Any way to TRICK my Firefox to appear to be a later version?

| Version 2 or, at least, version 3 is not a wrapper or shell extension.
| Those can use the Trident rendering engine (if that's what you elect
| since, I believe, WebKit is chosen by default) but that doesn't make it
| an IE wrapper.

If it's using the IE window it's an IE wrapper. Even
a lot of Internet functionality on Windows is actually
IE wrapper. APIs to download files, for instance
URLDownloadToFile which is popular, use the IE cache
and set IE cookies. Many programmers don't even know
that, thinking those functions are Windows functions.
The libraries urlmon.dll and wininet.dll, containing the
Internet functions, are both part of IE and get updated
with IE, not with Windows. If a page is rendered in
the so-called Trident engine it will be in an IE window,
using IE settings.
Even if the browser directly handled the server
communication itself (very unlikely) it would still be
loading the page into IE.

| Lots of web browsers use [or used to use] the WebKit
| engine but that doesn't make them all the same web browser, either, or a
| "wrapper" program.

Unless they're editing WebKit then it does. My
understanding is that WebKit is open source, though,
so that's different. The people making the non-spyware
version of Chrome (Iron?) say they've had to rewrite
the code to take out Google's tentacles.

I suppose we could define a wrapper in a lot of
ways. I just bring it up to clarify that IE-based
browsers are not really separate from IE.

| As to you being able to write your own browser...
|
| Yesterday was /March 1st/ not April 1st
|

Making a browser in a few minutes used to be
a popular beginner lesson in VB. VB has a
"WebBrowser" activeX control, which is basically
IE's browser window. IE itself is just the "chrome"
around that browser window. So in VB one can
plop a WB control onto a form and voila, it's a
browser. The rest is just providing "chrome" for
usability, like adding an address bar to let the
user go to a website. The browser window control
is almost exactly IE, even down to every detail of
script and CSS object models and context menus.
The differences are minute and technical.

That's the point I'm trying to clarify. Making a rendering
engine is a massive undertaking. Wrapping a window
and menu around an existing engine is not. It's not
actually writing a browser at all. It's more like ordering
Chinese food and then taking it out of the boxes and
putting it onto plates. You could say that you made
dinner, but only hungry college students would go
along with that view of things.

That's why there are so many IE wrapper browsers.
They just use the window and add their own
menus, etc. It's important to know that the history
and security settings will be the same as with IE.

Those wrapper browsers could have more control by
doing something like combining their browser with a mime
filter that would allow them access to webpages
before they load, but I doubt they do that. Even if
they did, the page is still ultimately going to render in
an IE window.

Mayayana wrote:
attribution lines re-added that were deliberately omitted by Mayayana

Vanguard wrote:

Version 2 or, at least, version 3 is not a wrapper or shell extension.
Those can use the Trident rendering engine (if that's what you elect
since, I believe, WebKit is chosen by default) but that doesn't make it
an IE wrapper.

If it's using the IE window it's an IE wrapper. Even a lot of Internet
functionality on Windows is actually IE wrapper. APIs to download
files, for instance URLDownloadToFile which is popular, use the IE
cache and set IE cookies. Many programmers don't even know that,
thinking those functions are Windows functions. The libraries
urlmon.dll and wininet.dll, containing the Internet functions, are
both part of IE and get updated with IE, not with Windows. If a page
is rendered in the so-called Trident engine it will be in an IE
window, using IE settings.

Even if the browser directly handled the server communication itself
(very unlikely) it would still be loading the page into IE.

You make a lot of assumptions none of which I see are true or verified.
Someone who uses Maxthon can attest to whether or not it is a wrapper.
Also, you like to impugn use of the Trident engine as requiring use of
the other IE libs and that surely the app using Trident must be using
the IE window. Nope. Using a rendering engine does not make the app
and HTA (HTML Application) that relies on the IE libs.

Lots of web browsers use [or used to use] the WebKit engine but that
doesn't make them all the same web browser, either, or a "wrapper"
program.

