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

[m-cuda]

@mikewalsh
Your fix viewtopic.php?p=9415#p9415 works!
Thank-you

[mikewalsh]

@mikewalsh
Your fix viewtopic.php?p=9415#p9415 works!
Thank-you

Good, good. Glad I could help.

Mike.

[xenial]

I use 32bit xenialpup 7.5.I have the browser plugin which i shall not update and i believe pale moon browser will still support the flash plugin post end of life.I use flash mainly for online escape and adventure games so it will depend how long those sites will remain available.

Is there any way i can download these flash games and use via either the browser plugin or a standalone player.?
i have always used the browser plugin and i am clueless how to download the flash games.

[mikewalsh]

I use 32bit xenialpup 7.5.I have the browser plugin which i shall not update and i believe pale moon browser will still support the flash plugin post end of life.I use flash mainly for online escape and adventure games so it will depend how long those sites will remain available.

Is there any way i can download these flash games and use via either the browser plugin or a standalone player.?
i have always used the browser plugin and i am clueless how to download the flash games.

@xenial :-

Umm...heh. You, er, just might have "issues" here, y'know.

I moderate on another computer forum. There's been a lot of 'discussion' about this very subject over there.

Normally, you would download the stand-alone "Flash Player (debugger)" for your desktop player. Downloading the games themselves, of course, is another ball-game completely, but I'll give you a link for that in a bit.

The issue is this:- According to a lot of folks in the gaming community, Adobe have intentionally installed a date-sensitive "kill-switch" into every release of FlashPlayer after a certain version number - somewhere around 32.0.0.3xx. This "kill-switch" will 'break' anything you attempt to play with it after December 31st.....even using it as a 'standalone' player on your desktop.

Furthermore, Adobe have already de-commissioned the Downloads archive for all past releases, specifically in order to prevent people from obtaining those older, pre-"kill-switch" versions. The ONLY version of Flash that anyone can now obtain is the newest version.....which, naturally, will promptly quit working after 00.00 hrs on December 31st.

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

There is a project - from an outfit called BlueMaxima - entitled Flashpoint Infinity:-

https://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/

This aims to permit anyone who enjoys playing Flash games to continue to do so after EOL. The one big catch is that you cannot run this from the desktop as a standalone thing; you have to connect to the internet, because many Flash games were specifically 'tied' to their original website host.

Flashpoint Infinity is an Electron app, built around a stripped-back Chromium browser, which connects to BlueMaxima's servers - somehow running the software through WINE - and is able to select Flash games from a massive database they've been building since early February. Flashpoint utilises a sand-boxed, pre-"kill-switch" version of the FlashPlayer 'projector', so the thing won't suddenly quit on you.

This is all achieved by running a local proxy server. From what I can understand, this requires the LAMP 'stack' to be installed.....Apache, MySQL, and PHP. This is the same stuff rockedge uses to host the forum.

Now; I don't know the first thing about running this stuff. However, I'm going to ask rockedge if he would be kind enough to find the time to take a look at this, and to advise on what is actually required; it's possible we could get away with a 'minimal' install. I just don't know enough about it.....and I'm never ashamed to admit ignorance, or to ask for help from individuals who have experience with what I need to know.

I'm not making any promises, but the intention here is to eventually provide an all-in-one package which can be installed & run on Puppy. I will warn you though; this is 64-bit ONLY.

Mike.

[rockedge]

@mikewalsh I have begun to look at BlueMaxima's Flashpoint.

do you have a Bionic64 running wine? I would like to try installing php-cli_7.2 and then run Flashpoint.

Lets see what happens and go from there.

[mikewalsh]

Hallo, rockedge.

Umm....arrgh.

Bionic is something of a no-no for me on this new hardware. I've never been able to get a stable internet connection on it, and that's going to be something of a 'must-have' for this, isn't it?

(sheesh...)

I DO have a working Xenialpup with WINE ready installed, and also a working Fossapup with a working WINE. Would either of those do?

On second thoughts, there's my 'Mediapup'; it's a multimedia Puppy I put together for myself with all multimedia AppImages. That's Bionic-based; it's got WINE, and for some reason the network connection seems more stable in that one.

What do you want to use?

I'm not going to be about for the next couple of hours - got the evening meal to cook - so I'll get back to you as & when, OK? Keep the 'back-burner' warm, eh?

Catch you later.

Mike.

[xenial]

@mike,
thank you very much for that extensive response. 32.0 r0 is the plugin i have installed and my plan was to simply not update and kind of "freeze" it in time to use with the pale moon browser which as you know will continue to support it..I am not aware of which flash version adobe planted it's time bomb switch.

