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Mathwiz

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Everything posted by Mathwiz

  1. Mathwiz
    Thanks! I have the legacy version, 1.1.2. I'll test 1.4.0 but I'm pretty sure it'll work since it works on @roytam1's version. Edit: It does work. I would have been surprised if it didn't. The WebExtensions API is inherently compatible with multiprocess mode; the next question was whether Basilisk 52 supported enough of the API, but since it works on the XP build that was all but certain to be true as well. Still, you never know about these things until you try them - especially when using an unsupported feature of the browser
  2. Mathwiz
    Admittedly a kludge, but it does seem to work! I can now add Classic Add-Ons Archive back to my default profile, although Markdown Viewer must remain consigned to a separate Single-process mode profile. I'm still surprised multiprocess mode works in the first place. On my XP VM I could have just gone back to single-process mode and it would have been fine; but on Win 7 Basilisk kept freezing anytime another tab auto-updated in the "background" (until I discovered multiprocess mode works). So this kludge will still help me. Thank goodness for 7-zip too; it makes it easy to update files (like bootstrap.js) within .xpi files (like ca-archive@Off.JustOff.xpi).
  3. Mathwiz
    Those values used to be there - I've seen them - but installing the latest IE8 update may have removed them. If they aren't there (they're gone from mine now too) don't worry about it. They were intended so that IE's registry keys could be configured the same for all OSes, but TLS 1.1 / 1.2 would still show up only on Win 7 and up, so they aren't needed now that TLS 1.1 / 1.2 work on XP.
  4. Mathwiz
    Yep - it's KB4461614, a "security" update to MSO.dll. Same stupid mistake as the one that started this thread: it "secures" Office 2010 (including even free products like PowerPoint Viewer) by making sure it doesn't run at all on XP. 8-) Edit: Removed KB4461614 and PowerPoint Viewer runs OK again. Guess I'll have to hide it....
  5. Mathwiz
    It looked to me like they've made a lot of progress - they have Office 2010 installing now - but there's also a ton of work left. Obviously Windows is a moving target. They have it mimicking XP pretty well, but that's just as XP (embedded at least) is reaching EoS and more vendors are dropping XP support. They really need to be mimicking Win 7 at this point, with an eye toward Win 8.1.... And sometimes they waste resources on side projects, like getting it to boot from btrfs disks ... nice (and they caught and fixed some bugs in the WinBtrfs driver in the bargain), but is that really as important as being able to run current software? If you can't do that, might as well stick with XP
  6. Mathwiz
    In my case at least, extensions & favorites are stored in my profile folder. To find out where that is, open your old browser and type about:profiles. It will list all your profiles (most folks only have one) along with the paths to each. You can do the same thing in your new browser too. Once you know where both profiles are, you can copy everything from your old browser's profile folder to your new one. (Close both browsers first.) Even after copying everything to your new browser, you may still need to reinstall some add-ons. See post 1 in this thread for instructions on doing that. And of course, if you're changing browser platforms (e.g., from Firefox to NM), some add-ons may not be compatible with your new browser and you'll have to look for alternatives. Note: you don't need to go through all this when updating a browser to a newer version. Just back up the programs folder (e.g., C:\Program Files\basilisk or wherever you put yours) in case you need to revert, then copy everything from the update into the programs folder. No need to touch profiles in this case.
  7. Mathwiz
    Well, spoke too soon. One of my add-ons has turned out to be incompatible with multiprocess mode: the Classic Add-Ons Archive mentioned by @VistaLover not long ago. Have to disable multiprocess mode and restart in order to use that add-on. Edit: And, just like that, I found another: Markdown Viewer, an add-on for reading .md files, doesn't work in multiprocess mode either; files just open as a blank tab. This one was more annoying since I was trying to set up Basilisk as the default program to open .md files. Ended up having to create a separate profile, which I named "Single-process mode", disable multiprocess mode in that profile, and edit the "open" command in the registry thus: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Basilisk\basilisk.exe" -no-remote -P "Single-process mode" -url "%1" (Took quite a bit of trial-and-error to figure that one out, too.)
  8. Mathwiz
    It does install in (official) Basilisk, so I'm guessing probably Web Extension format. I'll try it in @roytam1's Serpent tomorrow; it'll probably work there as well. No documentation though; no idea how to set it up or use it.
  9. Mathwiz
    Or this (ignore the references to Skype, and you can skip step 4 & 5 since you already installed KB4019276): BTW I recommend leaving TLS 1.0 enabled in step 11 for older Web sites that still need it; but it's your choice.
  10. Mathwiz
    Well, try as I might, I can't get past 11.0.02. Every version newer than that one just locks up solid as soon as the Reader window opens. I'm sure it has something to do with the "Internet bar" they added in 11.0.03, because that's the one obvious change between .02 and .03. But I can't figure it out.
  11. Mathwiz
    Just a quick explanation of SNI (Server Name Indication): It was added to (I think) TLS 1.2 to allow one server to host multiple secure web sites. The browser sends the server name in the TLS "ClientHello" message that initiates a secure connection, so the server knows which site's certificate to send back. I'm not actually sure if the recent TLS 1.1/1.2 updates for XP and IE8 included SNI support, but even if they didn't, it's supported by FF 52 ESR and its forks, including Pale Moon and Basilisk, all of which have XP-compatible versions. A recent criticism of SNI is that the server name is sent in plain text, which lets nosey ISPs see which web sites you're visiting. (With the demise of Net Neutrality in the US, your ISP could even block a specific web site or slow it down to uselessness.) So ESNI (Encrypted SNI) has been proposed to prevent this information leakage. ESNI is still very new, however, and it remains to be seen how widely it will eventually be adopted. At present, it's only available in nightly builds of the FireFox browser, which doesn't run on XP; and the Pale Moon team (so far) has no interest in it, so it won't be finding its way into @roytam1's XP-compatible versions of these browsers unless MC changes his mind. So, bottom line: at present XP does support TLS versions up through 1.3 and SNI (with third-party browsers) but does not support ESNI.
