Iron 'portable' browser - now at 129.0.6550.0 - 64-bit ONLY (with updater!)

[mikewalsh]

FOR YOUR INFORMATION:- Please note that from the current release - v93.0.4750.0 - the Puppy Iron-portable package now contains a manual updater script. Information pertaining to this, and the reasoning behind its mechanism, can be found here:-

viewtopic.php?p=41887#p41887

---

Evening, guys & gals.

This will be the regular thread for my Iron offerings. Not quite as regular as some, 'cos SRWare take their own sweet time over the Linux releases; typically every 3rd or 4th MAJOR release, never mind the plethora of minor ones in between.

The current offering is v129.0.6550.0.

Download from my Google 'Drive':-

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

32-bit is still available, but is "pinned" at v88 by the SRWare team as a 'legacy' build. This is the very last 32-bit build they will be producing......though, for some strange reason, the version I'm offering is in fact v89. (No, I can't figure that out, either..! )

I will endeavour to make sure the releases here are as up-to-date as possible.

---

Same routine as always. Download, unzip, put the portable directory anywhere you like. Click to enter, click "LAUNCH" to fire it up. The MenuAdd/MenuRemove scripts will add or remove a menu entry IF one is required.....it'll run quite happily without one by clicking the 'LAUNCH' script directly. Please read the 'MenuReadMe.txt' file before you use these!

Enjoy.

Mike.

[davids45]

G'day Mike,
Link seems to be to Vivaldi portables, not Iron?
David S.

[mikewalsh]

@davids45 :-

Sorry, Dave; my bad. Updates for both browsers got uploaded earlier on, and I had two browser windows open at the time. Trust me to copy the wrong share link..!

All sorted.


Mike.

[MochiMoppel]

- removed -

[darry19662018]

Just started using this new version Mike. Thank you - copied profile from last release and all my bookmarks, extensions worked.

Use Iron regularly as well as your 2.48 Seamonkeys. Video playback working nicely running from my new Upupff+D with 3.18.22 kernel.

Thanks again.

[mikewalsh]

@darry19662018 :-

Just started using this new version Mike. Thank you - copied profile from last release and all my bookmarks, extensions worked.

Use Iron regularly as well as your 2.48 Seamonkeys. Video playback working nicely running from my new Upupff+D with 3.18.22 kernel.

Thanks again.

Glad you're enjoying it. I'll give you a tip; instead of having to copy over your profile each time, copy the entire 'PROFILE' directory to a separate location. Then, when a new version comes out, all you need to do is to sym-link the 'PROFILE' directory back to the appropriate location inside the portable's directory. I've been doing it this way for a long while, and it works a treat every time.

There's now v85 available. See next post.


Mike.

[mikewalsh]

Right, kiddiwinks. Uncle Mike's got a new version for y'all...

Iron-portable v85.0.4350.0 is now available for download.

----------------------------------------

SRWare have gone and surprised me this time. They usually run on a 2½-3 month schedule, releasing around every 3rd major Chromium release. For that reason, I don't tend to visit the site that often, but I was looking for some info on their forum today.....and damn me if they hadn't just announced a new Linux version just a couple of days ago. So I thought to myself, "Right, we'll have that, thank you! Here I go again..."

Nothing new to report, TBH. There'll be the the usual crop of security 'fixes', no doubt; SRWare don't report them the way Google do on the Chrome blog, but they'll be integral to the general Chromium development, nevertheless.

PepperFlash and Widevine included, as usual.

As always; d/l; unzip; move to your desired location.....outside the 'save', of course. Click to enter, click 'LAUNCH' to, well, 'launch'..!

--------------------------------------------------

Download link as in post #1.

Thanks to all who helped with the development of these; you all know who you are. Couldn't have done it without you..!

Enjoy.


Mike.

[backi]

Whether you like chromium type of browsers or not.........it`s just fast as hell.

[mikewalsh]

Whether you like chromium type of browsers or not.........it`s just fast as hell.

Glad you like it, backi. Enjoy.


Mike.

