Thorium

[Milkinis]

3 minutes ago, 66cats said:

A mere 4 years without security updates. You win.

I would say security updates to the public because the large corps still pay for security updates up until 2025 at least for WinXP

you can't believe how much I hate the crap W7 not only because they removed essential XP functions but there are things that get me angry 

 

[66cats]

3 minutes ago, NotHereToPlayGames said:

LESS THAN 8% of web sites use QUIC

In this thread, i'm talking about browsers running on home computers (and whether these browsers have QUIC enabled). 

[66cats]

8 minutes ago, Milkinis said:

up until 2025 at least for WinXP

Does MS actually have a secret XP ESU program, or are you talking about some company selling alleged security updates? Always assumed XP was down to to running aging signage, ancient-but-cool lab gear & crusty CNC rigs, that sort of thing, air-gapped from reality.

[Sampei.Nihira]

For example, Firefox has QUIC enabled by default.
Check your Firefox-based browsers.
To disable QUIC the setting below must be set to false
 

network.http.http3.enable - false

Sorry for the last OT.

Edited May 2, 2024 by Sampei.Nihira

[Milkinis]

3 minutes ago, 66cats said:

Does MS actually have a secret XP ESU program

you are correct.  

[Milkinis]

55 minutes ago, Sampei.Nihira said:

I use a secure DNS with at least 6 filter lists....

[dmiranda]

1 hour ago, 66cats said:

Does MS actually have a secret XP ESU program, or are you talking about some company selling alleged security updates? Always assumed XP was down to to running aging signage, ancient-but-cool lab gear & crusty CNC rigs, that sort of thing, air-gapped from reality.

In Argentina, ATMs (POS terminals?) seem to be running XP -judging by the occasional error screens. They surely pay for security updates.

I have set up well trimmed, secured XP terminals in some governmental offices in Argentina (and some other places of the world, too) and know they are still running. I'm sure they do not pay for security updates, nor do they need to do so (like we all know).  

[Dave-H]

Sorry guys, this is all getting way off-topic again.

General security and privacy issues are off-topic here unless they specifically relate to the Thorium browser, and only the Thorium browser.

Thank you.

[AstroSkipper]

On 5/1/2024 at 3:05 PM, AstroSkipper said:

As a technically interested person and die-hard Windows XP Professional 32-bit enthusiast , I installed Thorium on my very old and very weak computer for testing purposes only. 

My hardware and OS specs are: Windows XP Professional SP3 with  all updates after SP3 and additionally all POSReady updates, an Intel Pentium 4 Northwood 2.80 GHz CPU (single core, 32 Bit), 1.5 GB SD-RAM and a NVIDIA GeForce 6200 graphic card.

I am using the version Thorium_SSE2_122.0.6261.168_WINXP_x32 in portable mode. Nothing has been installed to avoid any compromising of my system.  It was hard to adjust the browser settings and flags to load pages as it actually should be. I am using the extension uBlock Origin as I do in all my browsers to filter and block all crap. However, uBlock Origin had to be exactly adjusted to not interfere negatively the loading of websites. I will test Thorium for a while to see how it behaves on my very weak Windows XP computer. But in any case, I am also interested in experiences from other users with Thorium on old 32-bit computers. 

Here is a brief report  of my testing so far if someone is interested. Thorium can actually be installed on such an old computer under Windows XP. The browser starts up still quite bearable compared to other browsers on my system. However, as always with Chrome browsers on low-performance computers under Windows, the page loading behaviour is problematic. Although I have configured all conceivable flags to increase performance and selected the settings to suit my hardware, loading web pages takes considerably much longer than with New Moon, Serpent or Mypal. Of course, websites can be loaded that no longer function properly in the already mentioned browsers. Surprisingly, RAM consumption is not a problem, it is rather perfect although Thorium is running in multi-process mode. Interestingly, it seems that I have even found a solution for my installation that considerably speeds up the loading of web pages and therefore the browser start, too. It's not a new one, though. One doesn't have to reinvent the wheel, either. But first, this method must still be thoroughly tested. 

Edited May 4, 2024 by AstroSkipper
Update of content

[Dixel]

--disable-highres-timer 

speeds up considerably.

Edited May 4, 2024 by Dixel
a typo

[AstroSkipper]

14 minutes ago, Dixel said:

--disable-highres-timer 

speeds up considerably.

Thanks! I will test this flag. 

[NotHereToPlayGames]

15 hours ago, AstroSkipper said:

Thanks! I will test this flag. 

Your results?

I've tested this flag and NONE of the SEVERAL quantifiable measurements (ie, the only real way to truly eliminate Placebo Effect) shows any "considerable" performance difference.

Edited May 5, 2024 by NotHereToPlayGames

[AstroSkipper]

1 hour ago, NotHereToPlayGames said:

16 hours ago, AstroSkipper said:

Thanks! I will test this flag. 

Your results?

I've tested this flag and NONE of the SEVERAL quantifiable measurements (ie, the only real way to truly eliminate Placebo Effect) shows any "considerable" performance difference.

Sorry, you have to be a bit patient. I am testing so much and can't say anything qualified about one single flag. Too much flags here and too much other performance settings to identify the effects of a single flag. 

[Saxon]

4 hours ago, NotHereToPlayGames said:

Your results?

I've tested this flag and NONE of the SEVERAL quantifiable measurements (ie, the only real way to truly eliminate Placebo Effect) shows any "considerable" performance difference.

The most effect of it when you have a motherborad with HPET off.

[Dave-H]

Using --disable-highres-timer did more harm than good on my system.
Yes, the browser loaded a bit more quickly, but Instagrm looked a total mess, like the CSS files weren't loaded, and several other sites also produced a mess before rendering properly.
I removed the switch pretty quickly!
Things don't take very long to load on my system anyway, I think Thorium is noticeably faster than Supermium in that respect.