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Best Browser for WinXP?



 
 
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  #16  
Old July 1st 18, 07:31 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,alt.windows7.general
J. P. Gilliver (John)[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,679
Default logging in to YouTube (Google)

In message , Mayayana
writes:
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote

FF used email as well, but had pre-filled it in for me.


That's probably FF remembering form fields, rather
than a cookie.


Well, the page (in Normal Firefox) also shows my Google picture, which I
wouldn't have thought would be remembered in anything. (Neither the
email nor the picture appears in a Firefox "Private Browsing" window.)

I don't know what to make of all that, but it does
seem like you're getting different scripts. The two


Seems likely - the two pages look different, and behave differently
(well, the Chrome one doesn't do anything).
[]
There's no explanation for that based on simply
using different browsers. But Google webpages
are extremely complex, with a lot of script. It's


Obviously too much so for their own good in this case!
hard to know what they might be doing. It could
also be a bug on their end.

I wonder what would happen if you enter the
FF URL into Chrome.


Here's what I've just done:
Opened a new Private Browsing window in Firefox 27.
Gone to youtube.com.
Clicked SIGN IN.
Copied the URL to Chrome. It was
https://accounts.google.com/ServiceL...2F%2Fwww.youtu
be.com%2Fsignin%3Faction_handle_signin%3Dtrue%26ne xt%3D%252Fsupported_bro
wsers%253Fnext_url%253D%25252F%26feature%3Dsign_in _button%26app%3Ddesktop
%26hl%3Den-GB&passive=true&uilel=3&service=youtube&hl=en-GB#identifier

I get what looks like the same page as I've had before in Chrome.

Here's what I get: http://255soft.uk/temp/Clipboard01.jpg
Shows the two windows side by side (I've narrowed the Firefox-private
one so you can see all the Chrome one). Below is what's in the Chrome
URL bar now - I don't know why it's different from the above, as it was
cut and pasted _from_ the above; either it immediately redirected, or
has changed as a result of my trying to enter an address and press enter
or click NEXT. However, _whatever_ I do on the Chrome window (enter any
address, including the fake one shown, and press enter or click NEXT;
or, click on the Forgot ... or Create ... links), Nothing Happens - it
just sits there.

https://accounts.google.com/signin/v...ttps%3A%2F%2Fw
ww.youtube.com%2Fsignin%3Faction_handle_signin%3Dt rue%26next%3D%252Fsuppo
rted_browsers%253Fnext_url%253D%25252F%26feature%3 Dsign_in_button%26app%3
Ddesktop%26hl%3Den-GB&passive=true&uilel=3&service=youtube&hl=en-GB&flowN
ame=GlifWebSignIn&flowEntry=ServiceLogin#identifie r

I've just fired up IE11 (I had to look to see what it was - I never use
it), entered youtube.com, and clicked Sign In. It takes me to

https://accounts.google.com/signin/v...ttps%3A%2F%2Fw
ww.youtube.com%2Fsignin%3Fnext%3D%252F%26hl%3Den-GB%26feature%3Dsign_in_b
utton%26app%3Ddesktop%26action_handle_signin%3Dtru e&hl=en-GB&passive=true
&service=youtube&uilel=3&flowName=GlifWebSignIn&fl owEntry=ServiceLogin

, which looks identical to the Chrome window, with the _exception_ that
it has "Google" in coloured letters (image rather than text) above "Sign
in". But if I type in an email and press enter or click NEXT, it behaves
as the Chrome one does - i. e. nothing happens.

I'd be interested to hear what _you_ see with any of the above URLs in
any of your browsers - and, if you get something that looks like what I
see in Chrome or IE, whether _anything_ happens if you enter an email (a
fake one will do) and press enter or click NEXT.