Another alternative would be to use some form of interactive media player to use flash but i am unaware of any such player.i have the standard pre-installed mpv media player which came with xenialpup.

Adobe seem determined this is the path they will take and i would sooner they just stopped maintaining the flash rather than just shutting the door completely.

From what i can see the chrome PPAPI flash will continue to run until june 2021.
Maybe i am just flogging a dead horse with this and perhaps i should give up gracefully and use the HTML5 alternatives.

I have downloaded about 50 swf files already and i simply copy and paste them into the pale moon urlbar and they run fine.

[mikewalsh]

@rockedge :-

Now then; back in the saddle, as it were....

Okay. I'm in a working Bionic64, with a stable network connection.....courtesy of a Realtek wireless driver ozsouth put together for me to test. (Which is really weird, considering this is a desktop.....not a laptop.) Anywayyy.....

I've updated the PPM, and installed

Code: Select all

php-cli_7.2

.....followed by starting Flashpoint from the terminal with the --no-sandbox 'switch'. Still complaining it can't find PHP; 'not on the path'. I take it this is a normal glitch, yes? Whereabouts is it looking, would you think?

(BTW; I haven't yet installed WINE. Do we in fact NEED it?)

Mike.

[mikewalsh]

@rockedge :-

Well; WINE installed.....Flashpoint-Infinity now properly installed via the .deb package. Still complaining that PHP cannot be found...."Is it installed?"

It fires up, and, after downloading the updates to a directory of your choice, is able to display all the listings.

WINE is definitely needed, because they're using the Windows port of Adobe Flash. Double-click on a file you want to view/interact with, it'll fire up the Windows Flash Projector window.....but nothing happens. In every case, the logs say it can't connect to the server; maybe this is some of the 'unpredictable behaviour' it warns you to expect because it doesn't see PHP?

I'm starting to run out of ideas here. Maybe further software is needed, yes? Or "tweaks"?

Mike.

[Wiz57]

@rockedge :-

Well; WINE installed.....Flashpoint-Infinity now properly installed via the .deb package. Still complaining that PHP cannot be found...."Is it installed?"

It fires up, and, after downloading the updates to a directory of your choice, is able to display all the listings.

WINE is definitely needed, because they're using the Windows port of Adobe Flash. Double-click on a file you want to view/interact with, it'll fire up the Windows Flash Projector window.....but nothing happens. In every case, the logs say it can't connect to the server; maybe this is some of the 'unpredictable behaviour' it warns you to expect because it doesn't see PHP?

I'm starting to run out of ideas here. Maybe further software is needed, yes? Or "tweaks"?

Mike.

Well Mike, since you have Wine installed, can you try IrfanView viewer for Windows? Get that installed then
install the all-plugins extras, this at one time contained an older Shockwave Flash viewer that sometimes
works with downloaded Flash files (the ones with swf as file extension). www.irfanview.com
Wiz

ps...if the all-plugins file no longer contains the shockwave player, let me know, I can probably post it up.

[rockedge]

@mikewalsh Here is how I have installed php-cli.
Download from here http://launchpadlibrarian.net/501092721 ... _amd64.deb
I clicked on the .deb file and let petget install it, also a good method is
install it with Pkg

Code: Select all

pkg install /path/to/php7.2-cli_7.2.24-0ubuntu0.18.04.7_amd64.deb

then with an updated PPM install:

• libargon2-2_0

• libargon2-dev_0

create a sym-link ->

Code: Select all

ln -s /usr/bin/php7.2 /usr/bin/php

Screenshot(12).png (22.26 KiB) Viewed 1624 times

[mikewalsh]

@rockedge :-

Mm. Okay...

Haven't been able to find libargon2-2_0, even with an update. Even looking on the Ubuntu packages Search site, it doesn't show up anywhere.

I've installed the libargon2-dev_0 package, and created the sym-link in /usr/bin.

Everything checks out in the terminal readout, with the exception of the 'test' echo; for me, it just doesn't return anything. Where did you get the libargon2-2_0 package from?.....because from everything I've checked out, it simply isn't IN the Bionic repos!

According to the pkgs.org website, that package doesn't exist anywhere at all!

I'm stumped....

Mike.

[mikewalsh]

Okay. Php 'glitches' notwithstanding, I've had some success with Flashpoint Infinty. Yay!

