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Everything posted by UCyborg
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My Browser Builds (Part 5)
UCyborg replied to roytam1's topic in Browsers working on Older NT-Family OSes
Am I the only one that feels there aren't really any "good", "normal" browsers left? -
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My Browser Builds (Part 5)
UCyborg replied to roytam1's topic in Browsers working on Older NT-Family OSes
It can speed up painting a bit and smooths out animations, also scrolling, most apparent when you auto-scroll. It also has an effect on font appearance (maybe there are combinations of obscure about:config settings where it doesn't, but haven't really dug into it). Videos are good example where CPU usage can be significantly reduced. Difference between Task Manager looks like this in my case between HW accel on and off on a 1080p video on YouTube (Pale Moon). Also on my PC there's a night and day difference on Street View on Google Maps, at least on Chromium, it's still laggy s*** on UXP browsers. Maybe my dream PC fares better with that. -
It's a broad term. https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/pc-gaming/50-years-of-pc-vs-console-gaming-revenue-visualized-pc-maintains-lead-over-consoles-vr-mobile-and-handheld-market-data-included The first comment.
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Windows often breaks on me eventually in some way. Had this s*** since XP days, went through different usage patterns, eg. ran an antivirus way back, then didn't run an antivirus (they rarely found anything and just tried removing stuff they didn't like, nothing malicious), there were eras when I installed all updates, then eras when I didn't install any updates. For a long time now, I almost always install only programs I intend to keep. The laptop at work, well this one is almost holding up, except TPM broke in few years and there's an endless spam in Windows' event log about TPM being in error state. Can't they report it ONCE a day instead of multiple times per second? Can't say if it's just Windows having obscure bugs or flaky hardware. Sometimes I wonder if one is better off with PlayStation for games these days.
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My Browser Builds (Part 5)
UCyborg replied to roytam1's topic in Browsers working on Older NT-Family OSes
That's the impression I got on this forum, but your description doesn't really make it clear what your problem is, so I'm not sure if anyone will be able to help you. And browser engines have similarity to game engines, graphics APIs are called all the time on those, otherwise nothing would end up on the screen. -
Hey, check out the warning on ExplorerPatcher's releases page. This is insanity, on the part of MS and their allies I mean.
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My Browser Builds (Part 5)
UCyborg replied to roytam1's topic in Browsers working on Older NT-Family OSes
Bruh, Pale Moon has layout.css.animation.enabled in about:config. Yeah, security / privacy extensions for these browsers are just a joke at this point. Unless you're talking about whatever might be out there that requires you to be the programmer to use. Some of us are just taking a leap of faith at this point. xD Though the browser on my phone has no extensions neither, can run user scripts, has an ad blocker which I'm not sure if it does anything more, but being behind AdGuard's DNS catches some annoyances. Still, modern uBO is better, at least in the sense it can catch embedded baddies. -
My Browser Builds (Part 5)
UCyborg replied to roytam1's topic in Browsers working on Older NT-Family OSes
So performance issues on UXP are popping over and over again. I checked eBay and it doesn't seem to be related to JavaScript. Those 100% would be 4,166666666666667% on a high-end gaming rig with 24-core CPU. I like Linux's way of reporting CPU usage better. -
My Browser Builds (Part 5)
UCyborg replied to roytam1's topic in Browsers working on Older NT-Family OSes
Interlink lost mails again. Maybe the problem was that I updated it...since I usually don't have that kind of problems with UXP stuff, I didn't note the version, it was from the time Tobin decided to rage quit, but there were subsequent updates. Maybe Google changed something? Seems doubtful, though. I've set it to sync only the mails from last 30 days now instead of everything today, I don't really need all of them locally, will see if it happens again. When it happened the first time, I also moved the profile to more spacious disk. I could go to Epyrus or roytam1's MailNews, but since I haven't a clue what the issue is, whether it's an actual regression and if it was fixed or not, I don't know if it's worth the bother. Or maybe the issue has always been present and it only happens after you have certain amount of mails, over 20 GB in my case. -
My Browser Builds (Part 5)
UCyborg replied to roytam1's topic in Browsers working on Older NT-Family OSes
Yeah, that makes sense. Or different spectrum / area of interest. I'm probably on the wrong forum. Honestly, I have no idea where I fit. It seems to patrol Chromium threads more often. https://www.live2tech.com/turn-off-hardware-acceleration-firefox/ -