Incidentally: YouTube's normal functions - the playing of video clips,
searching for same, chaining to other video clips - works fine for me in
Chrome, if I use their services _without_ signing in; I just can't (for
example) leave comments, vote a video up or down, or similar. Just like
anyone else using YouTube "anonymously". (Which I've put in quotes as
I'm sure they do know enough about me from tracking etcetera.) Works
better than in Firefox 27, in fact; some of those normal functions don't
work in that old browser (videos usually play sound-only, for example).
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they
don't want to hear. - Preface to "Animal Farm"
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  #17  
Old July 1st 18, 08:23 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,alt.windows7.general
J. P. Gilliver (John)[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,679
Default logging in to YouTube (Google) [SOLVED]

STOP PRESS:

I just tried:

o blanking my hosts file (taking a copy of course!)
o reload on YouTube login page on Chrome

and this time, it actually let me log in.

So YouTube's login, when accessed using up-to-date Chrome, obviously
loads something from a different site (or set of sites) than their login
when accessed with Firefox 27.

Poor script/webpage design, though, to have designed a page that appears
to do nothing, rather than generate an error message.

I've restored my hosts file, and was still able to vote for a video, and
add a comment to one. Let's hope it remembers enough cookies etc.! But
at least I know how to get round it again if I have to.

(No, I'm not going to work through all of my hosts file to see which was
the line it needed!)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Some people don't seem to be happy without a reason to be unhappy -
Roderick Stewart , in uk.tech.broadcast 2017-8-10
  #18  
Old July 1st 18, 01:09 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
No_Name
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 326
Default Best Browser for WinXP?

Unbelievably, Chrome doesn't offer that option. There is an
extension - called, perhaps unsurprisingly, "Blank New Tab Page"
that gives it to you (though it actually loads a blank page rather
than no page, so it [a] appears in the history [b] takes a short
but non-zero time).


Can you not create your own local blank page and tell Chrome to make it
your home page?


Hi,

Yes you can.

I used an empty folder at the root of my HD as the default page.
Example, "C:\BLANK". This solved that problem.

John

  #19  
Old July 1st 18, 01:57 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,alt.windows7.general
Mayayana
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 6,438
Default logging in to YouTube (Google) [SOLVED]

"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote


| (No, I'm not going to work through all of my hosts file to see which was
| the line it needed!)

Here's what I find it that page:
(I keep a handy VBScript on my desktop to extract
URLs from a downloaded webpage, for use with HOSTS.)

accounts.google.com
fonts.gstatic.com
ssl.gstatic.com
www.youtube.com
www.gstatic.com
support.google.com
www.google.com
accounts.youtube.com
lh3.googleusercontent.com

Though some of those, like the gstatic URLs,
will allow Google to follow you around online if you
enable them. You apparently don't mind, but anyone
who doesn't like Google's spying should be aware
that many commercial sites now load fonts from
Google. Generally for no good reason. I suspect it
might be part of Google analytics package. And a lot
of commercial sites want to use Google analytics. By
allowing Google to spy on their customers they get
to share in the data. Even a lot of smaller sites use
GA because they don't know how to read their own
server logs, or because their websites are not
directly hosted on a real server that has logs. (For
instance, I doubt people who put their site on
Wordpress or Wix get server logs. It's sort of like
setting up a site on one's own ISP -- a limited
functionality for people who want to build a website
using drag-drop techniques. If they can figure out
how to add Google analytics code then Google will
give them access to a visitor report.)

The URLs above are only the ones that are not
obfuscated. There could be others. Google's
webpages are incredibly messy; obfuscation on top of
obfuscation. And almost pure script. It's not a webpage
at all. It's a very large piece of secretive software.

It's become fashionable to "minify" and obfuscate such
code. So even if you try to read it, it's very difficult to
figure out what it's doing. In some cases the code itself
is encoded in Base64 or some other encoding. Then when
that's decoded you just get something like:

a=function(b,c,d,e,f)

The first landing page even uses deliberately nonsensical
CSS code to make it unreadable:

div class="kRoyt MbhUzd" jsname="ksKsZd"

I don't know what "jsname" is. It's not a valid HTML
attribute. So it may be a custom thing that Google's
using.

