NoNameNeeded

Thx a lot. That did the trick.

Now youtube is in russian. Anyway to change this without having to log in to my google account? The chinese version comes with youtube in english

Now that I've blocked these sites in the hosts file... 0.0.0.0 browser.360.cn 0.0.0.0 cloud.browser.360.cn 0.0.0.0 dd.browser.360.cn 0.0.0.0 qurl.f.360.cn 0.0.0.0 chrome.360.cn 0.0.0.0 ext.chrome.360.cn 0.0.0.0 u.qurl.f.360.cn 0.0.0.0 puv.tt.browser.360.cn 0.0.0.0 p.ssl.qhimg.com 0.0.0.0 p0.ssl.qhimg.com 0.0.0.0 p1.ssl.qhimg.com 0.0.0.0 p2.ssl.qhimg.com 0.0.0.0 p3.ssl.qhimg.com 0.0.0.0 p4.ssl.qhimg.com 0.0.0.0 p5.ssl.qhimg.com 0.0.0.0 p.ssl.qhmsg.com 0.0.0.0 p0.ssl.qhmsg.com 0.0.0.0 p1.ssl.qhmsg.com 0.0.0.0 p2.ssl.qhmsg.com 0.0.0.0 p3.ssl.qhmsg.com 0.0.0.0 p4.ssl.qhmsg.com 0.0.0.0 p5.ssl.qhmsg.com it tries to connect to 36.99.170.110 Something it didn't do before... Even though it no longer tries to connect to 36.110.236.41 But nevertheless, there is much less going on as with the original version of the browser so it really is true: The russians DID remove quite a bit.

Update: Now that's not very clever: The russian version comes with an installer that doesn't seem to work on Windows XP. So you have a recent browser for XP but you can't install or at least unpack it... But I used Windows 7 to unpack it and NOW I can confirm that the Russians DID remove quite a bit of the telemetry stuff. However it still connects to chinese IPs, as soon as you open the settings page (36.110.236.41 China Telecommunications Corporation) I don't know if this is because of a setting that tries to "phone home" or if it always tries to connect to this IP as soon as you open the settings page. I assume it is something in the options.zip file that makes it connect to this chinese IP but I don't really want to check every single file in there for chinese IPs or URLs....

I was referring to the original chinese version since I don't speak russian and a lot of people seem to think that the russians didn't remove the telemetry stuff anyway so I saw no point in installing the russian version. Now however I tried to install the russian version from here but I can't unpack or install it (Runtime error: Access violation).... https://lrepacks.net/repaki-programm-dlya-interneta/182-360-extreme-explorer-amp-portable.html

It has already been mentioned but I highly recommend VSuite Ramdisk free edition. I've used this as a "fixed" RAM disk, meaning that every time Windows shuts down, the contents of the RAM disk are saved to the hard disk and every time Windows boots the RAM disk is created and all the contents are written back to the virtual (RAM) disk. I installed things like Firefox (AND its profile) on this RAM disk and other things that took long to start (because of things that have to be read from the real hard disk) and it really speeds up loading times. The disadvantage is that it takes longer to boot or to shut down Windows.

I would say so, yes. Even though I'm not sure why "use hardware acceleration if available" would make the browser connect to chinese IPs I unchecked it and did all the other things advised. But I'm not really surprised that it didn't work because anyone could do that and the manufacturers of the browser don't actually want the people to break these connections. Modifying the chrome.dll file maybe isn't something that anyone would do, but it's still fairly easy and therefore too easy.

Ok, but still: Even if I modify the appstore.js it still tries to connect to dozens of chinese IPs. By removing the 360.cn links you just can't access 360s own webpages which is fine by me but doesn't really solve the problem.

I don't know about Level 3 Communications but I did find that it connects to Level 3 Parent which I've also blocked when I still tried to use the firewall to block the IPs. I blocked the range of 8.224.0.0 to 8.255.255.255 which might be way too much but I didn't care...

I use version 13.0.2220.0 It was the most recent version when I downloaded it a few weeks ago. Now it's 13.0.2250.0 but I don't think I'll update to this version anytime soon. Can't be much of a difference.

You could be right about that. But it's pretty much impossible to find all IPs this browser might want to connect to at some point in time. Nevertheless it's a good start to block all chinese IPs and you can be pretty sure that at least the chinese government will not learn what shoes you buy on Amazon...;)

Yes, I've seen your list but as I said, I think the least tedious way is to use something like Peer block which will block all chinese IPs immediately.

I've seen this post, yes. And I've also modified the chrome.dll the way you suggested it. I also think that there has to be a reason why this ip is in the chrome.dll file, the browser will certainly try to connect to this IP-address so it's probably not a bad idea to delete it but that's only one of many IP addresses it connects to. I'm not sure if I've seen your IP list but I've seen some IPs in this thread that I blocked with a firewall. In addition to that I tracked down quite a few additional IP ranges that I've also blocked but the browser still connects to many other IPs so I've come to the conclusion that it's just way too tedious trying to find every IP range the browser might connect to at some point so now I use Peer block with a block list of all (?) chinese IPs and it works just fine. I think that's the least tedious way to prevent the browser from connecting to China.

