NotHereToPlayGames

Herein is where your issue lies. You're thinking the problem is with FDM where it is technically with Sphinx. I tried with three other software firewalls. FDM worked with each and every one of them, "by default". It's only with Sphinx that FDM doesn't work "by default". But it can be made to work with Sphinx if you DELETE two of the firewall rules.

Screencaps of the profile that I use:

I technically don't do either. It's not "installed" but it's not truly "portable" either because I save my profile in the registry. Step #1) My XP installations simply get the .exe and the .chm "copy-pasted" / "extracted" into a folder. Step #2) I import the profile I use via an archived .reg file (herein renamed as MSFN). Step #3) I run the .exe, load the profile, and Apply Settings. Reboot (not sure if required, just good practice after these types of changes). This is the profile that I use:

Let me guess, *without even having to look it up and just knowing California politics*, some form of new "gun control"?

Well, I hope I didn't "react" too quickly. But I *deleted* my XP x86 SP2 VM (I technically have no use for it and don't have the time to slim it to my liking). So this is in my normal self-slimmed XP x86 SP3 VM. And when I searched for your version of Sphinx, I found a different version and ran with it. Good news - it did exactly what you cited, FDM could NOT download when Sphinx was installed !!! For me, it was the "default" SYSTEM and SVCHOST rules that Sphinx set. DELETE the SYSTEM and SVCHOST rules and FDM now works! I didn't screencap "before", and I'm going from memory that the rules were called "system" and "svchost". But at any rate, DELETE THOSE RULES and FDM works. Granted, I may have only needed to delete ONE and not BOTH. And Sphinx (in my opinion) SUCKS compared to the Comodo Firewall (older version) that I used to use.

Good point. But... As a grandparent that knows to let his own kids make the rules of their own homes, my 4yr old grandchild spends more time on a phone in one DAY than I spend on one in an entire YEAR. That's no exaggeration. My kids have to make their own rules, not exactly an easy lesson to learn for most grandparents. Today's 4yr olds will accidentally CLOSE the app that mommy loaded for them. And that 4yr old KNOWS how to launch that app after they accidentally closed it! My point is, it doesn't matter if that phone and its monthly fee is somehow associated with a "must by <this age>", there are 4yr olds using that phone.

Ah, okay. I guess it all kind of looks like a "joke" to me. Our local media has a constant "propaganda barrage" lately of 'over 50 privacy and safety features that are on by default' for TEEN TIKTOK accounts. No offense, but how many parents are falling for it??? We used to work closely with youth group kids and "troubled teens". Today's TEEN is smart enough to NOT register their TikTok, Instagram, you-name-it, AS A TEEN, they know to FAKE their age.

Can you "cliff note" summarize it for us? I cannot read "legaleaze" and gave up two or three sentences in, I cannot "follow" what they are TRYING to say. I'm reading AGE VERIFICATIONS and I'm not seeing how that ties in with "making Win9x great again".

I only tested we3fan's 3.9.4. I have archived downloads of FDM but it was just faster to download the 3.9.4 linked during the discussion.

That sounds more inline with expectations. I couldn't find an English version to truly explore. My Spanish is limited to "La chica es mui bonita". Comes in handy when Spanish-speaking are talking about people within earshot and they think we cannot understand them, so you point to the "ring leaders" wife/girlfriend and proclaim loud enough for the whole group to hear, "La chica es mui bonita". They will talk in ENGLISH for the remainder of the night! TRUE STORY!

<OT> I call "BS" This is UE7 *WITHOUT* any of the *ADDED* software (two cannot be disabled, I did enable XPize Lite). There's no way you have 200 MB on UE6 when UE7 *without* any of the *added* software takes 2.85 GB. For reference, my own tweaked XP (teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime) only takes 504 MB.

At the risk of sounding like what comedians here in the US refer to as "Captain Obvious", your FDM will work if you *disable/UNINSTALL* Sphinx. To coin another phrase, "Whoala! Problem Solved!"

I don't know what you are using as a firewall, but I do not use software firewalls (I block at the hardware level instead).

