Mathwiz

Surprised they didn't call it the iPhone XI

Wouldn't surprise me a bit. I remember when DECT came to the USA, the American version was numbered DECT 6.0 . Was there a DECT 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, or 5.0? Of course not - it's just that the then-prevalent cordless telephone technology used the 5.8 GHz band, and they wanted a version number greater than 5.8 so folks wouldn't think it was "worse" than the old 5.8 GHz phones! And of course, there's Micro$oft jumping from Windows 8 to 8.1 to 10, skipping 9 because some marketing genius thought the version right before "10" wouldn't sell (and Apple following suit with the iPhone going from 8 to "X") - and I rather suspect both are afraid to release a version 11 of their various products, so we'll be stuck with Windows 10 and iPhone X[insert random letters here to imply additional "coolness"] for quite a while. But it would've been easier to just number FF versions by the year (as with Windows 95, 98, & 2000). The next release would just be Firefox 2020. Let Google beat that!

Slightly OT, since XP/Vista users have no hope of running FF Quantum, but still seems worth mentioning here: And I have to wonder: is this really necessary? I mean, security updates I dig, but 13 new FF versions a year? That's 13 chances to mess around with the UI, break web sites, etc. Of course, compared to the NM 28/Serpent 52 release cycle we're used to here (nearly every week), 13 updates/year seems downright relaxed; so I guess it just depends on your perspective.

Just keep in mind that the UOC Patch is actually JavaScript - but it's pretty simple JavaScript, so maybe (just maybe) it'll run without outputting SSE2 instructions....

Good work, but keep in mind UXP's JavaScript compiler will still output SSE2 code, so JavaScript will often foil your SSE-only version of Serpent.

The 2nd post was not only spam; it was also deceptive: the link claiming to go to 123[dot]hp[dot]com actually goes to [...]! @dencorso, could you please remove the offending post (or at least "neuter" the deceptive link)? Thanks!

Thanks; I'll make the appropriate updates to myuseragents.js (posted on page 8) and re-upload it. I'll also change the OS version on the github*.com overrides from 6.0 (Vista) to 6.1 (Win 7). I doubt Github even looks at the OS version, but just in case they decide to start someday.... In fact I should probably bump the OS version on most of these to 6.3 (Win 8.1) soon; due to Win 7's impending EoS it's likely that some sites will start complaining about 6.1 next year. (BTW, changing the OS version in the UA won't fool every Web site; it's possible to get the true OS version with JavaScript, unless you run the browser itself with a utility that spoofs the OS. Hopefully, though, most sites that look at the OS version don't go any deeper than the UA.)

Yeah, it was a Win 7 post, but I suspect @glnz posted it here because the folks who came up with the POSReady hack for XP are here. There's some activity in the Win 7 forum but it's not nearly as active as this one. I don't even check it much, even though I use Win 7! AFAIK there isn't a "Vista Embedded;" Vista users are manually installing Server 2008 patches. But I don't think anyone has yet discovered a way to fool WU into thinking a Win 7 system is Win 7 Embedded, so 7 users may be stuck doing the same thing.

@mixit might be able to fix it; the thing is, it's now clear that Instagram will eventually change something else and break it again. Instagram users need something more permanent. Besides Serpent 52 and New Moon 28 (and probably Chrome), Mozilla's recently-finalized SeaMonkey 2.49.5 is known to work with Instagram on XP, so evidently, Mozilla eventually figured it out; but as you may have read on the @roytam1 browser thread, SeaMonkey requires either Adobe Primetime or some minor "surgery" to play .mp4 videos on XP. (Roytam has already performed the needed surgery on Serpent and New Moon.)

Confirmed. Fails on both FF 52.9.1 and Serpent 55. Looks just like before. Works in Serpent 52 (just like before). Instagram probably changed their styling in some way that broke @mixit's fix.

The situation with Serpent 55 and 52 resembles the situation with SeaMonkey and BNav. Of each pair, the former browsers are generally better, but are no longer actively maintained by their original creators. With Serpent 55 (and a few other browsers in the same situation, such as FF 45 ESR), @roytam1 does what he can, importing fixes from ArcticFox and other sources to keep them as up-to-date as practical. But there are no weekly updates coming from "upstream;" that's why updates to these browsers occur irregularly. I too happen to prefer Serpent 55; for me the main difference is slightly better support of WebExtension-style add-ons, particularly the Multi-Account Containers add-on. I don't mind getting less frequent updates in exchange.

