used original MinGW https://osdn.net/projects/mingw/ under WinXP MinGW_all.7z - mingw compilers. Root folder was D:\ Python39NoSSe2.7z - full Python 3.9 with headers, libs and defs. Root folder was C:\ tcl.7z - compiled TCL/TK openssl-3.1.0-win32-dev-xpmod-sse.7z, openssl-3.1.0-win32-xpmod-sse.7z - are development and binary OpenSSL from https://rwijnsma.home.xs4all.nl/files/openssl/ cryptography-3.4.8.7z - lastest cryptography for XP (without RUST) Best regards

SoftGPU now works on real hardware, not just virtual machines, since it now includes support for any VESA VBE 2.0 compatible GPU and can now be considered a successor to VBEMP with some sort of 2d/3d acceleration, albeit purely software based. I've tested the newest version (v0.8.2025.53 special edition available for donators) on my ThinkPad X230 and DOS windows work quite well (tested only text applications) and windows are not as laggy as with VBEMP. In 3DMark2001 SE I got... 241 points Would be nice to have more tests done by others on real hardware. Download it here: https://github.com/JHRobotics/softgpu/releases/tag/v0.8.2025.53 No need for ISO, ZIP works just fine.

the answer from the developer is not bad, but he also say he dont know it so exactly either but i would have to go with close to nothing to just write something to this connections are made via winsock - here TCP/IP procolls and TLS (aka the named openssl) can be involved if its a winHTTP request the HTTP request also sends what OS you are on - some actually then refuse the connection if they see this that would be changeable the idea going to a changed python yea - i also said that - even tho i had much less useful detail´s a other small idea is to look if the same code work for a other OS, if so its likely the internals (the functions that come next) somehow mess up thats also what the python devloper said with other words the openssl problem might be possible to determinate by just trying a different OS - if it has the same code then its not openssl a problem i can see here that this rely´s on script functions (low level) the next tier functions are deeper (like the named winsock) if its somewhere at this spot you need to debug these functions - and see why they are breaking up this is the other problem i talked about - if you would have a normal c++ style you could see the most internal functions (instead of only "connection failed" or something like "urllib3.connection.HTTPSConnection object at 0x032F9910>: Failed to establish a new connection")

I have been "brain"storming with Copilot (something I'd rather like to avoid 😡) and "it" came with this: Testing that script gave me: Connecting to www.google.com:443 Socket connection error: [Errno 0] Error Copilot's answer:

Because the previous exploit patch was also intended for a much higher core version, Namely, 138+.

Yes, I'm sure there might still be some things hanging around. However, I had never gone after any Windows 7 telemetry in my setup. I was looking for an easy way to get rid of whatever I could since I did not want to spend a lot of time hunting each item down from a list. So the 'script removal' tool and Blackbird looked OK to me to start with. I ran Blackbird without removing anything and was amazed at what was found ... so I ran it again letting it remove everything and also ran the script download in case it found anything additional. Hopefully I have a better system now but as you mentioned there are probably some items still there. With Windows 7 no longer getting updates I guess in one way is good since no new telemetry will be installed. Not sure about Windows 10 and 11. Probably Blackbird and other telemetry tools will have to be run again with any downloads from M$. ...

What to do if I someone holds two passports?

To enroll the consumer ESU program, Microsoft account is required and must be an administrator account. Users can use existing ESU license on up to 10 devices. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-10-consumer-extended-security-updates-esu-program-33e17de9-36b3-43bb-874d-6c53d2e4bf42

When one has a dedicated card, the onboard needs to be disabled in BIOS.

On Win 7, R3dfox is now my preferred replacement for M$ Edge. I had been using the latest Edge version for Win 7 (109), with a UAO to Chrome 125, but that's no longer good enough for some sites (e.g., discover.com). I did find that Chase.com doesn't like the R3dfox slice in the user agent - or was it the OS slice, revealing Win 7, that it was objecting to? It kept telling me to "upgrade" my browser even though R3dfox is up to version 139! Well, either way, a straight FF 128 on Win 10 user agent satisfies both Chase and Discover, at least for now. It's ridiculous how bloody finicky some Web sites - particularly financial ones - have become. Security I dig, but way too many folks equate "security" with "only using Chrome, Edge, or Firefox, and a version no older than a few months."

Yep, a bit strange. But as I have already described, my 360Chrome 13.5 Build 1030 Redux initially also reported no secure connection to the website https://chi.uk2.net/ using ProxHTTPSProxy, i.e. no green padlock. Only after I had deleted all certificates in the Certs folder and updated the cacert.pem certificate inside the ProxHTTPSProxy installation, 360Chrome immediately reported a secure connection after a restart and showed the green padlock. However, recognising valid certificates has always been a problem in almost all 360Chrome versions for Windows XP. TBH, I very rarely use 360Chrome only to check sites for browser compatibility. I generally surf with Mypal 68 (is now running great ) and New Moon 28, and I try to open the more modern, very bloated sites with Thorium. If all else fails, I use my Android tablet.

That's good. But in your original screenshot there wasn't a green padlock.

@Dave-H Just for fun, I tried to open the website https://chi.uk2.net/ in 360Chrome 13.5 Build 1030 Redux. I got no green padlock and the hint the connection is not secure when connected in both ways, directly or via ProxHTTPSProxy. I then closed the proxy, deleted all certificates stored in ProxHTTPSProxy's Certs folder and performed an update of the cacert.pem file. I then started the proxy and called up the website https://chi.uk2.net/ again. Now, the connection is reported as secure with a green padlock. Here is a screenshot: I don't know why your credentials are no longer filled in automatically when connected directly but I assume it is certificate related due to the age of 360Chrome. In any case, you should not forget to maintain your ProxHTTPSProxy installation in terms of its certificates, i.e, purging the Certs folder and executing the cacert Updater from time to time.

Just an idea. Have you already patched and removed the limit on TCP connection attempts in the tcpip.sys file in your Windows XP installation? And don't forget to adjust your MTU and RWIN values as Windows XP does not do it automatically! This can be easily done, for example, with the tool SpeedGuide.net TCP Optimizer, currently in the version 4.1.1. The correct MTU value mainly depends on your internet provider and can even be determined with the SG TCP Optimizer tool in the corresponding tab. A suitable RWIN value can also be manually calculated and set in the registry, of course. All values should be then tested to find the optimal ones. In any case, be aware that such fast connection speeds as you are using today didn't exist when Windows XP was developed and still maintained. TBH, I don't know whether Windows XP with its very old network drivers is at all able to handle such high speed you mentioned above. The old Internet tariff I booked years ago has a speed of 25 Mbit/s only, which I can achieve in full on my Windows XP computer, but only with optimal settings mentioned above. However, my old processor wouldn't be able to cope with any more, either. And regarding the QoS Packet Scheduler, I deactivated it from the very first on my standalone Windows XP desktop computer long, long time ago.

Just an idea. Have you already patched and removed the limit on TCP connection attempts in the tcpip.sys file in your Windows XP installation? This can be done, for example, with the tool xp-AntiSpy, or manually following the instructions here: https://www.speedguide.net/articles/windows-xp-sp2-tcpipsys-connection-limit-patch-1497/p-2/ There, you can find a further tool for patching called Event ID 4226 Patcher: http://www.lvllord.de/?lang=en&url=tools Long time ago, I did it with xp-AntiSpy which also creates a backup of the original file.