[mikewalsh]

One thing I have noticed with v85 is that in 32-bit Puppies,video playback is slightly more blurry.....and general response is now definitely 'laggy'. I've gone back to v84 for the 32-bitzers.

Conversely, v85 seems as smooth as so much oiled silk in 64-bit Pups. No issues here at all....

(This is possibly down to my specific hardware. Don't take this as a "given"; try it for yourselves. The issue is more pronounced for me under radky's DPup 'Buster' than it is under his DPup 'Stretch', so this could just be a case of certain deps needing an upgrade.....if I can figure out what's required!)

It's a hazard of running a single 'portable' under multiple Puppies.,,,,from different "age groups".


Mike.

[backi]

"Portable" is the way to go.....

[m-cuda]

I have been using Iron v.85 on "Precise Light 5.7.2" on a Dell Inspiron 11 laptop (AMD A6-9220e CPU dual core @ 1.6GHz and 4GB RAM) part-time as my daily driver for 5 days (~50 hours of usage) and it works really well. (N.B. I am running the 32-bit "Precise Light 5.7.2" on 64-bit hardware.) It plays the "Free with Ads" YouTube movies which some browsers cannot do. (Initially, this did not work but later it worked and has worked consistently ever since - don't know why.) It also can play MP4 (but not FLV) videos from the local file system, making it unnecessary to install a separate video player. (Everytime I installed a video player on "Precise Light 5.7.2" the audio would stop working in "Firefox ESR 68.11.0". N.B. "Firefox ESR 68.11.0 and 78.3.1" also cannot play MP4 videos from the local file system.)

However, there are two problems:

• You cannot re-order the bookmarks.

• You cannot sign in to YouTube.

  Code: Select all

  [Couldn't sign you in
  
  This browser or app may not be secure. Learn more
  
  Try using a different browser. If you're already using a
  supported browser, you can refresh your screen and try
  again to sign in.
  

  This means you cannot watch age restricted videos and you cannot like videos.

If you don't mind not being able to sign-in to YouTube then Iron v.85 works really well on "Precise Light 5.7.2" .

[mikewalsh]

@m-cuda :-

You CAN re-order bookmarks.....I do this frequently. But you need to go into the Bookmarks Manager to do so; you can't do it directly from the bookmarks bar. You could in older versions of Chromium, but it's one of those features they've deprecated in recent years.

Shift + Ctrl together, then press 'O' (not zero, letter 'o'). That takes you into the Bookmarks Manager, then you just re-order via drag'n'drop (in the sidebar as well as the listings).

As for YouTube, in my case I'm permanently logged-in to my Google a/c. YouTube is part of the 'Google-sphere', so it automatically logs me into YouTube as well.

Google have gotten really strict over security this last 18 months or so. Many "Electron" apps (built around a 'stripped-down' version of Chromium), if they require web access as part of their functionality, will now refuse to connect unless the version of Chromium the app is built on is a very recent one. All part & parcel of protecting your average Joe/Jane from their own foolishness.....without them really being aware of it.

This has happened to me on more than one occasion this year!


Mike.

[m-cuda]

@mikewalsh wrote

You CAN re-order bookmarks.....I do this frequently. But you need to go into the Bookmarks Manager to do so; you can't do it directly from the bookmarks bar. You could in older versions of Chromium, but it's one of those features they've deprecated in recent years.

Shift + Ctrl together, then press 'O' (not zero, letter 'o'). That takes you into the Bookmarks Manager, then you just re-order via drag'n'drop (in the sidebar as well as the listings).

I actually tried drag and drop on both the toolbar and in the "Bookmarks Manager" dialog and they both failed. However, after seeing your post I retested again and confirmed the failures (actually this time I tested using 64-bit Iron v.85 on BionicPup64) but I found cut and paste works on both the toolbar and the "Bookmarks Manager" dialog. It is a bit unfriendly as it doesn't show an insertion point but it does insert at the location of the mouse pointer. Actually, it seems to insert after the item you are positioned on.