Yes, BNav is a very lightweight browser, even lighter than NM 28; but it's based on the same UXP platform so it will continue to benefit from MCP's and @roytam1's attention. At this very moment, I like SM better, but version 2.49 is at EOL; according to the SeaMonkey Project web site, there will be no 2.49.6. (Unless of course @roytam1 picks it up ). And newer versions won't run on XP. Well, don't feel too bad; @mixit didn't mention that pref in the Primetime thread either. (Probably because, in FF and Serpent, it's there and set to true by default.) BTW; I've been meaning to ask about Widevine. It seems to take considerable work to support a new Widevine version every time Google puts one out. I've heard that MCP is working on making Basilisk work with 1.4.10 but it's been a few months and I've heard nothing. Any news? (Of course, 1.4.9 and up won't run on XP anyway, but I also have Win 7....)

Yes. Second instruction doesn't apply to "stock" SM, but if you replace SM's av .dll's with @roytam1's modded ones, it probably does. So to be safe, I set both media.wmf.enabled and media.ffvpx.enabled to false for testing. With those settings, it appears SM works the same on Win 7 as on XP. Despite appearances, Primetime does work, but for whatever reason, it just won't appear in the list of plug-ins!

Well, I did it the old-fashioned way: closed the browser and copied the "network.proxy" settings from my Serpent prefs.js to my BNav prefs.js using Wordpad Not proud of it, but it worked; I was able to get to Instagram. FoxyProxy is fine, of course; just a bit more elaborate than what I needed. It lets you route different URLs to different proxies based on pattern matching. The built-in support requires a .pac file to do that. RT has one other add-on in the boc-uxp/ folder: good ol' uBO. Latest legacy version.

Specifically, the DevEd Theme GUI breakages are due to: [Basilisk] Remove Dev Edition theme. Like you, I also happen to like the Dev Edition Theme over the default Australis one The man has no imagination. At least the F12 key still works.... And the DevEd Theme isn't limited to developers! I'd think lots of folks are like us and prefer it even for day-to-day use. Edit: I guess it does fit with his philosophy though: make the browser itself as minimal as possible and move everything else to add-ons. Except, by that logic MCP should have put the removed theme at addons.basilisk-browser.org. Needless to say, they didn't. Would you please? It's just a theme, for crying out loud....

Glad you got SM working. The same thing happened to me: I installed Primetime, but it won't show up in the plug-ins list, but it seems to work anyway. BNav, of course doesn't need Primetime since it has @roytam1's modded .dll's. Which is good, because AFAICS, Primetime will not install in BNav. If you install Primetime and set media.ffvpx.enabled to "false," Instagram videos will still play in Serpent and SM via Primetime, but won't play in BNav even if you install Primetime and create all the same prefs as in SM. BTW, I find BNav's Edit / Preferences dialogs to be woefully inadequate compared to SM. There's no way to set proxy preferences; all the "advanced" dialogs are missing! I had to copy my proxy prefs from SM to BNav manually just to test Instagram in BNav here at work.

True; this was just for testing. I wanted to see if I could get it to install, but I couldn't. I've since tried on XP (where either it or @roytam1's modded .DLLs are actually needed) but I'm running into the same problem. Edit: OK, just for kicks, I just tried your Instagram video without copying over modded .DLLs and it ... worked? Yet it's not showing the Primetime plug-in on about:addons/Plug-ins.... Now I'm starting to question my sanity. Edit 2: OK, it's definitely using Primetime to play the video. If I rename the "17" folder, it doesn't play; if I rename it back to "17" (and reinstall the media.gmp-eme-adobe.version pref and set it to 17) it works again! So the problem isn't that Primetime won't run; apparently it works just fine! The problem is simply that it won't show up in about:addons!

So, I installed SM 2.49.5 on my Win 7 system at home for testing, and try as I might, I could not get the Adobe Primetime CDM to install! I have no idea what's wrong. All the prefs are there; the "17" subdirectory is there, but it just won't show up in about:addons/Plug-ins. At one point it even deleted some of the prefs and the "17" subdirectory! I restored it again and flagged the files read-only, and it hasn't deleted them again, but it still won't show up. Primetime works fine in Serpent on the same system. I know it should work with SM too since I see it in the screen shots above. So, I fell back to method 2, which works fine. The Instagram test video plays just fine. But this has me baffled. I'll try again on my XP VM tomorrow and see if my luck is any better there.