The main database of Flash games does seem to be very much a case of 'hit & miss'. Many choices simply don't return anything at all. Quite a number will bring the Flash Player 'Projector' screen up briefly - dots flashing in the middle to indicate it's trying to load - then it'll wink out.

However, I have had a few load up fully, ready to play. The next test will be to see if it's possible to playback existing .swf files which have already been downloaded by the user. This will have to wait till the morning, 'cos it's that time of night again.....Uncle Mike's yawning fit to crack a jawbone!

It looks like rockedge was right, and it was just the PHP programming language that was required. I think it's worth persevering with, anyroad. I'll run a few more tests tomorrow if I get time, or certainly over the weekend, and probably run up an SFS package for this. It may even be possible to build/run it as a 'portable', too. We'll see!

Mike.

[mikeslr]

"Haven't been able to find libargon2-2_0"

Hi MIke,

Here the link, sort of , https://centos.pkgs.org/7/epel-x86_64/l ... 4.rpm.html, 'though where rockedge found his version remains a mystery. For others following this discussion, as with any 'strange' compile/packaging, first back-up you SaveFile, as a Save & reboot may be necessary. Also note the listed specified requirements=dependencies.

You might be better off using the Bionic packages of libargon2-0 and libargon2-0-dev or Focal's "2-1" packages and fudging with symlinks named "2-2".

But considering the objective of this exercise is to play games, mayhaps the best advice --even if by someone not exactly of my faith-- is 1 Corinthians 13:11.

[rockedge]

I actually realize now I've been working on a Fossapup64! I found these of course on the Fossapup64 PPM

I quess bouncing around from Bionic to Fossa to WeeDog and back again I should use some more specific background images

Screenshot(13).png (95.85 KiB) Viewed 1591 times

[mikewalsh]

@rockedge :-

I did wonder if that might have been the case.....

Anyway; thanks are in order for the assistance rendered. It's all 'sorted' now.....and SFS packages are available for Fossa/Bionic, and a separate one for Xenial, due to the need for a slightly older version of PHP:-

viewtopic.php?f=90&t=1359

@mikeslr :-

Don't take this the wrong way, but that's exactly what I'd expect from a 'non-gamer'..! (Not that I consider myself one; I just get the odd spell when I still feel somewhat rebellious...)

There's the other side of that coin, of course. I don't know who said it, but it's often been said that nobody ever truly 'grows up'.....that we're all just overgrown kids when it boils down to it!

C'est la vie.

Mike.

[keniv]

@mikewalsh
I've come here from this thread

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1431

(post 3) in the "Beginners" section. I have an old 32 bit machine running racy 5.5, busterdog and dpup 7.5. The browser in all of these is palemoon 28. I note from another tread that the current palemoon update will be the last for 32 bit systems. I have downloaded the 32 bit version of iron from the link in the first post of this thread and have it installed. I'm posting from it now. So far I've only set it up to work on busterdog using a new .desktop file. I have little experience of using chrome based browsers and so have some questions. Probably the most important is will there be continuing support for the 32 bit version of this browser? Secondly I use ublock as my preferred add blocker. I found a link to ublock for chrome on ublocks site though this redirected me to googles site. Normally when I've installed ublock a small icon appears in the top rhs of the display to show that it's working. In iron a small icon shaped like a jigsaw piece has appeared. If I click on this an "extensions" box appears listing ublock and gives me two choices. One is "pin extension". I don't know what this means. The other is "more actions". That gives a list of options including "options". If I click on this I get to a page which is on the screen just long enough for me to see ublock is running before it moves on to a settings page. Is this what I should expect? Lastly in the top rhs corner of the display there is only an "x" to close the browser. There is no "-" to minimise it. Is this normal?

Regards,

Ken.

[keniv]

Now have iron 32 bit working in dpup stretch but not done much testing. Doesn't work in racy5.5 though. Here's the output from running in a terminal.

# /mnt/home/Iron-portable/LAUNCH
/initrd/mnt/dev_save/Iron-portable/iron32/iron-pup: error while loading shared libraries: libatk-bridge-2.0.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
#

Searched for libatk-bridge-2.0.so.0 with pfind but don't have it. It's not in the ppm either.

Regards,

Ken.

[mikeslr]

Hi keniv,

First about ublock. Sorry I can't answer your question as I do not have it in my Iron-portable for 32-bit systems. You might consider switching to Adguard. I mentioned stumbling upon it and Mike Walsh advised that "After which, I moved to uBlock Origin for quite a while. I discovered AdGuard back in the early to middle part of this year, and have been with it to date. Lightweight, yes; low user of resources, yes; very, very good at what it does.....most definitely!" viewtopic.php?p=10102#p10102

Iron only maintains some Chrome extensions. For the rest --including AdGuard-- you'll have to visit Google's WebStore. To do that Left-Click on the Apps button at the Top-Left. On the Tab which opens, you'll see another button named Webstore on the Bottom-Right.

