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My Browser Builds (Part 3)


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11 hours ago, Mathwiz said:

It's worse than that. I just found that setting either pref on Serpent 55 breaks chase.com.

It's too bad they can't port over recent firefox web components but they're probably missing APIs to do that. More and more sites will start going with it making these older browsers unusable eventually. There's also newer technologies coming around that require more resources and make the browser slower.

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11 hours ago, Mathwiz said:

It's worse than that. I just found that setting either pref on Serpent 55 breaks chase.com.

I tried to help you out as far as Chase constantly breaking.

I cancelled a Chase account 2 to 2-1/2 years ago and when the person asked me why I am cancelling, "Because this web site, and this web site alone, has forced me to upgrade web browsers twice in six months, my life is far too important to spend so much of my time chasing this rabbit".

But only to see several other web sites suffer over the 2 to 2-1/2 years that followed  :realmad:

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On 3/21/2022 at 4:52 PM, Ben Markson said:

And another add-on that allows you to edit mozlz4 files (like search.json.mozlz4) is this one...
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/mozlz4-edit/versions/

For "search.json.mozlz4" enabled browsers (mostly Serpent 52.9.0/UXP + Serpent 55.0.0/Moebius),
I'd recommend the following "legacy" Fx extension:

XML Search Engines Exporter/Importer v0.4

(should be also available from within CAA). Instead of having to deal with modifying .mozlz4 databases (a Mozilla-proprietary compression format), you can export standalone XML-format search plugins from within the search.json.mozlz4 file, edit them to your heart's content and then import back the edited plugin :thumbup ; of course, you can also import already archived, standard, XML search plugins extracted from other browser profiles (e.g. from New Moon 27/28) or downloaded from specialised search-plugin repos... :)

Edited by VistaLover
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10 hours ago, roytam1 said:

it uses something that can't polyfilled:

I guess this will be the end of Wayback Machine support!?

Actually there are three reasons for moving on to NM28: Wayback Machine, Matomo and latest AVM FRITZ!Box web interface - they are very important to me and don't work with NM27 by now.
 

8 hours ago, nicolaasjan said:

You can easily add search engines with the addon "Add-to-Search-Bar".

Is available in the Classic Add-ons Archive (caa:addon/add-to-search-bar).

For New Moon you'll have to edit the install.rdf of course.

I think this gives you properly formatted xml files.

 

8 hours ago, Ben Markson said:

And another add-on that allows you to edit mozlz4 files (like search.json.mozlz4) is this one...
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/mozlz4-edit/versions/

I have...
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/downloads/file/3304367/mozlz4_edit-4.1.2-an+fx.xpi
,,,installed under ff52.9

Ben.


This is kind of cumbersome, why should I use an extra add-on when It's so easy to create this simple XML file (as explained above)? Here's the Google example:

<SearchPlugin xmlns="http://www.mozilla.org/2006/browser/search/" xmlns:os="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/">
<os:ShortName>Google</os:ShortName>
<os:Description>Google</os:Description>
<os:InputEncoding>UTF-8</os:InputEncoding>
<os:Image width="16" height="16">data:image/png;base64,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</os:Image>
<SearchForm>https://www.google.com/</SearchForm>
<os:Url type="text/html" method="GET" template="https://www.google.com/search?q={searchTerms}" resultDomain="google.com"></os:Url>
</SearchPlugin>

kind regards
soggi

Edited by soggi
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14 minutes ago, soggi said:

This is kind of cumbersome, why should I use an extra add-on

"Add-to-Search-Bar" is indeed an invaluable extension :thumbup , nothing cumbersome about it, really... ;)
It enables adding search engine(s) even for pages for which no standalone XML plugin files exist/are available, just by placing the cursor inside a page's search input field (e.g. here in MSFN) and adding (via context menu) that search facility as a new browser search engine:

mFmIRak.jpg

No need to analyze page's code and/or craft manually a new XML search plugin...
OTOH, even if you make one yourself, you'd need the second extension I mentioned for "search.json.mozlz4" enabled browsers, because these don't have a human-readable searchplugins directory inside their profiles ...

 

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@VistaLover For me it's cumbersome... There don't has to be a XML available, you can C&P it within a few seconds and add the Base64 icon within a few minutes. And no, you don't need any add-on to add a search (engine) - just place this tiny XML into the "searchplugins" folder of a browser's profile, done. This is the simple OpenSearch standard.

Edit: F.e. I want to create the search plugin for dict.cc - so I c&p the Google XML, change the URLs and grab the favicon and convert it into Base64 PNG, done.