Unless they're editing WebKit then it does. My understanding is that
WebKit is open source, though, so that's different.

Being open source is not required to utilize a rendering engine. You
only need to code your app to utilize the API for the rendering engine.
By your argument, every program that uses the C runtime libraries are
all the same program with front end wrappers.

It looks like you're simply trying to qualify your dislike for IE by
claiming anything that uses the Trident engine must be a variant of IE,
just like everything that uses the MS C runtime redistributables must be
variants of the same program. Doesn't work that way.

The people making the non-spyware version of Chrome (Iron?) say
they've had to rewrite the code to take out Google's tentacles.

That also was long ago. Some but not all of the "bad" Google code has
disappeared. Plus Google Chrome is based on Chrome just as are many
other web browsers. Google added their stuff to the Chrome program.
Iron also uses Chrome but decided not to employ Google's modifications.
There are a LOT of web browsers that are based off of Chrome. There is
Chrome and then there are all the web browsers that variate their code
off of Chrome, like Google Chrome, Iron, Comodo Dragon. They aren't
based off Google Chrome which is a derivative of Chromium. They are
based off the Chromium code for the web browser they want to author. If
you wanted just the base Chromium web browser then you get the code and
compile it yourself. If you want to alter or add to the Chromium web
browser, you alter or add code, just like Google, SRware, and other
authors did. [Google] Chrome and others are based on Chromium, not the
other way around.

I suppose we could define a wrapper in a lot of ways. I just bring it
up to clarify that IE-based browsers are not really separate from IE.

Then, according to you, all C++ and .Net programs running under Windows
employing those coding platforms are all wrappers of each other. Hmm,
sounds like you really are just classifying the programs as Windows
programs.

We'll probably just continue to disagree on what constitutes a wrapper.
To me, programs that make use of APIs made available in Windows do not
constitute those programs as being clones or wrappers of each other. Of
course, there are still some programmers that code in assembly and
machine code for the CPU and don't need OS-level APIs.

On 03/02/2015 09:07 PM, Mayayana wrote:


snip


That's the point I'm trying to clarify. Making a rendering
engine is a massive undertaking. Wrapping a window
and menu around an existing engine is not. It's not
actually writing a browser at all. It's more like ordering
Chinese food and then taking it out of the boxes and
putting it onto plates. You could say that you made
dinner, but only hungry college students would go
along with that view of things.

That's why there are so many IE wrapper browsers.
They just use the window and add their own
menus, etc. It's important to know that the history
and security settings will be the same as with IE.

Those wrapper browsers could have more control by
doing something like combining their browser with a mime
filter that would allow them access to webpages
before they load, but I doubt they do that. Even if
they did, the page is still ultimately going to render in
an IE window.




Ok, to me it seemed like you were saying you could write one from scratch.

Anyway, as to the function of Maxthon ...no need for me to repeat what
Ken Blake already posted, he summed it up quite well.

At any rate I mentioned Maxthon simply because the OP says he refuses to
update past Win98 and Win2k.


With all the machines I setup , however...if they cannot run ...at the
very least...Vista

I set them up as Linux machines or else send them off to the recycler.

| Version 2 or, at least, version 3 is not a wrapper or shell extension.
| Those can use the Trident rendering engine (if that's what you elect
| since, I believe, WebKit is chosen by default) but that doesn't make it
| an IE wrapper.

I tried installing T3. First, it seems to be adware
and cloud spyware. (The actual cloud version wouldn't
even install. Apparently it requires an Internet
connection.) I find very little in terms of settings.
No options to disable script? Cookie settings seem to
be all or nothing. Did I miss something? On startup it
wanted me to get a "passport" membership. This is
your favorite browser?

