NotHereToPlayGames

I used to think the same thing. GOT FED UP with maintaining two profiles, keeping track of which bank account won't work in what, which can do Gmail but the other not do Google Voice, which can YouTube at 1080 versus 480, which can MS Teams, et cetera. TIME IS TOO PRECIOUS. I WANT *ONE* BROWSER THAT CAN DO *EVERYTHING*.

Very familiar. That's what we use at work for our lab bench computer images. Our factory floor assembly line computers are also all imaged via Acronis.

As do I! AutoIt is your friend. Me "reinstalling" Windows is like watching a movie. Insert the DVD, press a key to boot from DVD, then everything is completely AUTOMATED. TONNES of mofications... TONNES of special settings... AutoIt moves the mouse around, clicks here, clicks there, NO INTERVENTION once I press that key to boot from DVD. But yeah, it took YEARS of EVOLUTION to PERFECT. And thousands of installs to test, get 10% through to find something needs a dialog set to "stay on top", next install get 15% through to discover that the mouse reference "origin" changed screens, et cetera. Once perfected, it's literally like watching a movie. Sit back, grab a cold beverage, and watch the computer do ALL the work, completely unattended, fully automated.

I do that also. Just not for my "primary" comptuer. When something afflicts it, I want it back up-and-running in 20 minutes. My primary has all updates slipstreamed, I don't install Windows then spend the next four hours running updates. All of my third-party programs have been converted to sfx archives that only need "silent install" (unpacked). Add some .reg files and whoala. Everything is back to "normal" in 20 minutes. But when a friend or neighbor asks me to fix theirs, I could care less if it takes 20 DAYS and I tell them that on Day One.

Nor for me. We view "time" differently. You spent days getting up-and-running. I would have been up-and-running in 20 minutes. Though, to be fair, you weren't "down" either, this was a secondary partition and you have a tablet &/or phone also.

A quick DNS-watch on roytam's New Moon 28 shows ZERO telemetry. Same goes for feodor's MyPal 27 (not a typo, aware that there is a 68). But I honestly do not recall if I had to jump through hoops to get them to ZERO telemetry as those two browser profiles are quite old. At any rate, keep up the good work on r3dfox.

Unsure. It is my experience that Firefox users turn a blind eye and simply "do not care". Yet will shout the loudest that their browser is the best on the planet and "claim" that they have painstakingly tweaked their profile to prevent telemetry (not likely, but "if it helps you sleep better at night"). Again, I say that in full pessimistic disclosure! I was once a die-hard Firefox-only type, "takes one to know one". But I also fully disclose that I have not yet tried user.js I would highly PREFER screencaps revealing before-and-after from other MSFN members that HAVE used this user.js trick. But I won't hold my breath and it is on my curiosity-to-do-list.

There is this, but I have not tested telemetry connections with this installed. https://github.com/yokoffing/Betterfox/blob/main/user.js I admit that I am skeptic but it has been recently on my back-burner very-low-priority to-do-list.

Me neither! And to be fair, the nearly TWO HUNDRED telemetry connections is an UPSTREAM FIREFOX ISSUE. Anybody that uses any "forks" of Firefox should never assume that their fork isn't making the same exact UPSTREAM telemetry connections. I once tried SRWare Iron and it was always touted as privacy-conscious, I saw just as many telemetry connections in it, just to different domains! Granted, I cannot speak for current versions of SRWare Iron. There was once even a linked article here at MSFN for a very good web site that discussed these. Just too lazy to track it down at the moment.

I use that utility! Some other good ones are RegistryChangesView by Nirsoft, ProcMon and RegMon by Sysinternals, and Thinstall (this one is now owned by VMware and is called ThinApp).

I would sincerely hope that this was already tried! Not necessarily "uninstalled", but disabled or in INCOGNITO MODE.

AWESOME !!! One more reason why I do not, never have, and never will install any "anti-virus" or "anti-malware" programs! I've always also preferred REFORMAT and REINSTALL versus relying on "uninstall and hunt for left-behinds". Glad you got to the bottom of it!

Strange indeed. When you right-click and "inspect", do you see any difference in their <a> or <img> content? I do! And they reveal that it really still could be something on YOUR computer! Something on YOUR computer may be blocking anything-everything alt="spacer.png" or data-ratio= as a GENERIC ADVERTISEMENT.

I did give r3dfox a trial-run a week or two ago. I witnessed close to 200 telemetry connections on first launch. Dropped to 100-some on second launch. I do recall installing uBlock (but not Adblock) and seeing no effect on these telemetry connections. That's basically where my trial-run was cancelled and I did a thorough cleaning of my computer because the "portable" version writes to system folders and to the registry. For your Adblock behaving as though not installed, is it possible to see a screencap?

As far as my Thorium and Supermium and 360Chrome and Ungoogled first-launch crashes on XP x64 and only on nVidia GPU computers. I "thought" these crashes were 100% of first-launches. Turns out, it is closer to 65-70% of first-launches. I did try to video-capture a first-launch crash last night, but the failure rate had me not spending the time to start video-capture each and every first-launch. For one, my only remaining XP machines are ABSOLUTE JUNK, SLLOOWWW POS, et cetera! For two, I was in a bit of a "wtf" mood when trying to capture and a first-launch NOT crashing - because I thought they were 100%, they are not. This does remain true - I never get that first-launch crash if I keep the "vulkan" files. Though this recent round of investigation reveals I only need to keep ONE of the two "vulkan" files. At any rate, I'm hereby ending this investigation for the time being. I no longer use 360Chrome and Thorium/Superium is only on my radar for future-use if-and-only-if one-or-both becomes "ungoogled".

I'm kind of taking UCyborg's word on this. I personally have no insight here. At any rate, I'm kind of moving on now. Good discussion though.

WebGL *DOES* work in my releases. I was originally DISABLING it via --disable-webgl I later STOPPED disabling WebGL because the only comments in my threads were "This web site doesn't work". And the solution was ALWAYS to enable WebGL. Which *DOES* and always *HAS* worked in my releases - when not disabled via --disable-webgl

Deleting the dll's ONLY ONLY ONLY breaks the FIRST LAUNCH after a REBOOT/HIBERNATE. I'm DONE! You are correct. It only affects me. There's actually very FEW XP x64 users, most here are all x86. Unless, of course, @UCyborg is willing to verify FIRST LAUNCH after a REBOOT/HIBERNATE (assuming UCyborg is running XP x64 and an nVidia GPU). That is (and has been ALL ALONG) my only only ONLY issue when I delete the vulkan dll's.

Eureka! THAT explains it all. The *two* (and only two) members that shout from rooftops to delete vulkan files also do not enable WebGL. I didn't used to enable WebGL, not even for my uploaded releases here at MSFN. But I do enable WebGL nowadays. Partly because each and every "bug report" for my uploaded releases were dang near ALWAYS tied to the end-user needing WebGL. Partly because the "security risk" associated with WebGL is "much ado about nothing".

My nVidia 635 reports I am Vulkan-capable. One moment... Performing additional tests...

@Karla Sleutel -- The imgur image *DOES* show up for me. It's something on your computer that is blocking it.

I'll run CPU-Z (?) tonight and verify.

I took his reply to mean he was performing this IN XP. Regardless, he is talking about another matter, agreed.

Good point. He posts later down that he KEEPS the vulkan files, that he only deletes D3DCompiler_47.dll.