My Browser Builds (Part 6)

[VistaLover]

20 hours ago, Mathwiz said:

Have I mentioned lately how much I hate AI? Not because I don't find it useful, but because everybody and their God damned dog is trying to scrape the entire World Wide Web to train their damned AI, necessitating all these damned security checks.

Exactly! I still keep a portable installation of Mozilla Firefox 52.9.1esr (the last to officially support XP/Vista) for "nostalgia" , and while it's still able to render many sites, it is forbidden to do so  because it can't pass/complete CF and/or Anubis anti-bot challenges "protecting"  those sites (even old-type ones, like "https://forums.mozillazine.org/viewforum.php?f=38") ...

[VistaLover]

On 6/27/2026 at 1:29 AM, roytam1 said:

for people who can't register here, there is another place you can create post for asking/help besides in github and blog:
https://forum.eclipse.cx/viewforum.php?f=33

This URL is no longer valid ; try the one below: 

https://board.eclipse.cx/viewforum.php?f=33

[Mathwiz]

@Skorpios, no; I didn't think that a right-click followed by "Save Link As" would lead to different results than a left-click, which invokes the captcha. I guess XP users have a way to download the latest version after all. Edit: Just tried it. Right-click and "Save Link As" didn't work for me. I got a 6 kB file. Maybe it's that "referer" Roytam mentioned, but....

@roytam1, all my "referer" prefs in Serpent 55 are at their defaults. A standard left-click on the link brought up the captcha. I haven't yet tried the right-click and "Save Link As."

@AstroSkipper, perhaps telling wget to use a Firefox UA along with Roytam's "referer" suggestion might do the trick. I don't really have an option to change my IP address though. I just couldn't imagine Cloudflare leaving such a gaping security hole!

@VistaLover, check this out: https://blog.includesecurity.com/2026/06/the-smart-tv-in-your-livingroom-is-a-node-in-the-aiscraping-economy/

Sneaky devils! I don't (and as long as I can get away with it, won't) own a "smart" TV, but I do own a Roku streaming box. I wonder if any of its "apps" are letting folks use my Internet bandwidth without my knowledge.

Edited yesterday at 12:08 AM by Mathwiz

[VistaLover]

21 hours ago, Mathwiz said:

the Cloudflare security checks block me from downloading Serpent with wget any more. I just get "403 Forbidden."

21 hours ago, Mathwiz said:

No more automated downloads

1 hour ago, roytam1 said:

for wget, you may need to add " --referer=http://rthost.win/ "

That suggestion works fine here with WGET (the forum's faulty software wouldn't let me put below content inside "code" tags  ): 

Quote

wget -S --unlink --secure-protocol=TLSv1_2 --no-cookies --no-hsts --referer="https://o.rthost.win" "https://o.rthost.win/basilisk/basilisk52-g4.8.win32-git-20260627-3219d2d-uxp-98f21468a1-xpmod.7z"

--2026-07-02 02:52:17--  https://o.rthost.win/basilisk/basilisk52-g4.8.win32-git-20260627-3219d2d-uxp-98f21468a1-xpmod.7z
Resolving o.rthost.win... 188.114.97.7, 188.114.96.7
Connecting to o.rthost.win|188.114.97.7|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response...
  HTTP/1.1 200 OK
  Date: Wed, 01 Jul 2026 23:52:18 GMT
  Content-Type: application/octet-stream
  Content-Length: 44764201
  Connection: keep-alive
  Accept-Ranges: bytes
  Etag: "3061471561"
  Last-Modified: Sat, 27 Jun 2026 13:16:56 GMT
  Server: cloudflare
  Cache-Control: max-age=14400
  Cf-Cache-Status: REVALIDATED
  Report-To: {"group":"cf-nel","max_age":604800,"endpoints":[{"url":"https://a.nel.cloudflare.com/report/v4?s=Nbl5t3PLKM%2Bld226azgj1aFqYoiBFpQwA6xram1Ewt3%2Bf0eFqVS8wRylaoYMAf9ycjonUlqZ0TGrQfMhItMQAxVjFZq1k1ZWWA09PgYYKY%2FIyhvRM%2FkdhMwS1HRRGBk%3D"}]}
  Nel: {"report_to":"cf-nel","success_fraction":0.0,"max_age":604800}
  CF-RAY: a14952db69921604-ATH
  alt-svc: h3=":443"; ma=86400
Length: 44764201 (43M) [application/octet-stream]
Saving to: 'basilisk52-g4.8.win32-git-20260627-3219d2d-uxp-98f21468a1-xpmod.7z'