Until you mentioned it, I hadn't realized Iron lacked a minimize 'button'. I don't use desktop icons: while working I don't have any reason to access the desktop. I searched the Web-store for an extension which might add a minimize button. But the only extension which might enable minimization, if I read it's page correctly, required first clicking then using a key combination. That's less efficient than merely clicking one of the 18 +/- panel launchers to open and/or focus on a different application. [JWMDesk supports a 2nd panel called an Accessory Tray. Click on the "Options" Tab. You can choose on which edge it is to be locate it; and configure it to 'hide' unless moused-over. In racy, you might consider JWM applications-panel, http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 394#613394]

Although I prefer Iron, you might want to give Vivaldi portable a try, viewtopic.php?p=3491#p3491. It does have a minimize button.

"Searched for libatk-bridge-2.0.so.0 with pfind but don't have it. It's not in the ppm either". Not sure this will help and as with any time you have to use 'alien' packages first back-up your SaveFile/Folder. Racy is now (what?) a decade old while you're iron browser is a current build expecting current libraries. You can download libatk-bridge-2.0.so.0 from here, https://packages.debian.org/buster/libatk-bridge2.0-0. Make certain to choose the i386 version. Unpack the deb. You'll find both a libatk-bridge-2.0.so.0.0.0 library and a libatk-bridge-2.0.so.0 symbolic link to it in the unpacked /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu folder. Copy both to racy's /usr/lib folder. Restart-X. May require a Save and reboot. After which you may find that other libs are missing. Keep repeating the process until (a) Iron works; (b) you still get errors and can't find solutions or (c) you decide to use your SaveFile/Folder backup because it isn't a mess and you can live without the Iron browser under Racy.

[williams2]

If you are using JWM window manager,
jwm seems to have F6 configured to minimize a window,
and F10 configured to maximize a window.

jwm should have a "Show Desktop" button in the tray (the bar at the bottom near the menu button.)

jwm also seems to have a shortcut key to show the desktop, Win+D.

Also:

Win+UpArrow maximize
Win+DownArrow minimize
Win+R run a program
Win+L lock the screen with xlock screensaver
Win+T urxvt text terminal
Win+F find'n'run

See /root/.jwmrc

[mikewalsh]

@keniv :-

Hallo, Ken.

Chromium-based browsers aren't so much different to Mozilla-based ones, when it boils down to it. I guess the main difference is that where the Mozilla Foundation are a relatively small, independent organization (who've just lost one of their major sources of income), the Chromium Project has the full might and financial backing of Google behind it; it IS where the source code for Chrome is developed, after all. Think of the Chromium Project as Google's R&D department for the Chrome browser, and you won't be far from the truth.

AFAICT, there has been no mention of any intent to drop 32-bit builds of Chromium, so derivatives will, presumably, continue to be free to develop their own 32-bit spins. Google themselves still produce a 32-bit Chrome build for Windows; it's only on Linux where they decided, more than 4½ years ago, to drop the 32-bit Chrome packages; the source-code is still being produced, but Google decided, after v48, that they were simply going to ignore it. Iron is probably the best, direct 'drop-in' 32-bit Chrome replacement, since SRWare have altered the interface very little to that of Chrome itself. Anyone used to Chrome will feel at home straight away.

With regard to extensions, you basically use the Chrome webstore. Extensions are very rarely architecture-specific, since they're mostly script-based anyway. But as Mike quoted from me above, I'd recommend AdGuard to anyone.

The 'jigsaw piece' is, from what I know, the new approach to keeping your address bar clean & tidy. Rather than a string of extensions untidily trailing out to the right of the 'omnibox', a click of the jigsaw piece brings up a neat list, with options beside every one as to what you can do with it. I tend to 'pin' my regularly-used ones to the top bar, and leave those which are needed for functionality - but don't need clicking on - in the list. Things like SmoothScroll, H264ify and XodoPDFViewer, they stay in the list. The functionality automatically kicks-in when required.

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

I had problems with the top-right corner buttons at one point, too. You can right-click on that top 'title' bar where the buttons are; this will give you a number of options.

With regard to Racy & Iron....hah. I used to run an up-to-date Iron in Racy, Slackos 560 & 570, Precise, Raring, and 431, along with several other items. Except......