I absolutely cannot confirm this. I did what you suggested and it still connects to as many chinese IP addresses as it did before I modified the file. None of the IPs can be found in the chrome.dll (at least the ones I searched for, to be precise) so it's no big surprise it still connects to all these IPs. I guess it does help to block some IPs by doing what you suggested but on the whole it doesn't change anything about the browser's habit to phone home...

I think I've found something useful to prevent the browser from connecting to chinese IPs. It's called Peerblock, doesn't have the best reputation amonst p2p enthusiasts, but for reasons I don't really care about because it does what it's supposed to: It blocks all chinese IPs. This is the list for chinese ips: http://list.iblocklist.com/?list=cn&fileformat=p2p&archiveformat=gz You need to add it to the blocked lists. https://www.peerblock.com/

If you think it's unsafe, you might be right. But then again this also applies to the (usage of the) browser itself.

Did you dowload it as a portable version or is it a portable loader you've created yourself? I downloaded the official version and installed it with the chinese installer. (but mine is portable too, since the user profile and everything it needs is in one folder anyway)

That's strange because after installing runtime 14 I noticed that 360 browser used almost as much RAM as MiniBrowser does. As soon as I uninstalled it, the RAM usage dropped down to its usual amount (about 300 MB with one google tab open) 360Browser doesn't have any api files in its folders but it's trying to find them both in its folders and the typical windows system folders, that's what filemon revealed, but it doesn't find too many, even if you have runtime 10 installed like I do.

You have x64 runtimes on your 32Bit XP machine?

Maybe I should have put it more clearly: Additional api files (version 14) lead to an extreme increase of RAM usage in 360browser, yes. The runtime package of version 10 was already installed. So version 10 files did no harm to the browser's RAM usage. Even uninstalling this package didn't seem to bother 360browser. The english UI of 360browser could of course be better, but I don't intend to install a russian language pack and russian modifications (as many recommend). I also found your thread (if I remember correctly) and thx to your thread I found out what this completely chinese option is about (tracking), but other than that I'm fine with the chinenglish interface. The telemetry stuff is something I'm not too fond of either, that's why I installed an additional firewall but of course one can never find out all the different chinese IPs the browser might connect to but I think I've found at least the ones the browsers connects to when it is launched. As far as Mypal is concerned, maybe you should try version 29. It's also compatible with Windows XP and in terms of performance and RAM usage it works nicely, even better than the last Firefox version 52.0.9 ESR for Windows XP (the Australis interface of Firefox really slowed the browser down, that has nothing to do with the OS)

Ok, I installed the latest runtime I could find and suddenly the RAM usage of 360browser was almost as high as with MiniBrowser. So in this case, installing the latest runtime is not recommendable. (it can be unistalled quickly, though)

Interesting. The ones that come with minibrowser are versions like 10.0.19041.1 or 10.0.10240.16384

What you say about the RAM usage is true. Interestingly, Mini Browser uses only a few hundred MBs when run on Windows 7. I think it has something to do with all these api-ms files you find in the browser's directory, because I ran filemon while I opened 360browser and found out that it looks for all these api-ms files that are missing from 360Browser but are present in MiniBrowsers directory. So I copied all these api-ms files over to the 360Brower's directory and when I opened it, it used as much RAM as MiniBrowser does, which proves to me that it's the api-ms files which need a lot of RAM. I'm not a programmer but I assume that these api-ms files are kind of replacement files for stuff that newer versions of Windows have, but older ones don't. But for some reason the guys from 360Browser were able to make it work on XP, without these api-ms files, even though the browser is looking for them.

Just in case anyone's interested: I've now installed Kerio Personal Firewall 2.15 and added (and removed) some rules and configured it to use my rules only while permitting everything else. The Windows XP firewall has an exception for the Kerio firewall engine but other than that, there is nothing I had to change so the "normal" firewall work is still done by the built-in firewall while Kerio takes care of the chinese IPs the browser tries to connect to. Just in case anyone wants it, I'll upload the configuration file for Kerio (I've blocked pretty wide IP ranges, you might want to configure the settings yourself) Kerio Settings just 360Chrome.conf

This seems to be a demo version but it's too crappy for me anyway. I don't intend to accept and allow every single move Windows makes for hours or days... (yes, I know this can be automated but I don't want to spend days to configure the firewall. It's a computer that my mother will use and I can't help her to fix every problem the comodo crapware might cause) If the comodo guys couldn't come up with a useful solution so be it, I can't use a browser that tries to connect to the chinese government every few seconds. I can't say what should be done to the chinese government here but anyway... It's a shame that the only up-to-date browsers for XP are of chinese brands but there isn't much one can do about it. P.S: Well, I was able to get Kerio Personal Firewall to do the job.