My Browser Builds (Part 5)

[Guest raddy]

50 minutes ago, roytam1 said:

and UXP build that works?

no, uxp not working.

[roytam1]

6 hours ago, raddy said:

Next "regression" - https://midnightscene.cc/login

 

if i press F12, i start to see a part of login form

 

ps. palemoon-28.10.7a1.win32-git-20260418-d849524bd-uxp-d4c4c1f6ec-xpmod.7z & current basilisks have the same problem.

an user-style can fix:

@namespace url(http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml);

@-moz-document url("https://midnightscene.cc/login") {
  canvas#background-effects {z-index: -1;}
}

 

[Guest raddy]

1 hour ago, roytam1 said:

an user-style can fix:

Thanks, but i have uBlock:

midnightscene.cc##canvas

 

[VistaLover]

3 hours ago, raddy said:

Thanks, but i have uBlock:

midnightscene.cc##canvas

... What I found more effective in my case was to (/also) block the "background" effects script itself: 

||midnightscene.cc/build/assets/effects-BFJ8oBLg.js$script,important

With just 

midnightscene.cc##canvas

the page did display correctly, but the tab continued to consume an elevated amount of CPU here...

[VistaLover]

On 4/30/2026 at 5:49 AM, roytam1 said:

alright, that rev is reverted.

I have now updated NM28 (32-bit) SSE2 from 

palemoon-28.10.7a1.win32-git-20260418-d849524bd-uxp-d4c4c1f6ec-xpmod

to 

palemoon-28.10.7a1.win32-git-20260502-d849524bd-uxp-9161cd3bdb-xpmod

and can confirm that extensions with strictCompatibility=true have become again "compatible"  : 

On a different issue, I have also tested multiple reloads of 

https://github.com/martok/palefill/releases/

and that latest NM28 build (with buildID=20260430023812) no longer hangs (like the previous week's build) on my Core2 Duo - but I haven't exhausted its use on multiple "heavy" GitHub pages; so, overall, a nice build indeed! 

[VistaLover]

On 4/26/2026 at 5:20 PM, AstroSkipper said:

one permanently gets error messages regarding the absence of the favicon.ico file in the root directory of  your server o.rthost.win when visiting. Would it be possible for you to put one there? That would make my browser console look a lot less red

On 4/28/2026 at 2:55 PM, AstroSkipper said:

Thanks for uploading a dummy favicon.ico file to your server o.rthost.win!

Sadly, what this has now caused is visual "deficiencies" (I'd call them "bugs" myself, but perhaps that's too "strong" a word for everybody else  ) in the tab bar of every browser visiting "o.rthost.win", e.g. :

1. Pinned "o.rthost.win" tabs have now absolutely no favicon at all (whereas before the browser would compensate with a "generic" tab favicon)

2. Non-pinned "o.rthost.win" tabs have now their title shifted to the right, with an invisible favicon preceding it.

3. In St52 with CTR installed, I have it configured to always show the favicon in the urlbar; now there's an empty space (padding) before the actual address...

One would normally open Web/Browser Console ONLY when troubleshooting (it's normally invisible to the user), but one can't really avoid the tab and/or the URL bar ; call it an OCD, but I personally find those "dummy favicon" GUI effects quite annoying (more so than "red lines" inside the Console(s)) ...

@roytam1, could you actually upload a non-dummy favicon.ico? Or is that out of the question?

(I'd also be OK with no favicon at all, after all there still exist sites with no favicons, e.g.

https://forum.librivox.org/index.php

, but then I do realise it'd be difficult to please everyone here at MSFN  )

Edited May 2 by VistaLover

[AstroSkipper]

47 minutes ago, VistaLover said:

Sadly, what this has now caused is visual "deficiencies" (I'd call them "bugs" myself, but perhaps that's too "strong" a word for everybody else  ) in the tab bar of every browser visiting "o.rthost.win", e.g. :

1. Pinned "o.rthost.win" tabs have now absolutely no favicon at all (whereas before the browser would compensate with a "generic" tab favicon)

2. Non-pinned "o.rthost.win" tabs have now their title shifted to the right, with an invisible favicon preceding it.

3. In St52 with CTR installed, I have it configured to always show the favicon in the urlbar; now there's an empty space (padding) before the actual address...

When uploading a favicon filled with zeros, then an empty image is the inevitable consequence.  TBH, I would have preferred a real favicon too, but a less dirty console is even better. 

[VistaLover]

@AstroSkipper

Perhaps it's now proper time to update

https://github.com/martok/palefill/issues/109

; after all, that "issue" wasn't caused by a fault of your compatriot (martok) ; just sayin', of course...

[NotHereToPlayGames]

11 hours ago, VistaLover said:

Sadly, what this has now caused is visual "deficiencies" <snip>

One would normally open Web/Browser Console ONLY when troubleshooting (it's normally invisible to the user), but one can't really avoid the tab and/or the URL bar <snip>

@roytam1, could you actually upload a non-dummy favicon.ico? Or is that out of the question?

 

11 hours ago, AstroSkipper said:

When uploading a favicon filled with zeros, then an empty image is the inevitable consequence.  TBH, I would have preferred a real favicon too, but a less dirty console is even better. 

 

To me, the tab/URL bar visual deficiencies FAR outweigh the only-open-for-troubleshooting console.
(edit: this is not a Member A versus Member B "vote", just an added OPINION, to me, BOTH are correct, *IF* the owner is going to bend, then a real non-dummy is preferred)

But there is another route for us "Type A Personalities".
Just use a userscript or userstyle to "redirect" to any favicon of your choice, no "Type A" passive-aggressive tactics required of forcing a server owner to bend to our preference.

