Mathwiz

He has a precompiled version. Everything is built into the .exe. No need to install Python or OpenSSL. But if you'd prefer to try the updates, they are: KB3055973 (adds AES to the base OS); KB4019276 (download / info; adds TLS 1.2 to the base OS); and the latest IE8 cumulative update (KB4462949; updates IE8 to use the support added by 1 & 2). All are POSReady '09 updates. I think there's a way to install them without putting the POSReady entry in the registry, but it's probably more complicated than just going with POSReady. Also, those updates may not be enough. There is still no support for Elliptic Curve Cryptography, so any sites that use it won't work even with all the POSReady updates. ProxHTTPSProxy replaces native support completely, so it supports ECC and can be updated to support any other new security requirements, such as TLS 1.3. But I agree with @siria. There's no "simple" update for IE8. If you want simple, just use Firefox 52.9 ESR and be done with it.

PM @heinoganda and ask for his latest version of ProxHTTPSProxy. I believe he also has instructions on setting it up. I just tried https://mobile.twitter.com in an IE tab, and with ProxHTTPSProxy it came up fine, images and all. Edit: BTW if you enable the POSReady '09 updates, there are updates to IE8 that let it support some of what you need (specifically TLS 1.2 and the AES cipher) without ProxHTTPSProxy. But ProxHTTPSProxy supports all that whether or not you enable the POSReady '09 updates.

Free download at SourceForge: https://sourceforge.net/projects/naraeon-ssd/

Probably need to benchmark decoding. If ffmpeg 4 is faster at that, then it'd be worth patching it for XP; but otherwise just leave it at the current version.

Thanks! I saw those preferences but wasn't sure what they did, so I didn't mention them. It may be better to just ignore the whole mess and put your preferred user-agent string in general.useragent.override. That way you can spoof the Windows version as well as the FF version of your choice. Some sites are starting to balk at NT versions less than 6.1 (Win 7).

Calling @FranceBB; your Avast expertise is needed

There are a number of preferences that affect the user agent in the about:config page. general.useragent.compatMode.firefox is a Boolean preference, which tells PM/NM and Basilisk/Serpent to spoof Firefox. It defaults to "false" in PM/NM and "true" in Basilisk/Serpent. You could set that to "false," and these browsers would then identify themselves more accurately, but few Web sites recognize PM specifically, so this may just confuse them even more. general.useragent.compatMode.version is a string preference that defaults to 52.9 and tells PM/NM (and Basilisk/Serpent) which Firefox version to spoof. So the simplest answer to your question is to change this to the FF version you want NM to spoof, say, 60.2. general.useragent.override is a string preference you can create to send whatever string you assign as the user agent. Using this you can pretend to be an iPhone using Safari or any other platform/browser combo you want. You'd need to know the user agent string for the combo you wanted to be, of course. general.useragent.site_specific_overrides is a Boolean preference that defaults to "true." You could set this to false to temporarily turn this feature off to test/debug specific Web sites, but the default of "true" allows NM to recognize additional preferences of the form.... general.useragent.override.facebook.com = "<custom user agent string to be sent to facebook.com>" The idea behind those last two is that you don't have to send every Web site the same user agent; helpful if spoofing FF 60.2 (or whatever) causes some websites to send content NM doesn't handle properly.

Confirmed, sort of; at least with the latest build of New Moon (28.2.0.a1 dated 2018-09-28). I had to add all the required preferences manually; after that, my gmp-adobe-eme\17 folder didn't get deleted, but Primetime still wouldn't show up in about:addons or about:plugins. Looks like the PM team did more to disable EME than just removing those preferences. Don't know if Primetime will work with MyPal but I sort of doubt it at this point. Primetime does work with Basilisk, and I suspect it will also work with @roytam1's FF 45 build for pre-SSE2 machines. And of course it works with FF 52.9.

A lot of folks still are, and it continues to work well. But some of us are concerned about the lack of further development and are exploring alternatives based on the same platform (FF 52), like MyPal, New Moon, and Basilisk (Serpent). The good news is Primetime works with those browsers too edit: Basilisk, so at least we have one modern browser build that still works with Primetime.

Getting back to the original question (improving XP performance), the following link should be of interest: http://www.prime-expert.com/articles/a06/performance-tuning-of-windows-xp-on-ssd-based-netbooks.php It was written for the specific case of improving XP performance on SSDs, but since its focus is on reducing disk writes, its suggestions should improve performance even with plain-old HDDs too.

Same procedure should work for New Moon 28. (A few add-ons may not work the same due to the different UI.)