In looking at the program files I didn't find any
reference to dependencies on either shdocvw.dll
or mshtml.dll, the IE libraries. It's not clear how the
page gets displayed. But there is reference to
wininet.dll If you look up the following list of functions
called by Maxthon libraries you'll see that it's using
wininet to get pages. Why does that matter? Beause
wininet is IE. Notice that some of the funtions relate
to cookies. Those are not Maxthon cookies. Those
are IE cookies. Microsoft might like to say they're
Windows cookies, because they like to conflate IE
with Windows, but the Windows cookie cache is the
IE cookie cache. Some of those functions also relate
to cache. That, of course, is IE cache. If you use
anything higher level than winsock you're using IE,
which includes IE cookies and cache.

MxTrident.dll
wininet.dll
DeleteUrlCacheEntryW
FindCloseUrlCache
FindFirstUrlCacheEntryW
FindNextUrlCacheEntryW
InternetSetCookieExA

mxcore.dll
wininet
HttpOpenRequestA
HttpSendRequestA
InternetConnectA
InternetReadFile

| You make a lot of assumptions none of which I see are true or verified.
| Someone who uses Maxthon can attest to whether or not it is a wrapper.

No, they can't. That's why I'm explaining it. People
should know if they risk privacy or security through
IE when they think they're not using IE. Try writing
some code to call a webpage using any Windows
functionality other than a direct server conversation
via winsock and see if you don't end up with files in
your IE cache.

|
| It looks like you're simply trying to qualify your dislike for IE by
| claiming anything that uses the Trident engine must be a variant of IE,

I love IE, actually. I love writing HTAs and I always
write webpages first for IE. I also love the shell integration
that allows me to design all sorts of custom functionality.
I love ActiveX controls and write them myself.
I just don't think IE is fit for use online. I think that for
the same reasons that I love IE: IE is far too integrated
into Windows to be safe for online use.

| Then, according to you, all C++ and .Net programs running under Windows
| employing those coding platforms are all wrappers of each other.

That's an interesting point. .Net *is* a wrapper.
That's really the whole point of .Net. That's also
why it's such a resource hog. The idea was to create
a sandboxed VM like Java. But Microsoft didn't go
and write thousands of new native functions just
for .Net to use. You call into .Net and .Net calls into
the Win32 API. To use C++ is to cut out the .Net
middleman.

There are lots of levels of wrappers. Many software
programs are simple wrappers. There's nothing wrong
with wrappers. But it's worth knowing about the details
sometimes, as in the case where something is wrapping
IE.
Wrappers are just encapsulated code to make things
easier. You do scripting. That's a good example.
Scrrun.dll wraps Windows functions to provide file
system access to scripts. There's nothing wrong with
that, but it is a wrapper, which means more dependencies
and less efficiency.

I like to think of it like cooking. Windows is the kitchen --
the software platform. Someone writing native code is
cooking food in the kitchen: pasta made with flour;
spaghetti sauce made with fresh tomatoes, basil, etc.
Someone else might use a "tomato wrapper", buying
canned tomatoes. One can also buy premade spaghetti.
On the level of .Net one is buying premade spaghetti
sauce and just heating it up. On the level of script
we're usually buying spaghetti take-out. It's all spaghetti,
but each level up trades control for convenience.

There's a handy program called Universal Extractor that
unpacks software installers. It's nothing but a UI wrapper
for a number of small programs. There's a program called
LesMSIerables for unpacking MSI files. It's nothing but a
wrapper around Wix libraries, which are nothing but a
Microsoft wrapper around msi.dll! LesMSIerables is
"open source software". But that doesn't mean much.
There's hardly any code. It's a frozen spaghetti dinner,
so to speak. It works fine. There's no problem that it's
a two-level wrapper, aside from the unavoidable bloat
and dependencies. On the other hand, if someone
invites you over for a spaghetti dinner, wouldn't you be
a bit dismayed to see them pop a frozen dinner into
a microwave? (I hope so. The place where wrappers
become a problem is when someone thinks they're cooking
by popping a frozen dinner into a microwave. Then one
ends up with unexpected things, like a history stored
in the IE cache despite never having run IE.

| To me, programs that make use of APIs made available in Windows do not
| constitute those programs as being clones or wrappers of each other.