<SearchPlugin xmlns="http://www.mozilla.org/2006/browser/search/" xmlns:os="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/">
<os:ShortName>dict.cc</os:ShortName>
<os:Description>dict.cc</os:Description>
<os:InputEncoding>UTF-8</os:InputEncoding>
<os:Image width="16" height="16">data:image/png;base64,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</os:Image>
<SearchForm>https://www.dict.cc/</SearchForm>
<os:Url type="text/html" method="GET" template="https://www.dict.cc/?s={searchTerms}" resultDomain="dict.cc"></os:Url>
</SearchPlugin>

kind regards
soggi

Edited by soggi
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27 minutes ago, soggi said:

you don't need any add-on to add a search (engine) - just place this tiny XML into the "searchplugins" folder of a browser's profile, done.

This is ONLY applicable as-is for New Moon 27/28 (and possibly some other browsers like BNav & K-Meleon, which I don't use myself); FxESR 52.9.x, St52 & St55 by default DON'T store search engines inside a profile "searchplugins" directory, but inside a profile search.json.mozlz4 file - I thought I was clear on that...

If you want to import a manually crafted XML-format search plugin in, e.g., St52 without an extension, you'd first have to manually create a "searchplugins" directory inside the browser's profile (it isn't there by default), place within the XML file and RESTART the browser; then the XML file is internally converted to the JSON format and stored inside the compressed search.json.mozlz4 file (this procedure mimics a profile "upgrade"), after which time you can safely delete the "searchplugins" folder, it served its purpose...

What is "cumbersome" for one person might not be for another, I respect that :P, but let's not dispute the real facts, please... Anyhow, whatever tickles your fancy...

Best regards :)

Edited by VistaLover
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23 minutes ago, VistaLover said:

This is ONLY applicable as-is for New Moon 27/28 (and possibly some other browsers like BNav & K-Meleon, which I don't use myself); FxESR 52.9.x, St52 & St55 by default DON'T store search engines inside a profile "searchplugins" directory, but inside a profile search.json.mozlz4 file - I thought I was clear on that...

Um...I started the searchplugins discussion and was talking about NM28, I thought that was clear!?

14 hours ago, soggi said:

While using NM28 I ran again into the "missing search engine plugins" problem (the browser integrated search bar in the upper right), espacially Google is missing. So I decided to dig deeper and finally solve the problem. All the plugins on the Pale Moon site work, except Google (try out your self: http://web.archive.org/web/20170712213834/https://addons.palemoon.org/search-plugins/) On my search about this problem I found this post:

So I tried https://mycroftproject.com/search-engines.html but this didn't satisfy me, so I read about the OpenSearch standard and found out this is just a small XML file (with links, some stuff and a Base64 encoded icon in it) which has to be placed inside the folder "searchplugins" of a browser's profile. The mycroftproject XML was really, really outdated (but still functional). I recoded the icon to a proper 16*16 Base64 PNG and put the latest search URL into the XML - and yes it works fine, and has a much lower size!

Please let me know if someone is interested in a mirror of properly formated search plugins, then I will add them to the New Moon (etc.) mirror -> soggi.org - tools. Additionally mirroring of all your beloved add-ons is also possible, just leave me a note (within this thread). I'm already thinking about outsourcing the mirror into an extra article where I can add more content (tips, tweaks - all this stuff which keeps myself occupied while using New Moon).

---------------------------------------------

No, I won't call you paranoid (BTW I love Black Sabbath's Paranoid) - that's just longsighted! Personally I backed up whole FTP servers in the past (and hopefully will do in the future). Backing up files is extremely important in the vintage/retro computer scene.

---------------------------------------------

When visiting https://web.archive.org/web/*/www.cmd.com on NM27/28 it looks like on the screenshots below. I think I have to move on and make NM28 to my daily driver, the Way Back Machine is really important to my soggi.org work!

kind regards
soggi

WayBackMachine_NM27.png

WayBackMachine_NM28.png

I didn't mention any other browser while talking about this topic. For other browsers which don't support this easy way the way you described might be the best, I agree.

kind regards
soggi

Edited by soggi
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21 hours ago, soggi said:

I didn't mention any other browser while talking about this topic.

... But you did quote in your previous answer @Ben Markson's post about the "mozlz4_edit" add-on (which he installed in FirefoxESR 52.9.0) and that was the bit that got me sort of confused :dubbio:... Anyhow, there's no point in flogging a dead horse, by now I think the both of us made really clear what we intended to state... :)

Have a nice night, spring already came here in the Northern Hemisphere (but it's awfully cold right now, despite... :angry: )

Later addition: soggi commented:

Quote

I quoted Ben Markson because I saw this as a recommendation to install this add-on on NM28.