I actually tried drag and drop on both the toolbar and in the "Bookmarks Manager" dialog and they both failed. However, after seeing your post I retested again and confirmed the failures (actually this time I tested using 64-bit Iron v.85 on BionicPup64)

- This is not totally correct. Later, I found that drag and drop sometimes works and sometimes doesn't work seemingly at random in both the toolbar and the "Bookmarks Manager" dialog. However, cut and paste works reliably - after cutting, position the mouse on the item you want to insert after and click.

[wiak]

I was thinking of trying Iron in some shape or form. That is only because I've been totally using Chromium, as provided by Arch Linux, for many months now on my WeeDogLinux Arch 64 system, but I've been reading recently that Chromium is less stable than Chrome and doesn't contain various codecs for multimedia. However, personally, I've found that the Chromium versions, as provided by Arch Linux repos, rock solid on WDL Arch64 and I haven't had any problem whatsoever with missing codecs for anything I've been doing, so haven't been checking for anything that might be missing. I don't, admittedly use the likes of Netflix, so I don't know if Arch provided Chromium would baulk on that; youtube certainly plays fine as do any videos I've clicked on more generally. But... if I'm missing something without realizing it, wouldn't be any harm in trying Iron if that solves the problems I don't even know I have... . Truth is, I have been very impressed with Chromium version I have - I should probably just stick with it till and if any problem does arrive, I guess - no point changing what works and works rock solid reliable for me. But then again, since Iron is based on Chromium, might be worth a try too (though the question becomes: do I trust the people creating the Iron compile more than the Arch Linux team looking after their Chromium builds?).

Anyone suggest some website that Chromium might fail on because of, say, missing multimedia codecs (or whatever the issues with Chromium are supposed to be)?

wiak

[mikewalsh]

@wiak :-

Will, you might find this page useful for checking video functionality in Iron (indeed, ANY Chromium-based 'clone'):-

https://tekeye.uk/html/html5-video-test-page

As far as I'm aware, I've done nothing special in respect of codec support with Iron.....except to ensure Widevine is functional. It's just 'there', built-in, by default. Everything I've ever thrown at it just 'works', without fuss.....

Why d'you think I've been a committed 'clone' user, ever since Chrome first appeared way back in the Autumn of 2008? Notwithstanding the fact that they're getting steadily heavier as time goes by, they're just incredibly stable.....and always have been for me. The Linux implementations have never been subject to the issues that seem to plague the Windows ports, either!


Mike.

[wiak]

@wiak :-

Will, you might find this page useful for checking video functionality in Iron (indeed, ANY Chromium-based 'clone'):-

https://tekeye.uk/html/html5-video-test-page

I haven't tried 'Iron' as yet, but tested above page in my official Arch Chromium build and all examples seemed to work fine with that. I'm not sure how to test Widevine though.

[mikewalsh]

@wiak:-

Morning, Will.

Take a look at the following page:-

https://pallycon.com/multi-drm-demo/


It provides the ability to test DRM support - typically Widevine for browsers, although other variations certainly exist - via multiple widely-available HTML5 players. Quite simply, a browser that supports Widevine will be able to play those streams. A browser that doesn't support DRM will NOT be able to.

Try it for yourself. All Chromium 'clones' (or at least the packages that I provide) will be able to play those test streams. If you then try those same demos in a non-DRM browser - like Pale Moon - you'll get all kinds of errors. Some put up messages. Others won't even load the player window, much less attempt to play it.

On rare occasions a DRM-supported browser won't be able to play those test streams, but that's usually a simple case of updating Widevine.....which is easy enough to do. Widevine remains "current" for far longer than things like Flash Player; most iterations will work for something like 12-18 months before needing an 'upgrade'.

The test stream content is the well-known Blender-built short animated film, "Big Buck Bunny".

Hope that helps.

-----------------------------------

EDIT:- If your Arch Chromium is a 'vanilla' build - most usually are - then you won't have Widevine built-in. If you add the Widevine directory into the main Chromium directory, however, you should find that Chromium will pick it up.

