Install and upgrade

[vakkotaur]

I finally got around to getting the latest version of xchat and installing it. Xchat 2.4.4 fixes a problem with the version that comes with Mandrake 10.1: Dragging and dropping a file into a query (message) window once again results in a DCC send offer to the other party. Earlier versions of xchat could do that, but the feature went missing for a while.

I also downloaded and installed Firefox. To my surprise, the install worked (though I did not try to install it as root). There is more than a little indication that Firefox and Mandrake 10.1 don't get along without some extra work, so the surprise was that things seemed to work. It still has that weird Netscape feel to it, for me. Why are preferences under Edit rather than somewhere more sensible? And why aren't all the preferences in one place? Some are under Edit, some are under Tools. And some you have to know what about:menu-title incantation to get to or you simply will never find them.

A bit of exploring (and some suggestions via IRC from masem) and I added a number of things to my install of Firefox. Javascript is now finely controlled, Flash is generally suppressed unless I want it active, image control is somewhat Opera-like, and referrer controls... well, I'm not sure that's working right or not.

So far, Firefox feels rather kludgey to me. It's better than IE (but then what isn't?) and doesn't seem to be as lumbering as full-blown Mozilla or quite as.. lacking?.. as Galeon or Konquerer. But I find, so far, that Opera has a more solid feel to it. I suppose part of it is that I've been using Opera for years and expect things to be in certain places, and Firefox has them elsewhere, if it has them. The expandability with the various extensions can be taken two ways. One way is that it's a nice basic system and can be customized with only what one desires. The other is that the thing is barely there and needs extensive add-ons to bring it up to being more than a toy. The first may be the intent, but the second is how it feels so far.

I also, so help me, downloaded and installed Flash. I got that working with Opera and Firefox. With Opera, I could check a menu and see it was there and then go find an example to run. With Firefox I had to wander across a Flash-based advert while hunting for a plug-in menu to discover it had really installed - and then find the extension for suppressing Flash.

Music: Lazin' in the Shade of the Information Superhighway - The Foreman

Comments

[yakko.livejournal.com]

To see if a plugin is installed in a Netscape-type browser, you can type "about:plugins" to get a list.

I have a list of absolutely necessary extensions for Firefox. There's flashblock (blocks flash, has whitelist capabilities), prefbar (tweak lots of settings without digging through menus) and sage (RSS aggregator). I haven't tried to find an extension that'll deal with Javascript yet, since Firefox lets me disable the most egregious abuse of Javascript.

This referer test should show you if Referer headers are being sent.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you have to know about about:plugins as there's no way to discover it without a web search or such. I can recommend the NoScript (I think that's the name) extension which allows per-site control. I have the main javascript control enabled in preferences, but disallow all except, so far, my bank's site from running scripts.

Flashblock looks like it is installed, but this morning a Flash ad showed it seems not to be working.

The referrer extension seems not to be what I desire. It seems that I can append ;spoof=www.example.com or such to the URL and a referrer from example.com will be sent. But I want it to not send any referrer by default, and only send one to some sites (the ones that refuse to show images unless they get a referrer - and then I want to only send that page's as the referrer, not anyplace else). Maybe there's more to it, but I'll need to dig more.

[foolscap001.livejournal.com]

About extensions: the way I look at it is "I'm not constrained by what the people who wrote the browser thought to put in."

Case in point: greasemonkey. which is a sort of metaextension letting one install scripts that manipulate web pages in a variety of ways. One twisted example: there's a fellow named Roland Piquepaille who endlessly submits articles to /. which happen to link to his blog and pull in blogads revenue. He's become enough of a bother to a lot of people that there is actually a greasemonkey script that looks for, and filters out, those articles! No browser would ever include such a feature, but thanks to the extensibility of Mozilla/Firefox, it exists.

BTW: install the Adblock extension. Trust me, you want to.

Adblock

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

I tried to install it last night. Tried, but didn't. I kept getting a message that it was not a valid extension or such.