It gets installed on all of my XP systems/VMs before they are ever allowed internet access. I do not, under ANY CIRCUMSTANCE, allow access to "Windows Updates". Never have! Never will! And xp-AntiSpy is the "easiest" route to achieve that on new installs.

Technically, I do not advocate for any of them! Which is also why I never heard of UE 6. I advocate for the tools BEHIND these trimmed versions and for the end-user to use those tools! Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime. I have zero "like" for X-Lite. Zero trust mainly because one of the X-Lite variations PUNCHED ME IN THE FACE with an expired license for ADDED software that shouldn't be there in the first place. As if somehow the only REASON for the EXISTENCE of X-Lite was to SOLICIT for folks to PURCHASE a renewed license! And then it evolved into providing HACKED LICENSES instead, or so it appeared. And I'll shout that from every rooftop I can find.

I've tried several. All worthless and resulted in crashes. But it's been a couple years since I last tried any of them. And I have no need for them nowadays. 10 is way better than XP. Once tweaked, of course.

Same here! Win10 works great on 20yr old laptops with only 2 GB RAM. And I am not referring to those "x-lite" variations! DIY is the only way!

If I'm hunting for the right thing, I'm only finding it in Spanish

Well... You didn't ask about Win UE 6 (never heard of it). Or even SP3. You asked about SP2. I did a sh-tLo-d of testing when SP3 came out. While it was "minor", I found it to be superiour in every way to SP2. Some of us, whether we admit it or not, cling to our own ideologies whether technically true or not. Are you sure that SP3 broke your system? Because from what you just kind of revealed, Win UE 6 kind of broke your system, did it not? That aside... I'm now off to hunt down "Win UE 6" for the curiosity of it...

It's something on your setup. That version of FDM is working just fine for me in XP x86 SP2 (original SP2, *NO* updates installed, Windows Updates DISABLED).

Thanks. You beat me to the punch. Was in-process of installing SP2 to verify. I've used FDM on XP x64, but didn't have a frame of reference for XP x86 SP2.

"Aye, there's the rub." This redirect simply does not happen to folks using default user agents. So doesn't that make all of this "their fault"? I guess I was under the impression, misguided as it were, that this redirect was happening with "default Iron", meaning DEFAULT USER AGENT, for one user. And with "default Supermium", meaning DEFAULT USER AGENT, for another user. There's really only 3 or 4 people that are affected. And a dozen (?) that tried to get redirected but never were able to. At any rate, not even the folks that posted the question still read their own thread, so we're all kind of nothing but a hamster running inside a spinnig wheel. I kind of think the thread should have a "conclusion" posted (maybe even locked?). I've "given up", I'm aware that user agents can cause the redirect, but I really didn't think that's what we were trying to track down. At any rate, having followed the thread from the beginning, it would be nice to have a "real conclusion".

When testing transfer speeds, are these two drives being speed-tested on one machine, or both? ie, is thumb drive #1 only being tested on computer #A and thrumb drive #2 only being tested on computer #B? Or is thumb drive #1 being tested on computer #A and then the same thrumb drive #1 being tested on computer #B? And, perhaps more importantly, has thumb drive #1 been used for approximately the same number of read/writes as thumb drive #2? I can always tell when one of my thumb drives is nearing "EOL" because it takes LONGER to write the same amount of data that used to go fairly quickly. Thumb drives do SLOW DOWN as they get older. https://leafybark.com/the-slowdown-saga-do-flash-drives-get-slower-over-time/ https://darwinsdata.com/do-usb-drives-wear-out/

To the point where I now have three Discord accounts (all on "throwaway" email accounts) so that I can invite myself to my own Discord server, lol. Probably not the best "test". But I really really REALLY want to REPRODUCE this redirect! As a sense of "accomplishment".

I have spent over THIRTY HOURS trying to reproduce this redirect. I simply can not reproduce it. Either it is "fixed" and it hasn't been reported in this thread, or there is such an odd set of pre-requisites that it's only affecting 3 or 4 people out of hundreds of thousands. I have installed Discord. No real clue how to use it or what it's really for, but I have installed it because the afflicted keeps citing Discord Preview. I simply can not reproduce this redirect. No way, no how. Impossible. 30hrs in - and counting...