My Browser Builds (Part 5)
UCyborg replied to roytam1's topic in Browsers working on Older NT-Family OSes
That's natural. Any code that doesn't "sleep" will run at 100%, even int i = 0; while (1) { i++; } Probably just to show that you can. GOG does package DOS games with usual native version of DOSBox. Browser is just one option, there are others. And yeah, most people upgrade every once in a while, so overhead most often isn't bothersome. You'd think computer enthusiasts would as well, though I'm not sure where this part of MSFN belongs. -
My Browser Builds (Part 5)
UCyborg replied to roytam1's topic in Browsers working on Older NT-Family OSes
I just don't remember having that kind of issues with web in the decade up-to year 2010. But I never used a browser that was considered alternative either. The only browsers I used were Internet Explorer and then Firefox. Back then I just lived with ads, don't remember when I discovered AdBlock Plus, must have been the first extension I used for blocking ads. Not even Solitaire? Here's a bigger collection of operating systems running on V86: https://copy.sh/v86/ At least Pinball on Win95 is playable here, not silky smooth though. Emulators are a bit extreme, even natively, there's a rule you need much stronger CPU than the one you're emulating, ports of older games are more manageable, though not necessarily on UXP. QuakeJS is smooth on my Phenom II, at least under Chromium. I posted the link to Browser Doom few months back, but the site has disappeared, this one was a bit easier on UXP browsers, but that's Doom. https://old.reddit.com/r/itrunsdoom/ There are also extra financial costs supporting Widevine I think. No, but could they even do that, if they wanted? Would Mozilla really abandon the system for powerful browser altering extensions if it was manageable? Still, some of those APIs must have survived, we actually have bootstrapped, non webext versions of Tab Mix Plus and DownThemAll! Additionally, if even ad blockers alone aren't as demanded by web users, demand for bells and whistles on the web browser alone will be even lower. It makes sense to prioritize running web content well over additional bells and whistles. -
WidevineCDM on Windows 7, 8.0 and 8.1 in 2025 and later.
UCyborg replied to mjd79's topic in Web Browsers
Group policies are rather easy when you have domain joined computers since you only change it in one place and it magically propagates everywhere else. But it does have specific requirements to setup, also including Windows Server on machine that will serve as domain controller. BTW, for future reference, Google hosts Widevine on specific URL: https://dl.google.com/widevine-cdm/versions.txt (list of available versions) https://dl.google.com/widevine-cdm/${version}-${platform}-${architecture}.zip Replace ${version} with one of the versions from the versions file, ${platform} is win for Windows, $(architecture) is x64, x86 or arm64. -
My Browser Builds (Part 5)
UCyborg replied to roytam1's topic in Browsers working on Older NT-Family OSes
That page loads without JavaScript. Another reminder UXP doesn't struggle with JavaScript alone. Nice thing about UXP is NPAPI, so can re-use your favorite native PDF reader in a browser tab, PDF.js is just silly. Though it's true you can port various native C++ programs to web. I'd like to bring up d3wasm again, not only showing what you can do, but also how performance on web lags behind native, even on Chromium. But it was Mozilla that popularized the concept of being able to do anything on the web! Google just beat them at their own game and no one has resources or interest to do anything interesting with Chromium, that's why you only have re-skins with no substantial changes under the hood. And Google doesn't want you to be in control. Guess that's what you can afford when you grow too big. MCP crew is just riding on the high horse of being ethically and morally better than Google/Mozilla/Microsoft while no one takes them seriously, sure a lot of that probably stems from struggling of the platform to handle the bloat on the web, but I suspect some of it is also general closed-mindedness. And from perspective developers, developing for UXP can be easily seen as extra work without much payoff. Isn't this slowly changing with this decade? OK, if you insist on your older computer and you were cheap when you bought it, sure, but today a Raspberry Pi 5 (assuming version with 8 GB of RAM) is pretty competent for the web unless you really go overboard with web "apps". But in the 90s, your PC was obsolete in a matter of months! I don't know what's your "top-of-the-line" today and even if our perceptions differ, I'm sure anything along those lines is a big overkill if you just want to run a web browser. Edit: Assuming differing perceptions because I'm sure neither of us would go for the most expensive ones! I do have approximate specs in mind that are tempting, but I wouldn't go for a new computer because of web browsers, the current one easily handles those, though I wouldn't say the same for the previous computer from 2002 or so. -
WidevineCDM on Windows 7, 8.0 and 8.1 in 2025 and later.
