NotHereToPlayGames
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@Dixel - please read my post more carefully. I reported to Humming Owl that his release ACTIVATES this service regardless of the user DEACTIVATING it. So we have a "service" that you and I *both* HATE that ACTIVATES itself - you can see why I brought that to Humming Owl's attention, right?
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Works for me. I remove it from my personal copy but @Humming Owl included it in his shared contributions so I was asking as to verify if I should continue to NOT include it in my shared contributions. Swiftshader - you're outta here!
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I DO NOT USE IT. If you are not going to contribute in a positive fashion, then "move along, there's nothing to see here". My reason for asking is because I am REMOVING useless crap from the GUI and if that "feature" is BROKEN (even for those that DO want to use it, which again is NOT ME), then I shall remove it from the GUI. But if it DOES do what it is "supposed to do" and OTHERS might be inclined to use it, then I shall keep it in the GUI. It really is not my goal in this thread for us to tell other users what settings/flags/switches to use on their own computer.
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I am reverting my focus on releasing a v13 2206 v3. I am optimistic on Humming Owl's releases but at the same time I have stumbled upon a few points of concern. However, these points of concern are also present in the original Chinese that Humming Owl used as his base. But they were "fixed" in the Russian Repack. We all have our "feelings" toward Chinese Software and towards Russian Software, let's keep that bias out of the equation, it really serves no purpose as this community modifies and improves 360Chrome for a communal level of trust. We should all agree that software development is an "evolutionary" process - we don't have "major", "minor", and "build" version numberings just for the sake of using the NumPad on our keyboard. We have demonstrated that the Russian Repack did break a few things in v11 and v12 - but the "evolutionary" process has fixed those breaks in v13 (I cite Google Voice functionality specifically). But I am seeing evidence that the Russian Repack seemingly fixed a few things that the Chinese missed. The Russian Repack has a global following - with that comes a level of "checks and balances" in the "evolutionary" process of open source software development (just as Humming Owl and I both rely on feedback from other users). To make a long story short ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCP2QQH4uuQ ), I kinda have the most trust in v13 build 2206 and the evolutionary process that got it to where it is (ie, v13 evolved from v12 which evolved from v11, etc).
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@Humming Owl The "Use a prediction service" does not deactivate in Modified v11 nor in Chinese v11. You can uncheck the checkbox and the Changes have taken effect box appears, but when you close and relaunch, the checkbox is checked again. In the Russian v11, this checkbox at least remains deactivated when you close and relaunch. I am unsure if this service actually "works" regardless of checkbox or not.
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<edit: overwrote previous entry - skin-related "convolutions" that kind of need to remain because not all of us use the same theme> @Humming Owl - one item I reverted back to semi-original in Modified v11 is one of the buttons in the Download Manager. The button by default will say "Open" (originally was with a lowercase o and you changed this to "Open when completed" [from memory, can't have it open and type this in my other 360Chrome at the same time]). This particular button, with the original v11, will say "open" when downloading a .7z and if you change that .7z extension to .exe, the button will automatically change from "open" to "run" (both lowercase with original v11). You fixed the lowercase "open" with "Open when completed" (and changed the width of the button) but it will still say lowercase "run" if you are downloading an .exe. It's all a matter of personal preference, I myself prefer "Open" and "Run" and the smaller button since "Open" and "Run" are small text strings. My reasoning being is that I prefer the drop-down context menu and the button to say the same exact thing, not "Open" in the drop-down then "Open when completed" for the button. At any rate, I figure you'd be interested in an fyi for the lowercase "run" when downloading an .exe at the very least.
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@Humming Owl - fyi, I found something that is a flaw in the original Chinese v11 but that the Russians fixed in their Repack v11 (but not 100%). When you open the Download Manager, the dialog box title is "supposed to" come from the below entry in browser_strings.xml - <item name="DOWNLOAD_MGR_TITLE" id="1366510761">Download</item> The label name="title" text="Download" in en_skin -> iframe -> download's download_mgr_dlg.xml seems to NEVER BE USED (it is these types of redundancies that I plan on removing completely "one of these days"). The Download Manager's dialog box title is coming from the below entry in browser_strings.xml - <item name="DOWNLOAD_MGR_THUND_TITLE" id="494006349">Download - Cloud acceleration is powered by Thunder</item> I think this title is supposed to change whether or not you have Thunder enabled or disabled (it doesn't, but I think that was the original intent). In the Russian Repack, the Download Manager's title is coming from DOWNLOAD_MGR_TITLE In the original Chinese v11 and in the Modived v11, the Download Manager's title is coming from DOWNLOAD_MGR_THUND_TITLE
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I should point out that v13 writes to the registry also - but it deletes those entries when the browser is closed so the "temporary" entries don't concern me as much as entries that remain as "permanent" even if "empty".
