My Browser Builds (Part 4)

[AstroSkipper]

In KM76.4.7-Goanna-20230325, there is another issue, even in a new, clean profile. Right-clicking on a toolbar, then pointing with the mouse to the entry Toolbars, and finally clicking onto the entry Options leads immediately to a browser crash. Here are two screenshots:

[UCyborg]

18 hours ago, legacyfan said:

https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?p=237016#p237016 this thread is what made me leave palemoon for good (the members there are not very good)

You got the legitimate answer though, the system requirements for their browser is clearly stated on their website. Another person pointed you to the thread here, which you must have been aware of, being a member here, but the official last XP compatible is simply the one that's several years old by now.

 

I've got attacked there once by the guy called gepus for simply asking about the issue that may happen with uBlock Origin + blocking scripts on the site being navigated to from Google search results -  you may be redirected back to search results if you have JS enabled on Google. Had to find a workaround on my own, which isn't too bad, don't need Google's tracking in the links, but nobody explained why the issue happens on Pale Moon. Is it really not a browser issue?

I sometimes ask about some sites' issues, except the few incidents, the place doesn't seem as bad these days. If they know what's up, you tend to get the answer. When they were beefing up their RegExp code in recent times, I asked about a particular regex example that wasn't working as it used to anymore and it was fixed right away.

One thing I'm still curious about, but there were only crickets' sounds on Pale Moon forum, why are Volkswagen's websites so sluggish? Some examples:

https://www.volkswagen.si/

https://www.volkswagen.co.uk/en.html

https://www.volkswagen.de/de.html

The errors look about the same between UXP powered browser and Firefox 110, even polyfills loaded message appear in both cases. Well, almost, this may be encountered on UXP:

SyntaxError: missing : after property id

Which must result in something being broken (some popup in this case at least, maybe also something else), but I don't remember if we figured out this one yet.

Edited March 25, 2023 by UCyborg

[mina7601]

23 hours ago, UCyborg said:

Navigating this world feels a bit like this picture to me:

Surrounded by enemies, no allies, no weapon to defend oneself with. Backstabbers everywhere.

This is very true. This is also how it looks like to me.

[legacyfan]

37 minutes ago, mina7601 said:

This is very true. This is also how it looks like to me.

this is what it's like for me also 

[VistaLover]

9 hours ago, luweitest said:

All the links of the site are HTTPS, which does not work for me (time out) in Serpent 52. 
Maybe they work out of china's great firewall.

9 hours ago, AstroSkipper said:

No problems here with these links in Serpent 52! No timeout, the HTTPS-links on this site can be opened and work as they should.

... I can also confirm that statement :

accessing it from Southern Europe; I'm not familiar with that site, but is the server/hostname "forums.internetfreedom.org" located outside of the GFW (I assume so, because. err, "internetfreedom" is non-existent inside mainland China ) ? Since St52 has its own certificate store, XP's deficient OS CA store shouldn't matter in this case... 

Does the GFW block access to "fankui.dongtaiwang.net" issued server certs ? (and I see the "taiwan" string in that hostname, so it's more than probable ) ; here's a screengrab of the certs chain when validating the site's certificate:

Are you able to VPN/tunnel your way out the GFW and reach that site securely? if yes, you could export the server cert (expires on June 6th 2023) and import it to St52's cert store for the duration it's valid... Have you checked whether the site loads securely on a fresh St52 profile? Have you also tried unselecting the option

"Query OCSP responder servers to confirm the current validity of certificates"

in "about:preferences#advanced -> Certificates" ?

If you can browse SO/SU and similar sites, you'll see that solutions downgrading HTTPS to plain HTTP are not desirable and, hence, very difficult to come across (and your particular use-case is indeed a niche one) ...

[basilisk-dev]

21 hours ago, Milkinis said:

all your posts in this forum are here in this thread.

Correct.

I think it's beneficial for Serpent users here and for developers of Windows XP UXP applications to have a direct line of communication with people involved in upstream development. There have been very negative interactions between MSFN members and Pale Moon forum members in the past.  I think it is time to move past that and embrace the fact that we all are using code that comes from a shared history and to work towards a common goal of creating browsers that break away from Google's monopoly of the web, regardless of if that code runs on Windows XP or Windows 10 or Linux.

21 hours ago, Milkinis said:

why don't you backport Basilisk to XP

This was a consideration when I took over the Basilisk project. I eventually decided that it would not be feasible to do this. Basilisk is an application built upon the upstream Moonchild Productions UXP platform. The upstream UXP platform has no XP support and the UXP development team have no interest in XP support, therefore Basilisk will not have XP support.