You can download a copy from here:-

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing


There's tarballs for both 32- and 64-bit (the 64-bit is lifted from the current release of Chrome itself, the 32-bit from the current Iron-portable.....which itself was obtained using the updater scripts Vivaldi supply with their browser. I can let you have these direct if you want). Unzip the one you want & place the resulting 'WidevineCdm' directory inside the Chromium one. Chromium probably won't see it immediately; you'll need to visit "chrome://components" via the address bar first. Widevine should be listed down the bottom. (If not, a second browser re-start should then bring it up.)

Assuming it's listed, click on the 'Update' button. This won't actually do anything - it'll change from 'New' to 'Not Updated' - but the act of doing this causes the browser to write a wee text file into your profile, which lets the browser know it's there, and available for use.

See how you get on.


Mike.

[m-cuda]

In a previous post I reported that I could not sign in into YouTube using 32-bit Iron v85 on "Precise Light 5.7.2". In fact, I could not sign in into anything Google.

In the script "iron-pup" what is the purpose of the parameter "--test-type"?

Code: Select all

exec -a "$0" "$HERE/chrome" "$@" --no-sandbox --test-type --user-data-dir=$HERE/PROFILE --ppapi-flash-path=$HERE/PepperFlash/libpepflashplayer.so --disk-cache-size=5000000 --media-cache-size=5000000 --allow-outdated-plugins --disable-infobars "$@"

I found that removing this parameter allows me to sign in to Google. However, if this parameter is present I cannot sign in into anything Google.

ADDENDUM

If you only remove the parameter "--test-type" then Iron will emit the warning:

Code: Select all

You are using an unsupported command-line flag: --no-sandbox. Stability and security will suffer.

If you then remove the parameter "--no-sandbox" then Iron will emit the error:

Code: Select all

Running as root without --no-sandbox is not supported. See https://crbug.com/638180.

and abort.

However, you can remove both parameters and run Iron without warnings or errors by running as user "spot". Of course, you will need to do a chown to user "spot".

[mikewalsh]

@m-cuda :-

Yes, you've got that right. It was, I believe, wiak who discovered that the use of that parameter prevented him from signing-in to a lot of things. I started using it because it prevented the "infobars" from showing up, since the old command, '--disable-infobars', had been deprecated in newer Chrome/Chromium builds. It appears that it does, however, have 'side-effects', not least of which is signing-in problems.....

It also appears that this is one scenario where your mileage may vary. I log-in to the 'Googlesphere' frequently - in fact, for some items such as YouTube and the Drive, I'm logged-in permanently - and the use of '--test-type' has never given ME any kind of issues, If you don't mind the infobars occasionally popping-up, then feel free to remove that particular 'switch'. It certainly won't stop the browser from working correctly.


Mike.

[redquine]

There's a straightforward workaround for the Google sign-in issue: if you're already signed in on an older version of portable Iron, just copy your profile across to the new folder.

Google now happily syncs everything from both of my laptops (up-to-date portable Iron on Linux, and Chrome on Windoze).
So much for the "security feature", eh?

[wiak]

@wiak:-

Morning, Will.

Take a look at the following page:-

https://pallycon.com/multi-drm-demo/


It provides the ability to test DRM support - typically Widevine for browsers, although other variations certainly exist - via multiple widely-available HTML5 players. Quite simply, a browser that supports Widevine will be able to play those streams. A browser that doesn't support DRM will NOT be able to.

Try it for yourself. All Chromium 'clones' (or at least the packages that I provide) will be able to play those test streams.
...

-----------------------------------

EDIT:- If your Arch Chromium is a 'vanilla' build - most usually are - then you won't have Widevine built-in. If you add the Widevine directory into the main Chromium directory, however, you should find that Chromium will pick it up....

See how you get on.

Thanks, Mike. The tests all worked so I guess Arch Chromium build includes Widevine out of the box (I was surprised).

Cheers.

[m-cuda]

Hi Mike,
Regarding "Iron-portable64.tar.gz" (v85) I think "libpepflashplayer.so" is not included.

Code: Select all

file `readlink Iron-portable/iron64/PepperFlash/libpepflashplayer.so`
../../../PepperFlash/libpepflashplayer.so: cannot open `../../../PepperFlash/libpepflashplayer.so' (No such file or directory)

This seems to be a problem for the 64-bit Iron archive only. The 32-bit Iron archive does not use symbolic links and directly embeds the file in the directory.