I'd go along with that. Technically Windows itself is
a wrapper, but I'm only talking about wrappers on top
of the Win32 API. Programs that use IE/Trident are such
wrappers. But the terminology gets tricky. Do we call
wininet.dll a Win32 API library? It's presented that way,
but as I explained above, it's really part of IE. And that's
not just a technical description. Files in the IE cache and
IE cookies stored are very real ramifications of using the
wininet functions. So wininet is a kind of wrapper, perhaps
analagous to scrrun.dll. It's there for programmers to use
but it wraps the more tricky sockets functionality and
adds conveniences for browsers.

Further testing.... There seems to be no way
to stop it looking for updates, and the "blank"
page is full of ads. What a mess.

I finally figured out how to control/know which
browser is loading. I switched to IE view. If you
load a webpage, switch to IE view, then open a
program like Spy++, you can see that embedded
in the window hierarchy for the tab is the IE
hierarchy. Maxthon has a tab window of class
Maxthon3Cls_BrowserView. Under that are windows
with class names Shell Embedding, Shell DocObject
View and Internet Explorer_Server.
Internet Explorer_Server is the class name of an
IE browser window. It essentially is IE.

Here's a better demonstration of how Maxthon is actually
an IE wrapper. Some time ago I wrote a scripting
component to provide shell functions. It can iterate windows,
returning window title, class name, handle, etc. It also
has a method to return the Document object from any
open IE browser window. (Technically IE is the wrapper for
the browser window, but for convenience I'm calling the
browser window itself IE.)

The component is available he

http://www.jsware.net/jsware/compfiles.php5#jsshl

To run this test, download the component and register it,
preferably on a 32-bit system. (If 64-bit it must go in the
32-bit system folder and WScript 32-bit must be used to
run the following script.)

1) Having registered the component, load any webpage
into Maxthon, preferably with a unique title.

2) Save the code below as a .vbs file and edit the line
with "Best Of..", replacing that text with unique text from
the webpage title.

3) Switch Maxthon to IE view by clicking the lightning
bolt so that a blue square with a squiggle appears.

4) Run the script. If you followed the steps above you
should see the webpage disappear and "Yikes!!!!" will
take its place, as a simple confirmation that the script
now has control of the IE Document object in Maxthon.

(If you have any trouble I know you know how to
troubleshoot the script.)

'-- begin script -- watch for wordwrap.---

Dim jsS, jsSWins, jsSChildWins, iCount, sTitle, sCls, i2, A1, i3
Dim H3, H4, T3, TIE, HIE, IEDoc, Boo1
Set jsS = CreateObject("jsShell.Ops")
Set jsSWins = jsS.GetOpenWindows

'-- This goes through top level windows to find the
'-- Maxthon webpage window.

i2 = jsSWins.GetOpenWindowTitles(A1)
If i2 0 Then
For i3 = 0 to i2 - 1
sTitle = A1(i3)

'-- Edit this next line, replacing "Best Of.." with unique
'-- text from the webpage title.

If InStr(sTitle, "Best Of..") 0 Then
H3 = jsSWins.GetWindowHandleFromTitle(sTitle)
Exit For
End If
Next
End If

'-- Most of this is not actually necessary. It's just
'-- going through the browser child windows to
'-- confirm that there is a window of class
'-- Internet Explorer_Server. Any window with that
'-- class name is an IE browser window.
'-- Having confirmed the page is loaded in IE, the
'-- script then calls GetIEDocFromHandle to get
'-- a reference to the IE Document object. (jsShell
'-- is using the method ObjectFromLresult in oleacc.dll.
'-- Since IE is woven throughout the Windows shell and
'-- COM compatible, it's always possible to access
'-- instances as automation objects.)
'-- The script then writes "Yikes!!!!" to demonstrate
'-- that it has control of the IE Document object.