  12. Mathwiz
    At this point it's premature to do anything more than preliminary research anyhow. The ESNI spec isn't even finalized yet. My hope is, if Mozilla adopts the changes, Google will follow; if that happens it'll be a lot tougher for MC to resist. But that's probably years down the road; by that time we'll be fighting to keep even Win 7 alive.
  13. Mathwiz
    Yet another Office 2010 update: I don't even have Excel 2010 (only have PowerPoint Viewer) but I was offered the update anyway.
  14. Mathwiz
    To enable TLS 1.2 in XP (for IE8, Chrome, Skype, and anything else that uses XP's native TLS support) follow the instructions here: For a tool to list all the updates you have, try NirSoft WinUpdatesList.
  15. Mathwiz
    Strictly speaking, these are missing from IE8, not XP itself. If you use a modern Web browser (e.g., FF 52 ESR or one of its XP-compatible forks) instead of IE8, you'll have those features. ESNI, however, is unsupported (and will likely remain so, as discussed on the other thread).
  16. Mathwiz
    Thank you for that excellent step-by-step guide. One note: there are still a few web servers around that don't yet support TLS 1.2. So in the last step (11), one may opt to leave TLS 1.0 checked (particularly if they use Chrome 49 or Advanced Chrome web browsers, which also use XP's Internet settings). That way their connection will use TLS 1.2 if it's available but fall back to TLS 1.0 if not. (No real reason to enable TLS 1.1 though; I've never seen a site that supports TLS 1.1 but not 1.2.) I wouldn't say TLS 1.0 is insecure by itself, but it does support several insecure cipher suites, so you may want to disable all cipher suites except AES (and perhaps 3DES; it's security was weakened by the "Sweet 32" attack, but as with TLS 1.2, there are still a few web sites that don't yet support AES, so you may need to leave it enabled for those). I've attached a .reg file to disable the old RC2 and RC4 cipher and MD5 hash algorithms: Disable insecure algorithms.reg
  17. Mathwiz
    Personally, I'd like to see it, albeit as an "opt-in" option where I could select my own DNS servers rather than Mozilla or whoever selecting them for me. The idea is to try to get ESNI and DoH/DoT as common as HTTPS has become. But it's pretty clear from the two threads linked above that MC isn't interested. My only hope is that @roytam1 can merge the relevant commits directly from Mozilla's code.
  18. Mathwiz
    Correct. There's a specific POSReady update to support AES, which robotbirds.co.uk supports as well. That should solve your cipher mismatch issue. There are other, more recent POSReady updates to support TLS 1.2, now required by several web sites. Can't remember the KB numbers but should be searchable at the POSReady thread. Note: some POSReady updates require an SSE2 processor. Not sure about these specific ones, but I don't think they do.
  19. Mathwiz
    Of course, it could just be my aging ears too....
  20. Mathwiz
    Well, it won't become less secure ... the risk, as always, is that someone will discover and exploit a vulnerability that was always there. So I'd keep an eye on security fixes for the nearest supported OS (probably Server 2008). Any vulnerabilities discovered in that are probably in XP also. Usually M$ gives an assessment of what it would take for an attacker to successfully exploit a new vulnerability. A lot of times it turns out to require physical access to the PC; most of us needn't worry about those (unless we're using XP machines at work!) If an over-the-network vulnerability is discovered, we could probably just block the affected port with Windows Firewall, unless it's something we really need.
  21. Mathwiz
    Looks like it will be a while before browsers supporting encrypted SNI come to the XP platform: If it's not even in the release builds of FF yet, I doubt we'll see it ported to Basilisk/Pale Moon (and thence to @roytam1's Serpent/New Moon) anytime soon.
  22. Mathwiz
    I can't even hear the processor fan on my desktop PC. I can see it spinning if I take the cover off, but it's very quiet. (OTOH, it's just a dual-core AMD processor, so it doesn't take much to get it to 100%.... If you have an I7, it might take a bit more fan than mine ) I can hear the PS fan, but its speed is constant.... As for why browsing uses so much CPU, take a look at the source code to a Facebook or YouTube web page some day It's not just a static page anymore either - they keep pumping in more Javascript as you scroll....
  23. Mathwiz
    Sounds like you need a new fan You should be able to run at 100% CPU without hearing anything; a bearing may be fixing to go out. At some point the Pale Moon team will probably strip out the multiprocess code entirely, or else I'll stumble across an incompatible add-in that I just can't live without, and I'll be back to square one; but meanwhile, I'll enjoy it while I can.
  24. Mathwiz
    New version doesn't work for me: MKVMerge seems to be looking for "XPVCRT.dll," whatever that is. Should I rename MSVCRT.dll? Edit: That seemed to fix it. One of my pet peeves: a product drops support for users of an older product like Win XP, but only because they didn't think it looked "cool" enough.
  25. Mathwiz
    My memory needs aren't as demanding as yours, but for me the big advantage is, much smoother browsing in one tab when another tab is busy auto-refreshing. Apparently dealing with the keyboard/mouse and dealing with HTTP(S) are done in the two separate processes.
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