I actually use SEVERAL as opposed to writing formal letters to government agencies asking them to fix their favicon.

 

// ==UserScript==
// @name - Favicon - myBMV
// @version 0.0.1
// @match https://mybmv.bmv.EDIT.gov/bmv/mybmv/default.aspx
// @grant none
// ==/UserScript==

// * Favicon URL *
var favicurl = "https://www.EDIT.gov/favicon.ico";
// * Favicon file type *
var favictyp = "image/x-icon";
// * Overwrite favicon, if one is set *
var overwrite = true;
// * End of settings *

var iconset = false;
for (var i = 0; i < window.document.getElementsByTagName('link').length; i++) {
    if (window.document.getElementsByTagName('link').rel == "icon" || window.document.getElementsByTagName('link').rel == "shortcut icon") {
        iconset = true;
        if (overwrite) {
            window.document.getElementsByTagName('link').parentNode.removeChild(window.document.getElementsByTagName('link'));
            iconset = false;
        }
    }
}
if (!iconset) {
    var favicon = window.document.createElement('link');
    favicon.rel = "shortcut icon";
    favicon.type = favictyp;
    favicon.href = favicurl;
    window.document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(favicon);
}

Edited May 3 by NotHereToPlayGames

[AstroSkipper]

12 hours ago, VistaLover said:

@AstroSkipper

Perhaps it's now proper time to update

https://github.com/martok/palefill/issues/109

; after all, that "issue" wasn't caused by a fault of your compatriot (martok) ; just sayin', of course...

Have you already tested it with the most recent releases of New Moon 28 and Serpent 52? 🤔

Edited May 3 by AstroSkipper

[AstroSkipper]

@roytam1 First of all, thanks for all your releases and for trying to fix the favicon issue on your server! Today, I have noticed that you again changed your favicon. But this doesn't work properly. Your favicon is shown in the tab and in the url bar, but not inside the bookmark in the personal toolbar. With your changes on your server o.rthost.win, I now get the following error message:

The character encoding of the HTML document was not declared. The document will render with garbled text in some browser configurations if the document contains characters from outside the US-ASCII range. The character encoding of the page must be declared in the document or in the transfer protocol.  
o.rthost.win

While connecting to your server o.rthost.win, I was additionally blocked by Google due to allegedly unusual activities.  The captcha that you then have to solve is not displayed in New Moon 28. And of course, error messages without end. If looking for good favicons, you have a nice globe inside your source code of New Moon 28: chrome://mozapps/skin/places/defaultFavicon.png. Or maybe, your New Moon icon: chrome://branding/content/icon32.png?

Edited May 3 by AstroSkipper

[VistaLover]

4 hours ago, AstroSkipper said:

Your favicon is shown in the tab and in the url bar, but not inside the bookmark in the personal toolbar.

With latest NM28 (32-bit) SSE2 (buildID=20260430023812), I can confirm that the new favicon appears invisible not only inside the bookmarks toolbar, but also inside the bookmarks sidebar: 

Don't ask me why, I have no clue ; this appears to be UXP-related, as the new favicon does appear inside r3dfox's bookmarks sidebar: 

The tab bar (and URLbar, in the case of NM28/St52+CTR) looks nice now , though (as already mentioned); we're on a good point already, some fine-tuning is still needed on UXP to make things perfect  ...

4 hours ago, AstroSkipper said:

you have a nice globe inside your source code of New Moon 28:
chrome://mozapps/skin/places/defaultFavicon.png.

Actually, that one is the favicon the browser defaults to for sites without a proper favicon of their own...

Edited May 3 by VistaLover

[VistaLover]

4 hours ago, AstroSkipper said:

While connecting to your server o.rthost.win, I was additionally blocked by Google due to allegedly unusual activities. 

Nothing of that sort happened here, on any of 3 browsers used at random (NM28/St52/r3dfox-140esr)  ; but I don't trust Google  to tell me which sites I should visit or not (relevant settings disabled, both under r3dfox and Supermium  ) ...

Edited May 3 by VistaLover

[modnar]

First thank you for a new build, roytam1.

From using this new Serpent 52.9 build 4-30 (or 5-2) I observe slower performance and I suspect it's because of the threads setting. Imgur.com site though heavy is good for testing things. Also tomshardware.com, also heavy.

For number of threads I would propose CPU cores / 2 or 1 if 1 core. I have a four-banger here, and while 4-25 Serpent stopped responding on imgur, while it was functional it was faster than version 4-30.

I came up with half of threads because I observed with VMWare if I set the number of cores to odd (3) virtual machines perform worse as they do on even number of cores (2 or 4). 4 though also are not recommended for anything but Linux because there aren't any left for the host then (I suspect poor optimisation on Windows guests). Also - my Core2 Quad is not really 4 core CPU, it is 2x 2 core CPU.

Edited May 3 by modnar
Why half or even number?

[VistaLover]

5 hours ago, AstroSkipper said:

Have you already tested it with the most recent releases of New Moon 28

... That question means that you have actually missed my previous post here ; latest NM28 gladly accepts palefill-1.30.xpi as a compatible extension (and doesn't disable it permanently, if already installed) ...

5 hours ago, AstroSkipper said:

and Serpent 52? 🤔

In all honesty, I didn't test on latest St52, as I left that as an exercise for you  ; the observed bug with palefill (and other extensions that have strictCompatibility=true inside their instal.rdfs) was caused by ae7c40d, which first appeared in the 20260418 UXP releases (actual buildID dates may be slightly different inside individual apps); that commit was reverted in 12e7d14, which first appears in this weekend's (20260502) UXP releases; since these are platform-wide commits, I have no reason to think that St52 hasn't been "fixed", while NM28 has; if you find otherwise, please let us know  ,,,

Best regards.