If H3 0 Then
Set jsSChildWins = jsSWins.GetChildWindows(H3, True, iCount)
For i2 = 1 to iCount
H4 = jsSChildWins.GetWindowHandleByIndex(i2)
sCls = jsSChildWins.GetWindowClassNameFromHandle(H4)
If InStr(sCls, "Internet Explorer") 0 Then
Set IEDoc = jsSWins.GetIEDocFromHandle(H3, Boo1)
If Boo1 = True Then
IEDoc.write "Yikes!!!!"
End If
Exit For
End If
Next
End If

Set IEDoc = Nothing
Set jsSChildWins = Nothing
Set jsSWins = Nothing
Set jsS = Nothing

'--end script -----

On 03/03/2015 09:54 AM, Mayayana wrote:
| Version 2 or, at least, version 3 is not a wrapper or shell extension.
| Those can use the Trident rendering engine (if that's what you elect
| since, I believe, WebKit is chosen by default) but that doesn't make it
| an IE wrapper.





snip


I went to the Maxthon website and see they have three choices for
Windows downloads:


One of them is just a small installer stub and you would need an
Internet connection for it to install.


A second option is to download the whole thing and presumably no network
connection would be needed.


They also have a portable version where no installation is needed.

Once the 7zip archive is open, the browser will run from there.



I did find a Win98 vdi and now know that the current version of Maxthon
will not run on Win98

as to Win2k , I don't know

| One of them is just a small installer stub and you would need an
| Internet connection for it to install.

Yes, but I actually downloaded the full version
installer of their "cloud browser". It just stopped
partway during install. I'm guessing it was trying
to get online. Typically software that does that
tends to do it on the sly, so if there's no connection
it just stalls.

That cloud package was 38 MB.

Then when that failed to install I tried the
Classic, which I assumed was the non-cloud version.
That one is 3.2 MB, but clearly wasn't the right thing.

Finally I downloaded Maxthon 3, 28MB, and
installed that. That's the one I tested for an
IE window.

They seem to be trying to steer
people to their cloud browser. The link for Maxthon
3 was only at the bottom of a page in the support
section. I wouldn't have found it if not for
VanguardLH having mentioned v.3 and v. 2.

Having tried it out a bit I'm baffled as to why
anyone with experience would want to use Maxthon.
If one likes WebKit then surely there must be
a better version, with more settings control, than
what Maxthon provides.

On 03/04/2015 03:39 PM, Mayayana wrote:
| One of them is just a small installer stub and you would need an
| Internet connection for it to install.

Yes, but I actually downloaded the full version
installer of their "cloud browser". It just stopped
partway during install. I'm guessing it was trying
to get online. Typically software that does that
tends to do it on the sly, so if there's no connection
it just stalls.

That cloud package was 38 MB.

Then when that failed to install I tried the
Classic, which I assumed was the non-cloud version.
That one is 3.2 MB, but clearly wasn't the right thing.

Finally I downloaded Maxthon 3, 28MB, and
installed that. That's the one I tested for an
IE window.

They seem to be trying to steer
people to their cloud browser. The link for Maxthon
3 was only at the bottom of a page in the support
section. I wouldn't have found it if not for
VanguardLH having mentioned v.3 and v. 2.

Having tried it out a bit I'm baffled as to why
anyone with experience would want to use Maxthon.
If one likes WebKit then surely there must be
a better version, with more settings control, than
what Maxthon provides.





I have seven browsers installed...most of the time I just use Firefox
but once in a while a Google search leads to an unresolved Boolean.

I then try another browser and it usually works.


Having seven browsers does not really take up any significant space on
my hard drive...and if I do need to clean things up a bit, simply delete
old iso's.


Anyway, since the Op is using Win98 and Win2k he is obviously not too
concerned about security.



There is probably a Linux distribution that would work fine on his
machine...but that's his business and not mine.

Did the original poster ever answer a reply?????

| Did the original poster ever answer a reply?????

I guess not. It should be surprising how many
people never follow up, I suppose, but it's very
common, so if the question is clear I just treat
it as a public question. If the OP then wants more
help they can always ask.