Browser?

In message , Bill in Co
writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Mayayana
writes:
[]
Iframes is just one of many technical issues worth
knowing about if you *really* want to be safe online.
Keeping your browser updated is only partial protection
and comes with disadvantages. In the case of Firefox
those disadvantages have become substantial. They're
completely ignoring what people want as they turn FF
into an obnline services portal viewer.


Unfortunately, blocking Iframes breaks lots of things - such as, IIRR,
the captcha on ebay. Without giving any indication that that's the cause
of the problem, unfortunately.

(As for Firefox, I'm sticking at 26. I like your description of later
versions as an online services portal viewer!)

Is there much difference between ver 26 and 28? You could go up to ver 28,
and it might buy you some more time (meaning before its too dated to render
pages well (if at all) anymore, like what's happened to IE8).

(Ver 29 and later is when that Australis GUI came in)


I know that, thanks. But, as you say, is there that much difference
between 26 and 28 - so would going to 28 give me much more time? (I have
28 on my W7 machine.) I don't have anything against 28 - just the hassle
of (finding and) upgrading to it for little gain.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Once you've started swinging, chimp-like, through the branches of your family
tree, you might easily end up anywhere. - Alexander Armstrong, RT 2014/8/23-29

|
| Unfortunately, blocking Iframes breaks lots of things - such as, IIRR,
| the captcha on ebay. Without giving any indication that that's the cause
| of the problem, unfortunately.
|

Yes. I've noticed that. Most captchas are set up
as services from 3rd-party websites. I use Pale Moon
with almost everything disabled, which handles most
sites OK. Then I also have FF with frames enabled,
session cookies enabled, and the noscript extension.
If a site doesn't work I just reload it in FF and then
enable script as required. For my purposes that works
fine. I don't need FF very often. But I suspect that
someone who goes between, say, gmail, facebook and twitter
would need frames, script and cookies almost constantly.

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Bill in Co
writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Mayayana
writes:
[]
Iframes is just one of many technical issues worth
knowing about if you *really* want to be safe online.
Keeping your browser updated is only partial protection
and comes with disadvantages. In the case of Firefox
those disadvantages have become substantial. They're
completely ignoring what people want as they turn FF
into an obnline services portal viewer.


Unfortunately, blocking Iframes breaks lots of things - such as, IIRR,
the captcha on ebay. Without giving any indication that that's the cause
of the problem, unfortunately.

(As for Firefox, I'm sticking at 26. I like your description of later
versions as an online services portal viewer!)

Is there much difference between ver 26 and 28? You could go up to ver
28,
and it might buy you some more time (meaning before its too dated to
render
pages well (if at all) anymore, like what's happened to IE8).

(Ver 29 and later is when that Australis GUI came in)


I know that, thanks. But, as you say, is there that much difference
between 26 and 28 - so would going to 28 give me much more time? (I have
28 on my W7 machine.) I don't have anything against 28 - just the hassle
of (finding and) upgrading to it for little gain.
--

Well, as an engineer like you, I can't really quantify the "much more time"
in this case. Perhaps a little more time, though? :-)

The idea being, each version upgrade has added some upgraded capabilities,
like in its improved HTML5 rendering capabilities (for example), which may
be needed for some sites to render properly (and more so, as time goes on).
So I decided to go just as far as I could to stave off the inevitable, as
long as it avoided the Australis junk). :-) (But I did try it, and
disliked it!)

I look for older software on the oldversion and oldapps websites. In this
particular case, it looks like oldapps wins out. :-)

http://www.oldapps.com/firefox.php

Mayayana wrote:
Unfortunately, blocking Iframes breaks lots of things - such as, IIRR,
the captcha on ebay. Without giving any indication that that's the cause
of the problem, unfortunately.


Yes. I've noticed that. Most captchas are set up
as services from 3rd-party websites. I use Pale Moon
with almost everything disabled, which handles most
sites OK. Then I also have FF with frames enabled,
session cookies enabled, and the noscript extension.
If a site doesn't work I just reload it in FF and then
enable script as required. For my purposes that works
fine. I don't need FF very often. But I suspect that
someone who goes between, say, gmail, facebook and twitter
would need frames, script and cookies almost constantly.