Here's how I did it: First, I started Basilisk and went to about:support. Next to "Profile folder," I clicked the button labeled "Open folder." Then I closed Basilisk. Next, I went to FF 52.9 and did the same thing. Then I copied everything from my FF profile folder into my Basilisk profile folder. That took care of most of it, but upon reopening Basilisk and going to the about:addons page, some of my add-ons were listed as "Incompatible with Basilisk." To fix those, I had to open the "extensions" subfolder in my FF profile folder and drag the .xpi files for the "incompatible" add-ons from the extensions folder (some were in subfolders) and drop them on the about:addons page. This reinstalled and fixed the "incompatible" add-ons.

I'm not so sure - Opera uses schannel.dll to communicate to the proxy server, but the proxy doesn't use schannel.dll to communicate to the outside world. (That's sort of the point.) So unless Opera is bypassing the proxy for some site, the only way you should be getting certificate validation errors from schannel.dll is if the proxy server's own CA.crt certificate isn't installed or trusted.

Let us all know how it works for you! And if you like to watch long Youtube videos, install Primetime CDM, disable ffvpx and let us know if Primetime happens to fix the 23 min. bug. Edit: Just discovered Primetime doesn't work with NM 28, so @obstinateXP will have to stick with native support (ffvpx) for modern videos.

Did you install KB4134651? If so was it from MU or WU, or was it Heinoganda's patched version? I believe 5.1.2600.7248 is the version from KB4018556-v2 (last known good version). 5.1.2600.7494 is probably the one from KB4134651-v2, but it could be either the bad version from Microsoft, or heinoganda's modded copy of the above good version.

Sorry it turned out to be more involved than I first thought, but at least it's all working now. Computers do seem to have a way of making simple things complicated....

Life is too short to watch long YouTube videos ... but I guess that means someone still needs to try this and let us know if it makes a difference!

It was @dencorso who reported better audio with native support disabled and installing/using the Adobe Primetime CDM instead. I wonder if he's observed whether this also fixes the 23min bug?

I would give New Moon 28 a try. It has the "classic" FF theme and it's easy enough to download RoyTam's .7z file, copy the contents into C:\Program Files\palemoon, and launch palemoon.exe. It will create a profile folder; to find it, type about:support as the URL. Do the same for FF28. Once you know their profile folder names, you'll probably want to exit both browsers, then copy the contents of your FF28 folder to the NM28 profile folder. That way you get to keep all that stuff you mentioned: ... although it wouldn't hurt to double-check things after restarting. Or try MyPal. It should work pretty much the same as NM28. Basilisk looks & feels much more like "modern" FF, so you may not like it as much.

Ouch - a subsequent update must need to be uninstalled first, then reinstalled once you manage to uninstall both KB4134651s! But I don't know which one.... The easiest thing might be to leave them installed, but install @heinoganda's custom version over them to replace OLEAUT32.DLL with the original version.

Could also be KB4134651, which causes problems similar to KB4074852. IIRC both patches replace oleaut32.dll with a crippled version. KB4134651 first came out in May then was updated in July. If you have it try removing it and see if it fixes your problem. If so you can hide it so it doesn't reinstall, or @heinogandacan provide you a customized version of the patch by PM. IIRC it updates the same files as the MS version except oleaut32.dll.

In Serpent (Basilisk): click the "hamburger" (Open menu icon); click "Customize" at the bottom, and drag the "Add-Ons" icon next to the home icon where you want it. Not sure if it can be done in NM, which uses a different UI; I'll leave that part of the question to others.

To clarify, FF does support the general.useragent.override pref. But Basilisk, PM, and Roytam's builds of those also support prefs of the format general.useragent.override.www.amazon.com ... so you don't need an add-on to send a different user agent string to www.amazon.com than to everyone else. That's what VistaLover was referring to as SSUAOs.

I've run into similar problems, and it's a PITA. It sounds like your emails (or at least some of them) were in two places: in the OE database on your XP machine, and also on the email server. If all your imported emails were duplicated, then I suppose you could just start over, not import them the second time, and just let them all download from the server. That's a particularly good approach if you're using IMAP, because it will only download the message headers; it won't download the body of an email unless you click on one to view it. Otherwise, the best thing would probably be to set OE not to retain emails on the server (Tools / Accounts / Properties / Advanced, then uncheck "Leave a copy of messages on server"). Then do a send/receive; be patient because it should send commands to the email server to delete everything, which will probably take a while. Then you can start over with Thunderbird, import everything, and they won't be on the server to download and duplicate everything. The drawback to this approach, of course, is that you won't have a copy of your emails on the server any more.

Slightly OT, but if you own Windows 7 Pro, you can download & install "Windows XP Mode" and use it to run those old programs in Windows XP on a virtual machine. Anyhow, on your old PC you'll probably need the POSReady hack to get your https: support up to speed. That should help with downloads.