627-3219d2d-uxp-98f  60%[===========>        ]  25,92M  1009KB/s    eta 17s

basilisk52-g4.8.win 100%[===================>]  42,69M  1022KB/s    in 50s

2026-07-02 02:53:08 (868 KB/s) - 'basilisk52-g4.8.win32-git-20260627-3219d2d-uxp-98f21468a1-xpmod.7z' saved [44764201/44764201]

[AstroSkipper]

33 minutes ago, VistaLover said:

That suggestion works fine here with WGET (the forum's faulty software wouldn't let me put below content inside "code" tags  ): 

https://msfn.org/board/topic/187837-the-msfn-forum-editor-–-endless-errors/

[AstroSkipper]

1 hour ago, Mathwiz said:

@AstroSkipper, perhaps telling wget to use a Firefox UA along with Roytam's "referer" suggestion might do the trick. I don't really have an option to change my IP address though. I just couldn't imagine Cloudflare leaving such a gaping security hole

I would never sign up for a contract with my internet service provider that includes a static IP address.  My IP address is, of course, dynamic. And I’ve created a batch script that, when double-clicked, immediately reconnects and displays both the old and new external IP addresses. 

[Mathwiz]

@VistaLover's suggestion worked My .bat file has been repaired!

@AstroSkipper, I didn't say I had a static IP address. I said "I don't really have an option to change my IP address though." Well, that wasn't entirely correct. I do have such an option: power-cycle the router, so it negotiates a new IP address with my ISP. This, of course, would disconnect all devices in the home, so it's not really practical unless I do it in the middle of the night.

The IP address Cloudflare sees is, of course, my home network's external IP address, negotiated between the router and ISP. Changing the internal address my PC is using with the router would make no difference to Cloudflare whatsoever. Luckily it's now clear that such a thing isn't necessary anyhow.

Edited yesterday at 01:58 AM by Mathwiz

[roytam1]

2 hours ago, Mathwiz said:

@Skorpios, no; I didn't think that a right-click followed by "Save Link As" would lead to different results than a left-click, which invokes the captcha. I guess XP users have a way to download the latest version after all. Edit: Just tried it. Right-click and "Save Link As" didn't work for me. I got a 6 kB file. Maybe it's that "referer" Roytam mentioned, but....

@roytam1, all my "referer" prefs in Serpent 55 are at their defaults. A standard left-click on the link brought up the captcha. I haven't yet tried the right-click and "Save Link As."

@AstroSkipper, perhaps telling wget to use a Firefox UA along with Roytam's "referer" suggestion might do the trick. I don't really have an option to change my IP address though. I just couldn't imagine Cloudflare leaving such a gaping security hole!

@VistaLover, check this out: https://blog.includesecurity.com/2026/06/the-smart-tv-in-your-livingroom-is-a-node-in-the-aiscraping-economy/

Sneaky devils! I don't (and as long as I can get away with it, won't) own a "smart" TV, but I do own a Roku streaming box. I wonder if any of its "apps" are letting folks use my Internet bandwidth without my knowledge.

the default config of referer policy (i.e. network.http.sendRefererHeader in about:config) should send referer, and from my testing on clicking on link from the post is fine here.

[Mathwiz]

@roytam1: Weird that it works for you and @Skorpios but not me. Serpent 55 always brings up the captcha for me, left-click or right-click, and then doesn't pass the challenge. Maybe it is the user agent that Cloudflare is balking at, as @AstroSkipper suggested earlier.

R3dfox also brought up the captcha, but I just pasted the URL, so there wouldn't have been a referer. That's probably why. (I know "referer" isn't the correct spelling, but it's how Mozilla spells it.) Bringing up MSFN in R3dfox, signing in, browsing to this thread, and then clicking one of the links might have worked, but I just wanted to get the file. R3dfox passed the challenge of course.

Since my wget batch file is working again, it doesn't really matter to me now.

[AstroSkipper]

21 hours ago, Mathwiz said:

AstroSkipper, I didn't say I had a static IP address. I said "I don't really have an option to change my IP address though.

That's why I thought you were using a static IP. But if you can get a new IP via power-cycling, then your IP is of course assigned dynamically, and, however,  you are then also able to reconnect by different options, a reconnect tool, a self-created script or whatever. BTW, my reconnect batch file uses curl.exe, and my router can even be reconnected by an Android app.  If you wonder why a reconnect is such important, the answer is easy. Once your current external IP is blacklisted by a website or service, you need to reconnect your router or establish a VPN connection and delete your cookies and cache logically first.  This is, of course, age-old knowledge, and I’ve been doing it this way for decades.  BTW, I never had any problems connecting to https://o.rthost.win. 

Edited 4 hours ago by AstroSkipper