I believe the end of life for PepperFlash is June 2022. Does this mean Iron with PepperFlash can play .swf files beyond the December 2020 end of life for Adobe's Flash player?

[mikewalsh]

@m-cuda :-

Ah, sorry 'bout that. My bad.

Since the majority of my Pups are 64-bit, and I run a lot of Chromium 'clones' as portables, I have them all in a directory on a remote, auto-mounted partition. Inside that directory is a sub-directory, with a single, automatically updated instance of PepperFlash that is sym-linked into each portable where it'll find it....

I used to provide an auto-updater for PepperFlash, but since we're getting so close to EOL on December 31st this year, I no longer thought there was much point, TBH. I forgot to remove the sym-links and replace them with the real thing, that's all.

Good catch! Cheers.

64-bit items have been re-built/re-packed/re-uploaded.....PepperFlash now included. Most sites will now run happily with HTML5, but there are still some which are stubbornly clinging to Pepper right till the bitter end, I'm afraid; that's the only reason I'm still including it. My own favorite internet radio station just happens to be one of these - I have an a/c with them, but that gives me access to a .pls stream which I much prefer to listen to in the DeaDBeeF audio player, 'cos it sounds way better..!


Mike.

[mikewalsh]

@m-cuda :-

If you've got SWF files that you want to play, I would strongly suggest downloading the current, "standalone" ShockWave Flash player from Adobe. You can sit this on your desktop, and assuming you can download or otherwise obtain any SWF files you want, all you do is to drag them, and drop 'em onto the SWF player. It'll open up a window, allow you to view them/interact with them.

On-line Flash gaming sites are soon going to become a thing of the past, because fewer & fewer people will use them over time, and will eventually shut down. So I would also suggest downloading every one of those sort of items you can get your hands on.....though not all such sites will permit this. Many have them set-up for a browser player only, and completely hide their file sources.

EDIT:- I was going to point you to the download archive pages for Shockwave Flash.....but it looks like Adobe have already de-commissioned the Flash sub-domain, in preparation for EOL in a few weeks time. Looks like they have every intention of shutting up shop PROMPTLY on this one:-

https://www.adobe.com/uk/products/flash ... 1175470736

However.....

I DO have a fairly recent 64-bit version of the Shockwave Player that I downloaded back in July; somebody got me interested enough to grab it, and download a few Flash games to pass the time with. You're welcome to it if you want it.

It won't matter how old THIS gets, because it's 'standalone'.....and if you run it on your Puppy desktop it is NOT going to be trying to connect to the 'net..!


Mike.

[m-cuda]

@mikewalsh
I believe I read somewhere that Adobe is going to be extremely strict about this and have time bombed their swf player so they will not execute after December 2020. (I suppose older versions (older than 32.0.0.371? see http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=181703) probably are not time bombed and will work forever.) Google has stated they will support the PPAPI until June 2022 - which I think means PepperFlash will play .swf files until that date.

My interest in playing swf files is only to play FLV videos in your Iron Chromium. On "Precise Light 5.7.2" I don't want to install a separate video player as video players with their dependencies are a huge install which I want to avoid (and it also breaks Firefox with respect to audio). The advantage of Iron is that it can play most videos from the local filesystem. It of course cannot directly play FLV videos. However, I can write a small local web page to invoke a swf FLV player. I am looking for a swf player that I can embed in a local HTML page that will work after December 2020. I have a huge collection of FLV videos which I usually play with VLC but now that "Precise Light" has become my main daily driver I need a FLV player for "Precise Light" - hopefully without installing VLC or another heavy video player.

[m-cuda]

Hi Mike,
I have been thinking about moving to FossaPup64 so I tried Iron64 v85 on it.

Code: Select all

/mnt/sdb3/Iron64/Iron-portable/iron64/iron-pup: error while loading shared libraries: libffi.so.6: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Iron64 v85 works really well on BionicPup64 so the problem may be specific to FossaPup64. I tried looking into this but I only found something that I don't understand - libffi.so is a dependency for chrome and many lib*.so, but all except libgobject-2.0.so resolve to libffi.so.7. Unable to make further progress as I cannot install objdump.