With SM, if you jump through the necessary hoops to enable the "Developer Edition" theme (same instructions as for FF or Serpent) you also get a "SeaMonkey Modern" theme, which has a lighter color for the active tab. Edit: Correction - SeaMonkey Modern is available without enabling the Developer Edition theme. (BTW, I just discovered that only the 32-bit edition of SM 2.49.5 contains the Developer Edition theme. Of course the 64-bit edition requires Win 7 anyway, but I found that surprising.) Unfortunately, for BNav, that trick requires the UserChrome.js add-on, which won't install (well, it could probably be fixed the same way you fixed the themes, but if you're going to that much trouble, you might as well just modify and install a theme!)

I think XP is still OK for day-to-day use, as long as you have a good AV and an up-to-date Web browser, such as one of @roytam1's builds. If you use browser plug-ins like Flash and/or Java, keep them up-to-date also: For AV recommendations you should check out this thread: ... especially the discussion toward the end of the thread, since XP MSE no longer receives usable updates. If you have Office 2010 installed on XP, make sure it's up to date too, or at least as up-to-date as possible without breaking XP compatibility: So, still plenty of updating to do, even without updates to the OS. One last thing: there was a recent kerfuffle over vulnerabilities in CTF. But you may not need CTF; if not, you can disable it:

I did my usual update of Adobe Flash today, and since I now have the Edge beta I decided to update the PPAPI Flash version. It worked, but I discovered that Edge really doesn't like Flash very much. First, it defaults to disabled. If you visit a Flash page (like, say, the Check Adobe Flash Player Version), nothing works. But there's a tiny icon in the address bar; if you click it, it tells you "Flash was blocked on this page" and gives you the option to "Manage." If you click Manage you can turn Flash on. Then, you get a nag telling you "Flash will no longer be supported 15 months from now" or words to that effect, with a button to "turn off" Flash again. You can dismiss the nag, (Edit:) but it will come back every time you restart Edge! Then, if you try again, it still doesn't work! But if you click on a Flash control, at least now it gives you the option to "Allow". (Edit:) And once again, you must redo this every time you restart Edge! Pages you've told Edge to "allow" Flash on are only remembered until you close it. So does it finally work then? No, of course not! You have to explicitly click on each Flash control again (in this example, the one telling you which Flash version you have) in order to run that control. Google/M$ really don't want you running Flash! What a ridiculous number of hoops to jump through! In Firefox, I generally leave Flash disabled, but I have an add-on that lets me enable it with one click if I run across a site that needs it. I think Firefox and its forks (at least, the older ones that still run it) have it about right. I don't want it on by default (as is the case with IE), but if I do want it, I don't expect to have to answer a ton of "are you sure?", "are you really sure?", and "are you ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY sure?" dialogs first!

"Langpack" vs "langpacks:" computers are so literal-minded! Interesting that win32 builds of SM run on XP/Vista, while win64 builds don't. But the source code is available, so 64-bit SM for XP/Vista could be a nice addition to @roytam1's "stock." It would probably just be a one-time build, since 2.49.5 is stable, but still worthwhile if there's demand. BTW, any chance of a 2.49.6? Seems unlikely, but stranger things have happened. Edit: Answering my own question, (from https://www.seamonkey-project.org). Pretty much what I expected; oh, well....

Thanks, but I didn't read your post closely. I just used the links at https://www.seamonkey-project.org/releases/#langpacks, where I reasonably (I thought) expected them to be; but they're all broken there! Your links will take care of @AndreasB. if he decides to use Seamonkey vs. New Moon, but I'm still giving up on BNav. Looks like the folder structure of its omni.ja file is just too volatile, and language packs would have to be redone every time it gets changed. Back when this issue first came up, @roytam1 hinted that similar "surgery" might let FF language packs work on Serpent, but said he hadn't really looked into it. If there's demand for Serpent language packs, the folder structure of Serpent's omni.ja is stable, so that could be a crowd-sourced project many of us could contribute to.