Just as an added footnote, there are a couple of customized builds (atom and
xp) of Pale Moon that will still work with Windows XP, but outside of those
two special builds, Pale Moon has abandoned Windows XP (unfortunately).

Too bad, because like you, I prefer to use Pale Moon, as it's a bit faster
to load, and it works as well as Firefox on most sites.

Bill in Co wrote:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Bill in Co
writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Mayayana
writes:
[]
Iframes is just one of many technical issues worth
knowing about if you *really* want to be safe online.
Keeping your browser updated is only partial protection
and comes with disadvantages. In the case of Firefox
those disadvantages have become substantial. They're
completely ignoring what people want as they turn FF
into an obnline services portal viewer.


Unfortunately, blocking Iframes breaks lots of things - such as, IIRR,
the captcha on ebay. Without giving any indication that that's the cause
of the problem, unfortunately.

(As for Firefox, I'm sticking at 26. I like your description of later
versions as an online services portal viewer!)
Is there much difference between ver 26 and 28? You could go up to ver
28,
and it might buy you some more time (meaning before its too dated to
render
pages well (if at all) anymore, like what's happened to IE8).

(Ver 29 and later is when that Australis GUI came in)


I know that, thanks. But, as you say, is there that much difference
between 26 and 28 - so would going to 28 give me much more time? (I have
28 on my W7 machine.) I don't have anything against 28 - just the hassle
of (finding and) upgrading to it for little gain.
--

Well, as an engineer like you, I can't really quantify the "much more time"
in this case. Perhaps a little more time, though? :-)

The idea being, each version upgrade has added some upgraded capabilities,
like in its improved HTML5 rendering capabilities (for example), which may
be needed for some sites to render properly (and more so, as time goes on).
So I decided to go just as far as I could to stave off the inevitable, as
long as it avoided the Australis junk). :-) (But I did try it, and
disliked it!)

I look for older software on the oldversion and oldapps websites. In this
particular case, it looks like oldapps wins out. :-)

http://www.oldapps.com/firefox.php

I got something even better :-)

For Firefox, *all* the old versions are available.
On the Mozilla server.

For example, if I want Firefox 3.0.19 for US-English, I'd start here.

ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.or...l/win32/en-US/

That URL is a little out of the ordinary, because
there may have been more than one release of 3.0.19.
And that's why some qualifiers were added to the path.

*******

That server isn't intended to deliver copies of Firefox
to everyone in the world. But if you need an older
version for some reason, it's a rather complete collection.

It's possible the source is on there as well. I've probably
downloaded three tarballs from there, and built two of them.
I built a debug version of an old browser, for testing on Win2K,
and it took a couple days of work (and a gigabyte or two of
downloads), to assemble a toolchain to do it.

Firefox/Thunderbird are getting so big now, the linking
phase of building your own browser, requires 3GB of RAM.
You have to modify the boot.ini on a 32 bit OS, change
the kernel/user split to 1GB/3GB, in order for a 32 bit
OS to be usable as a build environment. As projects
go, it's a pig. The reason this is important, is if
you use a virtual machine for the build engine, some
hosting software only allows 32 bit machines. I like a
VM, so the "mess" it makes, doesn't affect the main OS.

Paul

"Mayayana" ha scritto nel messaggio
...

If you want browser security

Of course I want, even if security is not an obsession for me.
I use AdBlock Plus: how much is it useful? I believe/hope it blocks a lot of
dangerous elements, right?

| If you want browser security
|
| Of course I want, even if security is not an obsession for me.
| I use AdBlock Plus: how much is it useful? I believe/hope it blocks a lot
of
| dangerous elements, right?
|

Unfortunately, security is difficult without a
bit of obsession. AdBlock Plus is popular and
seems to be well regarded. I've never used it
myself. That's for blocking ads, which will also
probably help quite a bit to reduce tracking and
thereby help with privacy. But it's not really helpful
with security, unless it happens to block a planted
ad on a hacked website that's been rigged. (That
doies happen, though. The reputation of a website
is no longer a reliable indicator of safety. For instance,
many people who don't know how to write webpage
code use template tools like WordPress. WordPress
has lots of bugs, frequently. I get numerous probes
daily on my own website, mostly from China and E.
Europe, that attempt tto exploit known bugs in
WordPress and similar tools. Once they find a
vulnerability they can hack a site to install attack
code.)