UCyborg replied to mjd79's topic in Web Browsers
You mean --disable-component-update ? Odd that this turns off Widevine, the equivalent group policy does not, just the updating part. Widevine version from October 2023 doesn't work. -
You thought this flies in UXP based browser, it's like a rocket in Chromium!
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My Browser Builds (Part 5)
UCyborg replied to roytam1's topic in Browsers working on Older NT-Family OSes
I meant to say there are no browser settings that will make the browser crunch through JavaScript half-decently. Apparently I can buy a new computer and emulate PlayStation 3 at decent speed while UXP browsers will still be slow and laggy. Also, disabling JavaScript is useless if the site is client-rendered... -
My Browser Builds (Part 5)
UCyborg replied to roytam1's topic in Browsers working on Older NT-Family OSes
Throwing fast CPU at UXP just prevents it from being totally unbearable. Pale Moon is atrocious on my POS Lenovo (dual core 1,35 GHz APU, 2 GB RAM, graphics taking 256 MB of that), even auto-scrolling on freshly launched instance is choppy. Kinda prefer Edge there, still haven't updated it past 94 though. I miss the old pre-Chromium Edge. Kinda funny, that laptop would be the only conventional computer I have that satisfies the AVX requirement of official build, I doubt it would help with anything, even if I switched to 64-bit OS to be able to use it. Should probably get more RAM either way before it'll obtainable only at the junkyards. What settings? There are no such settings, if they existed, they would be default long time ago. Performance complaints have existed for several years now. Or tell us the settings to load/run some of the below examples well: https://www.dr.dk/ https://developer.android.com/reference/android/Manifest.permission https://www.mimovrste.com/ -
I used to have fixed 2 GB page file on size restricted XP partition, it was enough for simple things. Used to have fixed page file on 10 (I think 4 GB, how much RAM I used to have year ago) as well until Firefox started causing havoc (DWM crashes) and didn't play any game exceeding or just on the brink of minimal system requirements. Filling RAM is easy, Rust compiler when building Firefox easily goes over 12 GB, 16 GB or preferably more physical memory is recommended for building Chromium backed by at least as much page file. There is a difference between having physical memory backed by page file and not having it backed by page file. I am not willing to compromise that safety anymore, few GB is nothing these days, storage is cheap, my nerves however are more delicate. It's easier to get away with less swap on Linux, though when I built long out-of-support LineageOS 14.1 on it, still filled up 100% of 2 GB swap partition and most of 6 GB of physical RAM that I have.
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All disabling page file or being smart about its size ever did for me was cause crashes and instabilities. System-managed option is the only one I find acceptable.
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My Browser Builds (Part 5)
UCyborg replied to roytam1's topic in Browsers working on Older NT-Family OSes
Performance of Chromium forks with rich interactive content totally sucks on XP last time I checked. -
My Browser Builds (Part 5)
UCyborg replied to roytam1's topic in Browsers working on Older NT-Family OSes
I suspect it wouldn't help since when it happened, most disk space occupied by mails was reclaimed. I suppose I'd get local copies of mails back faster in the best case scenario if such recovery method worked. -
Proxomitron is not used that much. I'm a simple user so it's not really for me. Looking at the filters I experimented with, nothing really gets used on the daily basis, especially since it was mostly interesting to block Chromium from auto-updating extensions, but I avoid Chromium whenever possible. And since my Win10 already runs over 100 processes, one Proxomitron.exe doesn't bother me.
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My Browser Builds (Part 5)
UCyborg replied to roytam1's topic in Browsers working on Older NT-Family OSes
IDK, people keep referring to using older hardware/software as retrocomputing. Dunno how much in common Tobin's last Interlink still has with current UXP mail clients, but it went nuts yesterday morning and lost all mails. All folders disappeared, errors boxes showed up regarding setup filters dealing with non-existing folders. Nothing was really lost since the account in question was Gmail (IMAP). It slowly redownloaded everything. Just odd...nothing in the console either.