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@Humming Owl has been able to successfully make modifications that I myself relied on the Russian Repack for those same modifications. Basically, the Russian Repack removed 90% of the telemetry and my rebuild removed the other 10% but then focused on English grammatical errors and general cosmetics and skin-related nuances. But the Russian Repack "broke" a few rendering issues that I was unaware of until testing Humming Owl's releases (Google Voice, for example). It has been discovered that Humming Owl's modifications are "better" than the Russian Repack modifications so I will be releasing a 2206 v3 - but not until after I can reverse-engineer Humming Owl's v13-branch modifications. I am unsure if Humming Owl plans to release a 2206 or if he will be doing 2250 instead. So I need to wait for Humming Owl's v13 before I can then make modifications to that as my new "base".
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I saw registry changes being made in v12 that I didn't see with v11.
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My Browser Builds (Part 3)
NotHereToPlayGames replied to roytam1's topic in Browsers working on Older NT-Family OSes
Don't forget @Humming Owl's realeases -
The best route to "test-and-play" is to use PORTABLE browsers (I've never "installed" a browser since going "tabbed" right around 2003/2004 or so {GreenBrowser shell to tabless-IE6]). Here's a good resource as far as Firefox versions, which it sounds like you are targeting -- https://sourceforge.net/projects/portableapps/files/Mozilla%20Firefox%2C%20Portable%20Ed./
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Another Modified v11 observation - both the Minimize tooltip and the Restore tooltip for the main window title bar icons both say Minimize. The Restore for the address bar (next to back and forward) still has the Cilck typo versus Click. What I found when doing a lot of my translation work was that the Russian Repack was better to translate from than the Chinese Original. I used Google Translate and I often encountered that pasting the exact Chinese one day would give one translation, but the same exact Chinese pasted another day would translate to slightly different wording. But Google Translate was consistent from day to day when translating Russian. I'll post my browser_strings.xml file once completed.
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Another Modified v11 observation - the Download Manager title bar has the Thunder acceleration comment that normally is a "tooltip" (ie, popup box when you hover over somehing). edit - though I guess that might be something that was fixed by the time v13 came around
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I'm opting for a modified version of @Humming Owl's Modified v11 as my next rebuild release. I prefer to totally remove some portions of the GUI for a cleaner look-and-feel (plus, we intentionally break some of those functions anyway). I also have a laptop that has two video outputs but in order to get full 4k on the one output, I have to limit the laptop's built-in display to 1024 x 768. Below is what the Power Save Mode looks like in that 1024 x 768 display (which, ironically, is the only computer/laptop that I even use the Power Save Mode). The original GUI is fine for Chinese sentences because Chinese characters can write longer sentences in less space. But we end up with truncated sentences that don't fit in the allotted space once translated to English (or Russian, as far as that goes). I'll also be using an XP skin by default but do plan on "eventually" having a TOGGLE feature for you "dark" folks (I have not looked into "how" yet, but I'm confident that it can be achieved).
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Extended testing on Modified v11 shows crashes not of the browser but of the Basemark Web 3.0 test - https://web.basemark.com/ This is one of several benchmark tests I use to compare versions (I never rely on "gut feeling" or "placebo effect" and want to see quantitative and repeatable measurements). This is also the only benchmark (that I'm aware of) that will give one result with the "swiftshader" folder and the "libglesv2.dll" file versus another result after deleting these files. I delete this files for my everyday use (and also use a command switch to disable wasm). I've never encountered any website that requires "swifthshader" and "libglesv2.dll" so I'm not sure if we need to keep them or not. Granted, everything higher than official Chromium v49 seems to have that "switfshader" stuff and will give a Basemark score of 210 to 250 or so but the score drops to 60 to 80 or so once they are removed. But my standard practice has become along the lines that if Basemark Web 3.0 crashes, then I delete the files so that whatever crashed Basemark won't crash my normal browsing session. Like I say, I'm not sure if we really need it or not, I suspect it's targeted more for the "gaming" crowd than for the "browsing" crowd.