If you want to improve security and don't want
to put a lot of time into figuring it out, I guess the
best "bang for your buck" might be the following:

* Don't allow Adobe plugins like Acrobat and don't
install Java, Silverlight, etc. The vast majority of
sites don't need those things but they're used a
lot in attacks. Also, don't use Internet Explorer.

* If you *must* install Flash you can get a
Flash blocker extension for FF. I don't remember
the name, but it provides a function whereby
you need to click a button in order to play Flash
content. That will help a lot to prevent attacks
from booby trapped Flash ads and the like.

* Install the NoScript extension for Firefox. That
allows you to only enable script as necessary. Some
sites might have script coming from a dozen or more
external sites. The Internet was designed not to allow
such things, but various hacks are used to get around it.
With NoScript you can at least block external script
that's not necessary, improving on both security and
privacy.

Those changes also go a long way to stop irritations
like unwanted popups, intrusive animated cartoon ads,
etc.

If you're concerned with ads you might also consider
a HOSTS file. That's a very easy thing to do and it
does more than anything else to improve privacy. Using
a HOSTS file will take a few minutes to figure out, but
after that it requires little or no effort:

http:www.jsware.net/jsware/privacytips.php5#hosts

http://blogs.msmvps.com/hostsnews/

"Mayayana" ha scritto nel messaggio
...

Mayayana, thank you for your detailed answer.

on my own website

May I/we know what website is it?

| May I/we know what website is it?
|

The first link for the HOSTS file is my site. I maintain
info pages there for browser issues and privacy issues.
The HOSTS file info and download is on the privacy
tips page.

In message , Paul
writes:
[]
I got something even better :-)

For Firefox, *all* the old versions are available.
On the Mozilla server.

For example, if I want Firefox 3.0.19 for US-English, I'd start here.

ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.or....19-real-real/
win32/en-US/

That URL is a little out of the ordinary, because
there may have been more than one release of 3.0.19.
And that's why some qualifiers were added to the path.

*******

That server isn't intended to deliver copies of Firefox
to everyone in the world. But if you need an older
version for some reason, it's a rather complete collection.

Wow - back to 0.10!

Do you know what the difference, in
ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.or...releases/28.0/, between
win32 and win32-EUballot is? (Both have an en-GB and an en-US
directory.)
[]
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

.... the older [studio] has a fixed position camera at five foot ten. I'm five
foot four-and-three-quarters, so I have to stand on a box, or I'd never reach
the Hebrides. Helen Young (BBC TV weather presenter), 10/2000.

In message , Mayayana
writes:
| If you want browser security
|
| Of course I want, even if security is not an obsession for me.
| I use AdBlock Plus: how much is it useful? I believe/hope it blocks a lot
of
| dangerous elements, right?
|

Unfortunately, security is difficult without a
bit of obsession. AdBlock Plus is popular and
seems to be well regarded. I've never used it
myself. That's for blocking ads, which will also

And works very well, a lot of the time, at that.

probably help quite a bit to reduce tracking and
thereby help with privacy. But it's not really helpful
with security, unless it happens to block a planted
[]
If you want to improve security and don't want
to put a lot of time into figuring it out, I guess the
best "bang for your buck" might be the following:

* Don't allow Adobe plugins like Acrobat and don't
install Java, Silverlight, etc. The vast majority of
sites don't need those things but they're used a
lot in attacks. Also, don't use Internet Explorer.

I concur with those (-:.

* If you *must* install Flash you can get a
Flash blocker extension for FF. I don't remember
the name, but it provides a function whereby
you need to click a button in order to play Flash
content. That will help a lot to prevent attacks
from booby trapped Flash ads and the like.