[mikeslr]

Hi Mike Walsh,

I don't have m-cuda's problem. Except for the 'no-sandbox' nag, portable-Iron once started runs fine under my fosssapup64. Starting from the terminal is noisy, but that's to be expected. ListDD of the actual "chromium" binary shows no missing dependencies. But then, out of curiosity and because 666philb had made it too easy to install web-browsers via Quickpet, I seem to have used it to install Chromium, opera, and dissenter on my system. The system doesn't have the 64-bit libffi.so.6, but does have libffi.so.7.1.0 with a libffi.so.7 symlink.

@ Mike Walsh and m-cuda: I can upload a package of any actual missing libs if you run a listDD on .../iron64/chromium.

I do have a problem starting Iron-portable under fossapup. But I think it's a fossapup problem. So I've posted about it there. viewtopic.php?p=9384#p9384

[m-cuda]

Hi Mikes,

Previously, I posted some incorrect ldd output.

Since script iron64/iron-pup sets LD_LIBRARY_PATH before invoking chrome

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh
#
# Wrapper-script to launch Iron browser - Mike Walsh © Feb 2020 (Fred; thanks for odd bits!)
#
HERE="$(dirname "$(readlink -f "$0")")"
#
mkdir "$HERE/PROFILE" 2> /dev/null
#
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$HERE/:$HERE/lib${LD_LIBRARY_PATH:+:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH} 
#
echo '$LD_LIBRARY_PATH =' $LD_LIBRARY_PATH
exec -a "$0" "$HERE/chrome" "$@" --user-data-dir=$HERE/PROFILE --ppapi-flash-path=$HERE/PepperFlash/libpepflashplayer.so --disk-cache-size=5000000 --media-cache-size=5000000 --allow-outdated-plugins --disable-infobars "$@"

LD_LIBRARY_PATH must be set before using ldd. Following is the corrected output of ldd.

Code: Select all

spot$ LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/mnt/sdb3/Iron64/Iron-portable/iron64/:/mnt/sdb3/Iron64/Iron-portable/iron64/lib:/lib:/usr/lib:/root/my-applications/lib:/usr/local/lib
spot$ env|egrep LD_LIBRARY_PATH
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/mnt/sdb3/Iron64/Iron-portable/iron64/:/mnt/sdb3/Iron64/Iron-portable/iron64/lib:/lib:/usr/lib:/root/my-applications/lib:/usr/local/lib

spot$ ldd chrome|egrep 'libgobject|not found'
	libgobject-2.0.so.0 => /mnt/sdb3/Iron64/Iron-portable/iron64/lib/libgobject-2.0.so.0 (0x00007fb909b65000)
	libffi.so.6 => not found
	
spot$ objdump -x lib/libgobject-2.0.so|egrep NEEDED
  NEEDED               libglib-2.0.so.0
  NEEDED               libffi.so.6
  NEEDED               libc.so.6
 
spot$ find / -name 'libffi.so*'
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libffi.so.7
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libffi.so.7.1.0
/initrd/pup_ro2/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libffi.so.7
/initrd/pup_ro2/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libffi.so.7.1.0
/initrd/pup_a/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libffi.so.7

[mikewalsh]

Hi Mike,
I have been thinking about moving to FossaPup64 so I tried Iron64 v85 on it.

Code: Select all

/mnt/sdb3/Iron64/Iron-portable/iron64/iron-pup: error while loading shared libraries: libffi.so.6: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Iron64 v85 works really well on BionicPup64 so the problem may be specific to FossaPup64. I tried looking into this but I only found something that I don't understand - libffi.so is a dependency for chrome and many lib*.so, but all except libgobject-2.0.so resolve to libffi.so.7. Unable to make further progress as I cannot install objdump.

@m-cuda :-

Current solution here:- viewtopic.php?p=9415#p9415

Should help. DO read the post right through, 'cos it may not seem to make sense otherwise.....

Mike.