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The UOC and QUOC Patch - Optimize Firefox (and derivatives) for old hardware!


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UPDATE!

I have disabled the apz.use_paint_duration option, as keeping it set to False seems to make scrolling faster and smoother. This on all the versions of the UOC Patch.

On the 45 ESR version, on the other hand, I also have reduced the tile size to the minimum possible, 1x1. This has produced another speed-up, at least on my machine.

I have not touched the parameters mentioned by @Mathwiz as it seems that disabling them negatively affect performance, especially disabling privacy.resistFingerprinting.

Please update to the newest version of the UOC Patch!

EDIT: updated again. This time on all the versions, setting canvas.poisondata set to True, seems to make the browsing experience snappier.

Edited by looking4awayout
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On 11/13/2019 at 4:33 AM, i430VX said:

If/When @looking4awayout's build process slows down a bit, I can happily host it on my site. I can do it now but it wont be easy keeping up with his new builds every five minutes. :P

IMHO, the best thing for both @looking4awayout and the community consuming his efforts (UOC Patches & Enforcers) would be for him to change to git (or other Version Control System) and ultimately host his nice project on GitHub | GitLab and similar; then, automation would be the simplest of things... Just my 2 (euro)cents, of course... ;)

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I'm sorry but I do not plan to migrate the UOC Patch to Github/Gitlab. I never understood how those sites work and I do not have the time to figure out how to use them as well as not knowing if I could manage them through the RDD.

I am sticking to Mediafire because I do not want to rely on a more modern computer just to upload a revised build. Sorry. 

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8 hours ago, Mathwiz said:

Edit: It turns out that privacy.resistFingerprinting implicitly does lots of things "behind the scenes". Some of these changes (snipped) could cause Web sites to malfunction or otherwise affect usability.

I think I've found the exact reason for your recent Adobe Flash grief:

privacy.resistFingerprinting in Firefox versions 50.0+ hides the contents of the navigator.plugins query, as per Bugzilla bug #1281963 ; that piece of JS code is used by sites to query various NPAPI plugins installed in the browser; when the official Adobe Flash Plugin test page uses that code but receives no results, it assumes the plugin is not installed/its installation is corrupted, hence the test fails to display plugin's version...

It's all clear to me, now... :yes:

Edited by VistaLover
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1 hour ago, looking4awayout said:

I am sticking to Mediafire because I do not want to rely on a more modern computer just to upload a revised build. Sorry. 

Is the RDD really your "Daily Driver"? If so, hats off to you. I need, bare minimum, at least a Netburst based CPU to get anything done in an efficient manner. Pre SSE2 processors are just something to fiddle with as a hobby for me. The lack of SSE2 on Athlon XP's and Pentium 3's really hampers them, software wise.

Edited by sparty411
cuz
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Yes, it is. So far I never had issues because of the lack of SSE2. It's not that vital to me. 

I don't like the Pentium 4, even though I have a working Willamette system at work. I'd rather use an Athlon 64 if there's a motherboard for it that supports dual floppy drives, and if I'd really need SSE2. So far, I don't.

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7 hours ago, looking4awayout said:

Yes, it is. So far I never had issues because of the lack of SSE2. It's not that vital to me. 

I don't like the Pentium 4, even though I have a working Willamette system at work. I'd rather use an Athlon 64 if there's a motherboard for it that supports dual floppy drives, and if I'd really need SSE2. So far, I don't.

Good for you keeping that old hardware alive!

I imagine there is some kind of adapter available that does 34 pin floppy to USB, or something like that.

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UPDATE!

I have reduced the content process count back to 4 on all the versions of the UOC Patch. Keeping it to 8 did not seem to bring any additional improvement in performance.

Please update!

I will keep experimenting with different values, maybe I can find something that can increase performance even further. We'll see.

Edited by looking4awayout
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Just a handling suggestion again ;-)
After reading again the install-instructions on page1, those really look a bit complicated if someone doesn't already know by himself where prefs are stored. Especially if his browser is portable or is not installed in the usual locations. As we've seen, normal users can be completely lost then, start blind guessing and land in completely wrong folders, not even aware that program and profile folders are completely different things.
I keep thinking some screenshots of the file explorer would be easier...