Also worth noting is that Google is using code to
block bots. But I don't know the details of that.

|
| Poor script/webpage design, though, to have designed a page that appears
| to do nothing, rather than generate an error message.
|

Yes. That's surprisingly common. But I wouldn't
rule out the possibility that they're trying to break
other browsers. I'd consider it more likely than not.
Google have become very pushy about their walled
spyware garden.

A few years ago Microsoft had a site. I don't
remember exactly what it was now, but I think it
was something like a survey for Windows developers,
about what they wanted to see in products. At
any rate, it was along those lines. Not meant for
the general public.
I went to the site and found it broken. A big
discussion ensued in one of the programming groups.
It turned out that MS had craftily broken the site
for anything but IE. No messages or warnings. It
was just broken. Interestingly, a number of party
line programmers thought I was being anti-Microsoft
to even suggest that. I had to prove it with code
samples.



  #20  
Old July 1st 18, 08:37 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,alt.windows7.general
J. P. Gilliver (John)[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,679
Default logging in to YouTube (Google) [SOLVED]

In message , Mayayana
writes:
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote


| (No, I'm not going to work through all of my hosts file to see which was
| the line it needed!)

Here's what I find it that page:
(I keep a handy VBScript on my desktop to extract
URLs from a downloaded webpage, for use with HOSTS.)

accounts.google.com
fonts.gstatic.com
ssl.gstatic.com
www.youtube.com
www.gstatic.com
support.google.com
www.google.com
accounts.youtube.com
lh3.googleusercontent.com


Of those, the only ones in my hosts file were ssl.gstatic and
www.youtube, and www.youtube was actually commented out. So ssl.gstatic
could be the one - or, as you say, another one that's obfuscated beyond
the capabilities of your VBscript.
[]
The URLs above are only the ones that are not
obfuscated. There could be others. Google's
webpages are incredibly messy; obfuscation on top of
obfuscation. And almost pure script. It's not a webpage
at all. It's a very large piece of secretive software.


Along with many webpages these days )-:.
[]
Yes. That's surprisingly common. But I wouldn't
rule out the possibility that they're trying to break
other browsers. I'd consider it more likely than not.
Google have become very pushy about their walled
spyware garden.


But in this case, pleasingly, it's their own Chrome in which it didn't
work for me!
[]
I was going to add at least a comment to that line in the hosts file,
but something's preventing me saving the modified hosts file. I had this
a few months ago, and I can't remember what it was, other than that it
was something highly unexpected. It's obviously happened in the last day
or two, as I was able to save a completely blank one when I discovered
that that's what was stopping the login page working.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Where [other presenters] tackle the world with a box of watercolours, he
takes a spanner. - David Butcher (on Guy Martin), RT 2015/1/31-2/6
  #22  
Old July 2nd 18, 10:01 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,alt.windows7.general
Mayayana
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 6,438
Default logging in to YouTube (Google) [SOLVED]

"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote

| I was going to add at least a comment to that line in the hosts file,
| but something's preventing me saving the modified hosts file. I had this
| a few months ago, and I can't remember what it was, other than that it
| was something highly unexpected.

Blocking HOSTS edits has become common
because malware sometimes tries to edit it.
So AV and firewalls may interfere, along with
Windows file restrictions.


  #23  
Old July 2nd 18, 10:11 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,alt.windows7.general
J. P. Gilliver (John)[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,679
Default logging in to YouTube (Google) [SOLVED]

In message , Mayayana
writes:
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote

| I was going to add at least a comment to that line in the hosts file,
| but something's preventing me saving the modified hosts file. I had this
| a few months ago, and I can't remember what it was, other than that it
| was something highly unexpected.

Blocking HOSTS edits has become common
because malware sometimes tries to edit it.
So AV and firewalls may interfere, along with
Windows file restrictions.