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<delete, wrong thread, moving to "Modified" thread>
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I still have every version I could get my hands on. v2206 was the LAST version before the developer tools started loading in Chinese (I base this on the Russian Repack because that was my best starting point at the time). Granted, you can go into the Chinese settings of the newer versions and select English - but you have to know where to find it. I'll take a look at the resources.pak file for presence of qhimg and will report back.
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On the v13 build 2206 v3 progress - I'm opting to put this on the back burner for now. @Humming Owl has taken some great strides in this thread - https://msfn.org/board/topic/182876-360-extreme-explorer-modified-version His capabilities on the modification-front no longer relies on the Russian Repack on the telemetry side of things (which wasn't perfect but served as a decent starting point). There are telemetries in the original dark theme (which my builds have always disabled and replaced with an XP theme) and @Humming Owl is digging into that before he can do a v13. I'm kind of in a holding pattern circling the airport and awaiting my final descent. ps - I do think @Humming Owl is leaning towards 2250 instead of 2206 or possibly leaning towards waiting for official v13 to be "final" (ie, the Chinese releases a v14). So my goals are to reverse-engineer his v13 Modification Notes and possibly remain on 2206 - but like I say, kind of just circling the airport for now.
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Excellent news on Google Voice for original versus repack. Since your list of modifications performs the repack modifications and does so even better, then I am finally sold on sticking with modifications to the original versus the repack. You are the first to come along that has even attempted that long list of modifications - we have some "armchair quarterbacks" but you are the first to actually "throw the ball". I see no references to qhimg in any of the dark theme's .xml files. I have seen references that .png files are historically known to embed malicious code, but usually a "launcher" of sorts when the .png is decoded. Unsure if a .png can "connect" to qhimg. I do see that amost all of the .png files in the "dark" theme (an obomination to my eyesight, but to each their own) are dated 8/10/2020 but that a very small number of them are dated 11/11/2020. But since the skins are swappable, maybe it's easiest to just use the dark theme from v12 and run that in v13 ???
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One observation - it could be a v12 versus v13 observation so bear that in mind. One of the typos that was corrected is --> Changed "Foreget password？" entry to "Forgot password?" I'd have to dig through some of my list of changes, but in v13, that "foreget" typo is in the Remembered Passwords section and you click it to FORGET the memorized password. Could just be v13 but that's what comes to mind for that "foreget" typo. It was either that or it was part of the "360 Account" 'feature' that I am in-process of removing from the GUI altogether. Looking forward to your Modified_Notes.txt file for v13 - a ton of stuff was done to v12, v11, and v9.5 that I haven't gotten that far yet (I blame trial-and-error on YouTube tests for XP x86 SP2 that delayed my progress for the actual "trimming down" portion of the project).
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I ran all three versions using the portable loader and one of the three created an empty registry string, unsure which version (but I think it was v12). It was an empty registry string at least while the browser was closed, I may revisit later. My only test site for curiosity was Google Voice. And I was quite pleased to discover that Google Voice does work (99%) in v11 Modified and in v12 Modified. Technically I only dialed up my bank's automated system but that did work in v11 and v12 (but not in v9.5). So I revisited default repack v12 and confirmed that Google Voice can not make an outgoing call on that version - so one of your under-the-hood tweaks did restore Google Voice to v11 and v12 - awesome!
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Regarding "privacy_security.js" - I know that the direct translations from the original array entries are Sun, Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat and I was not able to track down the .js math, but if you close 360Chrome, change your clock, open 360Chome, and keep doing that while changing your clock one hour at a time, I found that ("Mon", "Tue", "Wed", "Thu", "Fri", "Sat", "Sun") matches my clock as far as when the green "today" text lines up properly with the day of the week in the anti-tracker settings page. I don't use it, but I like the day of the week to be proper
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I'm checking, double-checking, and triple-checking and so far I have been able to remove 211 text strings that the GUI never uses. And have verified 131 text strings as still needed (a small handfull that can probably still be removed but keeping because they are words like "Risky" that is supposed to show up in Download Manager for certain download file types, I've just not witnessed it yet). That's just the browser_strings.xml file.
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I'm also seeing certain text strings that are supposed to appear on videos but I've yet to see them "do" anything either. I kinda assume that the Images and the Videos "features" are dependent on &/or only work at very specific (Chinese?) sites. Since I haven't seen them "do" anything, I'm leaning on removing them.