Re: [gentoo-user] Python 2.7 removal : problem with Firefox + Spidermonkey

[james]

On 8/2/20 6:22 AM, Walter Dnes wrote:
> On Sat, Aug 01, 2020 at 11:08:47PM -0400, james wrote
>> On 8/1/20 12:10 PM, Walter Dnes wrote:
>>>
>>>     So a "palemoon-bin" ebuild is possible.  But is it necessary?  If
>>> you pull down and extract the precompiled tarball to your home dir, it
>>> can be set to check for, and do, updates (as long as you have write
>>> permission to the Pale Moon directory).  No need for portage to do it.
>>
>> Further security ideas with palemoon are of keen interest to me too. A
>> set of local security testing tools/semantics etc etc would be useful;
>> pointers to existing security tools are keen appreciated too.
>
>    The best security advice for the average user is to keep up with the
> latest updates.

yep yep yep.

> See http://www.palemoon.org/releasenotes.shtml for an
> idea of feature updates and security and bug fixes with each release.
> To keep up-to-date *ON AN OFFICIAL BINARY* follow the menu tree...
>
> Tools ==> Preferences ==> Advanced ==> Update


NICE.


>
> ..and select the appropriate option.  See
> http://www.palemoon.org/support/prefs-advanced-update for an explanation.
> If you install the official binary manually in your home dir (or
> anywhere else you have write permission), Pale Moon can do in-place
> updates.  If you do it "the official Portage way") the installed files
> will end up somewhere in /usr/ and you, as regular user, cannot
> authorize the update.  Since you're talking about security, I assume
> you're not browsing as root.

never.


>
>    Another thing to note is that the Pale Moon devs are currently
> "de-unifying the source".  This means that over time, manual builds will
> take longer and longer to compile, especially on older machines with low
> ram.  Unifying source speeds up compile-time, but... large monolithic
> source files make bugs and error messages a lot harder to track down.
> Run-time performance is not affected.

All of my "old amd64" systems have 32 G of ram. I'm evaluating which 
cluster technology to use all (3) on compiles. But with the use of the 
GPU soon to be practical on Gentoo, maybe that times(3) cluster will not 
be needed? Except on big compile days......

>
>    tldr; the quickest/dirtiest/securest way to deal with Pale Moon (e.g.
> for 64-bit) is...
>
> mkdir $HOME/pm
> cd $HOME/pm
> #
> # Download the official tarball from http://linux.palemoon.org/download/mainline/
> #
> # Stop Pale Moon and "uninstall" and extract
> killall palemoon
> rm -rf palemoon
> tar xf <tarball_file_name>
>
> ..and point your program launcher to
>
> $HOME/pm/palemoon/palemoon ${*}

very cool.

>
>    If you want to get fancy and run multiple profiles simultaneously you
> can pass commandline parameters like...
>
> $HOME/pm/palemoon/palemoon -new-instance -p 680_news
> $HOME/pm/palemoon/palemoon -new-instance -p covid
> $HOME/pm/palemoon/palemoon -new-instance -p dslr
> $HOME/pm/palemoon/palemoon -new-instance -p slashdot
> $HOME/pm/palemoon/palemoon -new-instance -p youtube
>
>    Note that these profiles have to already exist.  To launch the profile
> manager to enable profile creation...
>
> $HOME/pm/palemoon/palemoon -new-instance -p
>
>    Multiple profiles have advantages...
>
> 1) You can get multiple specified webpages to open up on startup that
> are related to one item.  Hint; In "Tools ==> Preferences ==> General"
> you can set "Home Page" like so...
>
> http://bad.example.com | ftp://blah.blah.blah.com | https://youtube.com

Nice.

>
> ..etc, etc.  Multiple webpages are separated by {SPACE} {PIPE} {SPACE}.
> I've got some really long lines on one or two profiles.
>
> 2) 3rd-party cookies in one profile cannot be accessed by webpages in
> another profile.  This reduces the effectiveness of tracking.

Kinda been suspecting this, great to get verification.

>
> 3) Add-ons only apply to the profile they're downloaded to.  The only
> one I use is ANM "Advanced Night Mode"
> https://addons.palemoon.org/addon/advanced-night-mode/
>    Some webpages are run by idiot webmasters who set "low contrast" fonts
> to something bordering on...
> FONT FOREGROUND #FEFEFE
> FONT BACKGROUND #FFFFFF
>
>    ANM cures that by forcing white text on black background.  This
> add-on is specific to Pale Moon.  The add-on works only in profile(s)
> it's downloaded to, so sane webpages can be left alone.  Actually, even
> sane webpages sometimes look better with ANM.
>

Thanks Walter, for all of the palemoon info. I'm putting up a  gentoo 
test system for such (palemoon) excursions.


James