Wow - adding a SM theme to BNav is pretty easy, but adding a language pack requires a LOT more "surgery" than I remembered I'm going to review those instructions and see if there's a way to automate that mess with a batch file or something.... Edit: Downloaded a couple of SM language packs to experiment with, and ... really? 7-Zip won't even open the .xpi files as archives! OK, I figured it out, but it's not good news: all I downloaded were 404 Not Found pages! Apparently all the SM language packs are gone! Luckily SM is available in many languages including German, but I guess you just have to download copies of the browser in each desired language now. Edit 2: There are language packs for version 2.49.4. I'm thinking the best option for Seamonkey 2.49.5 is just to install the browser in the language(s) you need; for BNav, SM 2.49.4 language packs will have to do. (Perhaps the version difference is one reason so much surgery is required.) Edit 3: It gets worse; the folder structure of BNav's omni.ja doesn't match the instructions! I'm guessing it was changed sometime between January and now. I'm giving up. BTW, 7-Zip works great on themes - I just double-click the .xpi (I have Windows set to open .xpi's with 7-Zip), click install.rdf, press F4 (set to run WordPad), paste the needed code in the right place, close WordPad, tell it to save, tell 7-Zip to update, close 7-Zip, drag the the .xpi to about:addons in BNav, and follow the prompts. Not trivial but not that tough either.

And considering (from my own experience) it's nearly impossible to get a nontrivial Windows batch script to work right the first time! I really wish Microsoft had just bought 4NT from JP Software and made that their batch language; it was also DOS compatible but much saner. But I guess M$'s NIH syndrome was acting up.... That said, I've written a new version of my Browser Downloader batch file - but this time, it's in a .7z archive along with some other stuff: myuseragents.js: my list of SSUAOs, mostly derived from PM 28, with a few updates @looking4awayout's UOC browser optimization files A couple of alternative background images and word-marks for the Serpent browsers by @dencorso (unfortunately there's a really nice one I couldn't include, but these aren't bad) And Info-zip's freeware zip.exe, needed to install the aforementioned background images and word-marks I consider this a "test bed" for new features; it's not intended to replace @i430VX's installer. It downloads to different folders than his, doesn't create desktop or Start menu shortcuts, and probably has some bugs! One known bug is that it won't preserve KM profiles when updating. I'll work on that; meanwhile you'll have to copy KM profiles back from the old folder manually. But if you don't mind creating your own shortcuts the first time you download one of @roytam1's browsers with it, it will take some of the drudgery out of your weekly updates: It will back up a previous download before downloading the current version It will offer to install myuseragents.js (except for mailnews, of course) It will offer to install the proper UOC file for FF 45, NM 27, or KM For Serpent 52 or 55, it will offer to replace the background for the Help / About dialog with your preferred alternative Also for Serpent 52/55, it will offer to replace the word-mark for the Help / About dialog as well. Edit: I had the .7z moved to @i430VX's server. You can download it here: http://i430vx.net/files/mathwiz/Browser Installer.7z To install, simply extract the .7z into a folder, (if desired) create a shortcut to the "Download Latest Browser.bat" file, review the .png files (they're both derived from the one already included in Serpent 52), choose the one you prefer (or create your own), and rename it about-background.png. BTW, in addition to the two custom word-marks in the .7z, @dencorso just gave me a couple more that are gold instead of light green. I'm attaching them to this post. You can add them to the same folder you extract the .7z to. All four word-marks now included in the download! To use, just launch, and follow the prompts. Edit 2: Time for some bug fixes. When I was adding the code to replace Serpent's Help / About backgrounds & word-marks, I introduced a bug with installing myuseragents.js (it got installed to the wrong directory) and the UOC Patch (same, unless you tried to install myuseragents.js - in which case myuseragents.js would not install correctly but the UOC Patch would). Also, none of those would even be offered by merely clicking the batch file - you had to run it from the command line while in the directory containing those .js files. All that's been corrected in the attached version of the batch file. I'll also let @i430VX know to update the .7z with this version. Edit 3: One more fix, to switch to @roytam1's newest domain (rths.ml). Edit 4: Two more changes: one to download @roytam1's new Arctic Fox builds for XP; the other to deal with a subtle name change in @looking4awayout's UOC Patch files (he added an underscore). This new batch file will work with either the old or new file names. Download Latest Browser.bat