This wouldn't have worked in any case :no: , because the "mozlz4_edit" (Fx) extension is of the "Web Extension" format, not compatible with New Moon 28 (and it still wouldn't serve any purpose had it been compatible, because NM28 doesn't use the mozlz4 compression for any of its profile files ;) ...).

Edited by VistaLover
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Yes, I quoted @Ben Markson because I saw this as a recommendation to install this add-on on NM28.

No problem, better to clear such things up than staying confused or even annoyed!

My intention is always to help others with the most simple/performant/nerdy (or a mixture of them) solution and maybe someone who didn't know (like me two days ago) find this helpful.

OT: My hope for 20 to 30 cm of snow has gone, this was a miserable winter...

kind regards
soggi

Edited by soggi
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10 hours ago, DanR20 said:

It's too bad they can't port over recent firefox web components but they're probably missing APIs to do that. More and more sites will start going with it making these older browsers unusable eventually. There's also newer technologies coming around that require more resources and make the browser slower.

I don't think Mozilla got Web Components quite right until well into the Quantum era, but there is hope! Per HTML5test.com, latest St 52 has full Shadow DOM support (I'm guessing thanks to MCP) but lacks Custom Elements support, while St 55 has Custom Elements support but partial/broken Shadow DOM support, both probably inherited from FF 53.

So perhaps we could port the changes for each into the other and get full Web Components support in both versions. Web Components are only one piece of the current JS issues, but it seems like it's worth a try.

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(howto waybackmachine url parameters)

soggi wrote:
> When visiting https://web.archive.org/web/*/www.cmd.com on NM27/28 it looks
> like on the screenshots below. I think I have to move on and make NM28 to my
> daily driver, the Way Back Machine is really important to my soggi.org work

Yeah, sadly it stopped working for me many years ago already (old OS), real killer prob.
Until finally (!!!) discovering it can alternatively be used by typing URL parameters :-)
This works even with the most ancient browsers (if no fallback available):

1) If URL is known, this gets the LAST version:
https://web.archive.org/web/https://www.example.com

2) If URL is known, a CROPPED DATE (any length) gets the CLOSEST version, e.g.:
https://web.archive.org/web/19990401/https://www.example.com

3) Therefore, this gets the OLDEST version at all, first one after Jan 1 1000 ;-)
https://web.archive.org/web/1/https://www.example.com

4) This creates a NEW archive of the current page:
https://web.archive.org/save/https://www.example.com

(And if a URL is not known exactly, there are also strings to get a plain txt list, but more complicated)
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13 hours ago, Mathwiz said:

So perhaps we could port the changes for each into the other and get full Web Components support in both versions. Web Components are only one piece of the current JS issues, but it seems like it's worth a try.

Maybe roytam or someone like-minded could take an interest. It would probably entail some work and time but would keep these older versions going a little longer. That is until google forces something else "new" on everyone that requires only the most modern and up to date. IOW google chrome. 

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12 hours ago, Mathwiz said:

I don't think Mozilla got Web Components quite right until well into the Quantum era

Firefox Quantum 63.0, to be exact (less finished implementations were behind a disabled pref in immediately previous Fx versions) ...

12 hours ago, Mathwiz said:

Per HTML5test.com

I, personally, don't give that test the credence/importance others do... ;) Have often found it to misrepresent browser features (especially when it comes to the non-mainstream browser engines), so my advice is to take its reported results "cum grano salis"...

13 hours ago, Mathwiz said:

latest St 52 has full Shadow DOM support (I'm guessing thanks to MCP)

According to this UXP open issue,

https://repo.palemoon.org/mcp-graveyard/UXP/issues/1361

Shadow DOM v1 is still marked as unfinished (further below in the issue, they cite

Element.attachShadow()
Element.shadowRoot()
DocumentOrShadowRoot.activeElement

as having been implemented...)

Relevant GRE issue

https://repo.palemoon.org/MoonchildProductions/GRE/issues/3009

signals Shadow DOM support is still not "FULL" and, of course, WebComponents support (of which both ShadowDOM+CustomElements are integral parts) is still marked as unimplemented...

https://repo.palemoon.org/MoonchildProductions/GRE/issues/3011

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12 hours ago, siria said:

2) If URL is known, a CROPPED DATE (any length) gets the CLOSEST version, e.g.:
https://web.archive.org/web/19990401/https://www.example.com

I often use this format: 

https://web.archive.org/web/1999*/https://www.example.com

to get the calendar for a specific year, then pick a snapshot from there.

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