I didn't remember what the offender had been the last time. I managed to
save the change this time by
o saving from NotePad+ as hosts.txt
o deleting hosts
o renaming hosts.txt to hosts (IIRR accepting a warning window on the
way)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Capital flows toward lower costs like a river to lowest ground.
"MJ", 2015-12-05
  #26  
Old July 4th 18, 09:23 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
R.Wieser
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,302
Default Best Browser for WinXP?

Steve,

I reverted to FF 41, as the later versions were too bloated
and kept crashing.


Do you know anything about the difference of encryption suites between FF 41
and 52 ? Some time ago I have sought for something, anything which would
desccribe it in relation to the different FF versions, but could not find
it.

And I don't like that 52 too much either - for one it has got a nice number
of URLs it wants to call "home" to, with nothing decent I could find to
easily disallow it. Second is that IIRC "pocket" stuff that I have not been
able to disable/remove.

By the way: the webs dropping of older encryption suites is why I need to
replace FF 16, and why I would like to know what 41 supports (no fun to keep
replacing versions)

Regards,
Rudy Wieser


  #27  
Old July 11th 18, 06:36 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Steve Hayes[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,089
Default Best Browser for WinXP?

On Wed, 4 Jul 2018 22:23:45 +0200, "R.Wieser"
wrote:

Steve,

I reverted to FF 41, as the later versions were too bloated
and kept crashing.


Do you know anything about the difference of encryption suites between FF 41
and 52 ? Some time ago I have sought for something, anything which would
desccribe it in relation to the different FF versions, but could not find
it.

And I don't like that 52 too much either - for one it has got a nice number
of URLs it wants to call "home" to, with nothing decent I could find to
easily disallow it. Second is that IIRC "pocket" stuff that I have not been
able to disable/remove.


I think it was the "pocket" stuff that made FF so bloated and
unusable, so I went back to a version that didn't have it, and would
run without crashing, or freezing while it swapped to disk.

By the way: the webs dropping of older encryption suites is why I need to
replace FF 16, and why I would like to know what 41 supports (no fun to keep
replacing versions)


I'm not sure about that -- perhaps someone else knows.



--
Steve Hayes
http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
http://khanya.wordpress.com
  #28  
Old July 23rd 18, 03:23 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Gogo268
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1
Default Best Browser for WinXP?

the best browser you can get is seamonkey:

http://seamonkey-project.org/ (i hope that is the correct url)

its made by mozilla it looks like netscape still updated to this day uses
firefox ESR code i have been using it for years works really nicely
Steve Hayes wrote in message
...
On Wed, 4 Jul 2018 22:23:45 +0200, "R.Wieser"
wrote:

Steve,

I reverted to FF 41, as the later versions were too bloated
and kept crashing.


Do you know anything about the difference of encryption suites between FF

41
and 52 ? Some time ago I have sought for something, anything which

would
desccribe it in relation to the different FF versions, but could not find
it.

And I don't like that 52 too much either - for one it has got a nice

number
of URLs it wants to call "home" to, with nothing decent I could find to
easily disallow it. Second is that IIRC "pocket" stuff that I have not

been
able to disable/remove.


I think it was the "pocket" stuff that made FF so bloated and
unusable, so I went back to a version that didn't have it, and would
run without crashing, or freezing while it swapped to disk.

By the way: the webs dropping of older encryption suites is why I need to
replace FF 16, and why I would like to know what 41 supports (no fun to

keep
replacing versions)


I'm not sure about that -- perhaps someone else knows.



--
Steve Hayes
http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
http://khanya.wordpress.com



  #29  
Old July 24th 18, 05:08 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Ant[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 554
Default Best Browser for WinXP?

Gogo268 wrote:
the best browser you can get is seamonkey:


http://seamonkey-project.org/ (i hope that is the correct url)


its made by mozilla it looks like netscape still updated to this day uses
firefox ESR code i have been using it for years works really nicely


For v2.49.x, yes. See https://www.seamonkey-project.org/releases/legacy
web page since future versions will drop XP, Server 2003, Vista, and
Server 2008.

--
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