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SmokeyGrey

Member

Registered: 2019-04-15

Posts: 25  

Re: Life after Firefox

My main browser has been Iridium for quite a while now. As beate pointed out, the Debian package is actually built on Ubuntu, and depends on a newer version of libfontconfig1 than is available in Stretch/ASCII. I rebuilt it against the ASCII version, and I also had to change some sandbox settings.

I've been experimenting with Pale Moon. Previously, I've had trouble with sites not loading correctly, but this time it seems like everything works. It looks like the main addons I use are available, or have good alternatives. There is a Debian repository available. Be aware that Pale Moon does not support WebRTC, which Jitsi requires.

Basilisk Browser looks interesting. Like Pale Moon, it's based on the Goanna engine, and it supports "Legacy" addons. Unlike Pale Moon, it uses the newer Australis interface (Firefox 29 to 56), and supports WebRTC. I haven't actually tried it yet though.

One thing to note about the Debian build of Firefox. While it does currently support ALSA, it does not like the asym plugin. To get around this, a plug device should be set as default, and it should call the asym device. Here's an example .asoundrc

pcm.!default {
    type plug
    slave {
        pcm "AsymDevice"
    }
}

pcm.AsymDevice {
    type asym
    playback.pcm "OutputDevice"
    capture.pcm "InputDevice"
}

Apulse also requires a plug device as default.

Last edited by SmokeyGrey (2019-05-11 22:58:36)

James1138

Member

Registered: 2018-09-27

Posts: 45  

Re: Life after Firefox

I am using PaleMoon without issue. To manually enable WebRTC:

    Type "about:config" into the address bar and hit Enter.
    Click the button "I accept the risk!".
    Type "media.peerconnection.enabled" in the search bar. Only one entry should appear.
    Right-click on the entry and choose "Toggle" to change the Value column to "true".

If you want to enable support for legacy extensions again, set the "extensions.legacy.enabled" preference to true in about:config page. Now all legacy extensions should start working again. Just ignore the messages about possible incompatible issues.

What extensions are you having trouble running in PaleMoon??

James
Indiana, USA

SmokeyGrey

Member

Registered: 2019-04-15

Posts: 25  

Re: Life after Firefox

I've been using Pale Moon for a couple months now, both in Devuan and Windows (gasp).

The Windows version gave me too many problems. Websites were broken that weren't on the linux version. I don't know if this was user error, or if there was a problem with the build, but it was easier to just move back to Firefox.

The linux version has been usable, but I still had a couple problems.
While watching full screen video, the browser failed to prevent my screen from going idle. I remember having this problem with Firefox 52 as well.
The "Don't load tabs until selected" option doesn't seem to do anything. New tabs always autoload.
Youtube loads an older version of the site, which I actually prefer. Simpler to use, less resource usage, and looks nicer.

I've encountered one addon that I can't seem to get working. I downloaded Redirector from the Classic Add-ons Archive, and it just gives me an error "Redirector does not work in Private Mode", even when I'm just using a regular window. This could be because it's built for Firefox and is running in Firefox compatibility mode.

Ron

Member

Registered: 2018-04-22

Posts: 526  

Re: Life after Firefox

I've encountered one addon that I can't seem to get working. I downloaded Redirector from the Classic Add-ons Archive, and it just gives me an error "Redirector does not work in Private Mode", even when I'm just using a regular window. This could be because it's built for Firefox and is running in Firefox compatibility mode.

I looked that up and I see that there are 24 versions of it. Which version did you try? It might be worth a shot to try an earlier version. Or, try changing to Gecko compatibility. That's the setting I use.

SmokeyGrey

Member

Registered: 2019-04-15

Posts: 25  

Re: Life after Firefox

I looked that up and I see that there are 24 versions of it. Which version did you try?

I've tried both 3.0.4 and 3.0.6. Neither work, but 3.0.4 allows me to access the configuration page, rather than giving me an error message.

Or, try changing to Gecko compatibility. That's the setting I use.

I think you misunderstood. I'm not talking about the User Agent Mode setting. If you look in the addons page, most extensions should have a blue dot next to their name with a popup saying "This add-on directly targets Pale Moon". Some may have an orange dot saying "This add-on targets Mozilla Firefox and runs in compatibility mode". It seems like there is a significant enough difference between Pale Moon and Firefox 52 that it is necessary to develop addons slightly differently.

Last edited by SmokeyGrey (2019-07-31 07:43:12)

beate

Member

Registered: 2019-03-25

Posts: 26  

Re: Life after Firefox

On my very new notebook i (64bit ASCII) i tried Iridium, but failed due to a library version mismatch - the binary is made for Ubuntu.

Today i gave it a try after upgrading to beowulf. Well, to make it short: it crashed.

reminds me of the shortest version of ancient Netscape 2 ...

#!/bin/sh

touch core
/bin/echo "Segmentation fault (core dumped)" >&2
exit -1

Back to the audio problem: on my systems (both beowulf as well as ascii) the browsers work directly on card0 - and they mix: chromium, palemoon, qupzilla, vlc

No additional config required. libpulse is pulled in by the dependencies and surely used (but vlc was a self made ALSA version without anything pulse).

The only thing that must be ensured if an additional high quality sound card is used: it must be assigned by the kernel as card0. Even if the onboard sound is disabled in BIOS (my desktop plays through a  mixing console attached through USB), additional cards are by default not mapped as card0.

(i could not check the behavior with multichannel devices).

Last edited by beate (2020-02-25 23:55:59)