I think there may be several; I use Flashblock (!) ("Replaces Flash
objects with a button you can click to view them") - I think from
http://flashblock.mozdev.org/, though I have 1.5.18.1.

As well as helping to block such sites, it makes a lot of pages load
quicker, especially if they contain many flash objects, as those objects
are all replaced by a circle with a play triangle in it.

* Install the NoScript extension for Firefox. That
allows you to only enable script as necessary. Some
sites might have script coming from a dozen or more
external sites. The Internet was designed not to allow
such things, but various hacks are used to get around it.
With NoScript you can at least block external script
that's not necessary, improving on both security and
privacy.

Also look at YesScript.

Those changes also go a long way to stop irritations
like unwanted popups, intrusive animated cartoon ads,
etc.

Indeed.

If you're concerned with ads you might also consider
a HOSTS file. That's a very easy thing to do and it
does more than anything else to improve privacy. Using
a HOSTS file will take a few minutes to figure out, but
after that it requires little or no effort:

http:www.jsware.net/jsware/privacytips.php5#hosts

http://blogs.msmvps.com/hostsnews/

I'd look at Ghostery as well (https://www.ghostery.com/en-GB/home),
which is good at controlling trackers (they claim 2015 at the moment,
but basically, it's a bit like a hosts file for trackers, but _you_
don't have to maintain it, they do it for you. At least I think that's
what's going on - it works well for me, anyway).


--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"Film: The Mackintosh Man, starring Paul Newman. Contains flashing images."
- quoted on TNQ 2014-12-12.

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

Wow - back to 0.10!

Do you know what the difference, in
ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.or...releases/28.0/, between
win32 and win32-EUballot is? (Both have an en-GB and an en-US directory.)
[]

Did the EU have some beef with Firefox ?

I haven't heard of such.

********

OK, try this.

https://blog.mozilla.org/about_mozil...ning-and-more/

"EU browser choice submission

As per a recent settlement with the European Commission, Microsoft
is now required to introduce a mandatory browser choice screen for
Microsoft Windows Users. Mozilla had to provide a number of
deliverables to Microsoft in order for Firefox to be included
on that ballot. Now that this has been completed, Johnathan Nightingale
has blogged about what we delivered, what was involved, and what the
next steps will be.

“We have little more than a month before the Browser Choice page
goes live, and that means the localization and web dev teams are
pushing to get everything ready for our new visitors. While we get
that together, Microsoft will be running QA on the page itself
in all 23 languages.”
"

It's still a mystery to me, why that requires a separate binary.
Unless that is the binary that gets downloaded from a Microsoft
site or something ?

Paul

| * If you *must* install Flash you can get a
| Flash blocker extension for FF. I don't remember
| the name, but it provides a function whereby
| you need to click a button in order to play Flash
| content. That will help a lot to prevent attacks
| from booby trapped Flash ads and the like.
|
| I think there may be several; I use Flashblock

I think that's the one I was thinking of. The name
sounds familiar. It seems to be well liked, but I haven't
tried it myself. I've never actually had Flash installed
on my computers. I do install it for friends whose
computers I maintain, but most of them just don't
seem to mind the Flash commotion and want to keep
things simple. Even something like Yes/NoScript or
Flashblock requires a bit of self-education for people
to use.

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

Wow - back to 0.10!
Do you know what the difference, in
ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.or...releases/28.0/, between
win32 and win32-EUballot is? (Both have an en-GB and an en-US
directory.)
[]

Did the EU have some beef with Firefox ?

I haven't heard of such.

********

OK, try this.

https://blog.mozilla.org/about_mozil...mobile-weave-e
u-ballot-add-ons-manager-interns-test-pilot-mdc-store-oopp-lightning-and
-more/
[]
Ah, thanks! So ignoring it, now downloading from
ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.or...0/win32/en-GB/
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Everything in moderation. Including moderation. - Billy Connolly('s website,
according to Radio Times, 14-20 February 2009)