And perhaps include install instructions inside the zips, as a UOC_readme.txt? That wouldn't require to visit the forum (which may not always be possible or easy for everyone, or just too lazy) and search through long, long text to find the crucial paths.

Additionally the paths could be included at the start of the js-files too...
Or the readme could just say "Installation instructions also found in file.....js (right-click file and edit to read as txt) Am not quite sure what the system does if users just "open" js-files...

Just as idea, in UOC_Patch_38.js something like...

// UOC_Patch_38.js for Firefox 38 ESR based browsers
// Developed by Looking4awayout - Version vN2I - 2019-11-16
// Forum: https://msfn.org/board/topic/178306-uoc-patch/
//
//======= INSTALLATION:
// Copy THIS file to your PROGRAM folder, where your browser creates DEFAULT settings:
// FIREFOX: C:\Program Files\Mozilla\Firefox (contains FIREFOX.EXE)
// \defaults\pref\UOC_Patch_38.js
// PALEMOON: C:\Program Files\Moonchild... \palemoon (contains PALEMOON.EXE)
// \defaults\pref\UOC_Patch_38.js
// K-MELEON: C:\Program Files\K-Meleon\(KM-Goanna?) (contains K-MELEON.EXE)
// \browser\defaults\preferences\UOC_Patch_38.js
//
// ATTENTION: after next browser start this will change your OWN settings in profile
//
//======= BACKUP your PROFILE settings first:
// FIND PROFILE:
// Open address "about:support", click on button or link to PROFILE FOLDER.
// Copy 2 files "prefs.js" (has date of today if correct folder) and "user.js" to a safe place.
// (prefs.js will be modified by THIS file after next browser start)
// (user.js gets replaced completely by the 2nd UOC file "enforcer")
//=======

And in "Enforcer" file...
//======= INSTALLATION:
// FIND PROFILE:
// Open address "about:support", click on button or link to PROFILE FOLDER.
// BACKUP: 2 files "prefs.js" (has date of today if correct folder) and "user.js" to a safe place.
// Replace "user.js" with THIS enforcer file and restart browser.
//=======

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UPDATE!

I have increased the amount of content process count to 10. This has greatly improved performance on my Tualatin RDD. I still haven't written a readme file though, as I don't have enough time right now, but maybe it might come these days or anytime soon.

Please update to the newest version of the UOC Patch!

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Another spontaneous thought... 8-)
If you just change a single or a few prefs, and post those lines here too, some users might prefer to just add only those lines themselves instead of downloading and exchanging everything again. But that's just my kind. Certainly some other users will greatly prefer the download.

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I'd rather prefer people to re-download for a simple reason: sometimes I edit even more than just one parameter, and due to my limited time, I prefer to optimize my resources by just uploading the updated version. Pardon me, but my job takes a lot of my free time away and is already a big task to work on the Patch as well.

Nonetheless, I try to do my best, even though I could use a vacation... 😅

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HELP PLEASE!

I need to ask all the "UOC'ed" users to do a little test for me. Please, go to about:config in your Patched browser, and set the following values to True:

webgl.enable-prototype-webgl2
webgl.min_capability_mode
webgl.webgl2-compat-mode
webgl.disable-DOM-blit-uploads

Let me know if you notice improved performance and scrolling. If so, I will implement those in the next version of the UOC Patch, changing build number. If you don't notice any improvement, I will just scrap them.

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11 hours ago, looking4awayout said:

HELP PLEASE!

I need to ask all the "UOC'ed" users to do a little test for me. Please, go to about:config in your Patched browser, and set the following values to True:

webgl.enable-prototype-webgl2
webgl.min_capability_mode
webgl.webgl2-compat-mode
webgl.disable-DOM-blit-uploads

Let me know if you notice improved performance and scrolling. If so, I will implement those in the next version of the UOC Patch, changing build number. If you don't notice any improvement, I will just scrap them.

It gave some better performance on my Pentium M laptop, heavy sites load better without hanging the browser :)

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