That being said, if you need Basilisk on XP you can consider Serpent an officially recommended option from my perspective. I appreciate roytam1's work in maintaining Serpent and try to be active in this thread since Serpent is a fork of Basilisk. It is very likely that Serpent bugs will also affect Basilisk.

21 hours ago, Milkinis said:

and why doesn't Basilisk support multi process mode by default ?

Two reasons:

1 - It was removed from the UXP platform.

2 - There were multiple security vulnerabilities in the multi process implementation that Mozilla was using around the time Firefox 52 was released and UXP was created. Mozilla's current implementation is in Rust so the fixes cannot be backported.

There is no plan to add this back at this time.

[Milkinis]

19 minutes ago, basilisk-dev said:

 Basilisk is an application built upon the upstream Moonchild Productions UXP platform.

The upstream UXP platform has no XP support and the UXP development team have no interest in XP support, therefore Basilisk will not have XP support.

Serpent is a fork of Basilisk.

if Serpent is a fork and can actually run on XP I want to guess Basilisk might achieve the same goal or am I missing something ?

so you will also cut Win7/8 support out once the UXP devs team decides to do so.

[basilisk-dev]

Just now, Milkinis said:

if Serpent is a fork and can actually run on XP I want to guess Basilisk might achieve the same goal or am I missing something ?

so you will also cut Win7/8 support out once the UXP devs team decides to do so.

The UXP team has already said they have no intention of dropping Windows 7/8 support right now, but if it came down to it yes that is correct. I wouldn't expect that to happen for at least 5+ years.

[Milkinis]

28 minutes ago, basilisk-dev said:

There is no plan to add this back at this time.

no way will I be using a single-process capable browser ever again. it's a nightmare to me.

it's ok if you don't think it's safe for you but you should let the end users decide for themselves.

https://msfn.org/board/topic/182876-360-extreme-explorer-modified-version/page/129/#comment-1242047

 

[basilisk-dev]

8 minutes ago, Milkinis said:

no way will I be using a single-process capable browser ever again. it's a nightmare to me.

it's ok if you don't think it's safe for you but you should let the end users decide for themselves.

https://msfn.org/board/topic/182876-360-extreme-explorer-modified-version/page/129/#comment-1242047

 

It is already removed. There is nothing to decide.

[Milkinis]

1 minute ago, basilisk-dev said:

It is already removed. There is nothing to decide.

it's not been removed from Serpent 52/55 that I know of.

I think the actual difference is that Serpent is based on Goanna 4.8 whereas Basilisk is already on Goanna 6.0

if I have to pick a go-to Firefox fork for Win7, Librewolf would be first and then Basilisk and Palemoon with a single active process would be down on my list.

Firefox could have a far bigger user base than they have these days if they didn't drop support for XP users, so good luck with your Basilisk project

if @roytam1 can I also think you can as well.

[roytam1]

18 minutes ago, Milkinis said:

it's not been removed from Serpent 52/55 that I know of.

function depends on platform code (i.e. UXP) which MCP removed such function from platform code long time ago, I don't think people can add back this without forking platform code.

[ClassicNick]

32 minutes ago, Milkinis said:

I think the actual difference is that Serpent is based on Goanna 4.8 whereas Basilisk is already on Goanna 6.0

roytam1's UXP browsers already run the Goanna 6.1 rendering engine. I say that because roytam1's UXP repository has most of the additions from upstream with the exception of JPEG-XL support due to roytam1 remaining on Visual C++ 2015 update 3 (thank you @roytam1). The reason why the browsers still report milestone (Goanna) 4.8 is "config/milestone.txt" has not been updated.

[NotHereToPlayGames]

1 hour ago, Milkinis said:

Firefox could have a far bigger user base than they have these days if they didn't drop support for XP users

Not likely.

And I say that as an XP user.

I think we XP users think far too highly of our influence in this world.

[Milkinis]

24 minutes ago, NotHereToPlayGames said:

Not likely.

And I say that as an XP user.

Chrome 49 became obsolete long before Firefox 52 did.

many people didn't know (and still don't) of the existence of Serpent or other forks so they moved over to Win7 or newer.

most mainstream web browsers are based on chromium engine so there's fewer chances to get people to stick to Firefox or alike.

all this being said if Basilisk @basilisk-dev was supported on XP it could also have a larger user base as well.

I have a hard time understanding why browsers with low market share figures do close the door down on us.