.....I wasn't really running them 'natively', at all. I was, in fact, running them from a chrooted Tahrpup 'jail'.....courtesy of watchdog's instructions from when Darry was playing around with his modernised build of 431, 4.3.11 'Phoenix'.

I even put together an SFS for the entire jail + chrooted browser package, together with Menu entry for easy starting. It runs out to around 1100 MB loaded, though; that's a loaded Tahrpup and 260 MB for the actual browser, and that's in addition to whatever Puppy you're running the chrooted Puppy from.

But modern Iron will NOT run natively in Racy. The glibc & dependent infrastructure are over 8 years old, and in tech terms that's like dinosaur status..! You can't run modern Quantum in Racy either, because even with battleshooter's glibc 2.20 'upgrade', there's summat fundamentally wrong about the way Firefox sees the necessary GTK-3.0 additions. Like it refuses to see them, no matter what you do. Even my Firefox-portable won't run, where the GTK-3.0 stuff is built-in.....Racy still insists it can't find it, even when it's staring it in the face.

IMHO, a chroot jail is the only way to get anything up-to-date running in Racy, because the items themselves are using a much newer glibc & dependencies, courtesy of the 'jailed' Puppy. But it's a RAM-heavy solution. Best solution is to stick with Palemoon, though even that now has issues in Racy, from what I recall.....

And the one thing you definitely need to keep up-to-date IS yr browser.

Mike.

[keniv]

@mikeslr
Thanks for your reply and all the information therein.

You can download libatk-bridge-2.0.so.0 from here, https://packages.debian.org/buster/libatk-bridge2.0-0. Make certain to choose the i386 version. Unpack the deb. You'll find both a libatk-bridge-2.0.so.0.0.0 library and a libatk-bridge-2.0.so.0 symbolic link to it in the unpacked /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu folder. Copy both to racy's /usr/lib folder. Restart-X. May require a Save and reboot. After which you may find that other libs are missing.

I followed your instructions above but unfortunately iron32 still won't run on racy. This is the output from a terminal.

Code: Select all

# /mnt/home/Iron-portable/LAUNCH
/initrd/mnt/dev_save/Iron-portable/iron32/iron-pup: error while loading shared libraries: libxcb-dri3.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
# 

It looks like I'm now missing libxcb-dri3.so.0.

Keep repeating the process until (a) Iron works; (b) you still get errors and can't find solutions or (c) you decide to use your SaveFile/Folder backup because it isn't a mess and you can live without the Iron browser under Racy.

.
Well given what mikewalsh says here

But modern Iron will NOT run natively in Racy.

I think it might be best to give up at this point rather than continue with the dependency chase. I assume I'd have the same problem with Vivaldi portable.

@williams2

If you are using JWM window manager,
jwm seems to have F6 configured to minimize a window,
and F10 configured to maximize a window.

jwm should have a "Show Desktop" button in the tray (the bar at the bottom near the menu button.)

Thanks for the info. I'm on JWM in racy but openbox in busterdog but I'll try it. The computer I'm running these on is in my shed/workshop/junk pile. The last is my wife's description. I'm a bit short of space so don't use a full keyboard. The one I use is one of these rf types you can get on the net for about £6. It's only about 6x4 inches. It doesn't have a Win key.

@mikewalsh
Again thanks for the extensive reply.

AFAICT, there has been no mention of any intent to drop 32-bit builds of Chromium, so derivatives will, presumably, continue to be free to develop their own 32-bit spins.

Well that's good news in that it might keep these old 32 bit machines going.

With regard to extensions, you basically use the Chrome webstore. Extensions are very rarely architecture-specific, since they're mostly script-based anyway. But as Mike quoted from me above, I'd recommend AdGuard to anyone.

Yes that's two recommendations for AdGuard so I'll give it a try.

I had problems with the top-right corner buttons at one point, too. You can right-click on that top 'title' bar where the buttons are; this will give you a number of options.

Yep, when your used to them it's a bit annoying not to have them even if there are ways around it.

But modern Iron will NOT run natively in Racy.

It's a pity as being a portable it would have been useful to have it working in all three. Still two out of three is not bad. I still have palemoon 28.16.0 in racy. Hopefully it will still be usable for a while yet.

Regards,

Kn.

[keniv]

Just a quick update on this. I've tried the suggestions using dpup stretch which has both FbBox and JWM desktops. In JWM F6 did not minimise the window though it did rotate through other items on the screen. Likewise F10 did not maximise the screen though it did switch between two items on the screen. I guess they could be configured to minimise or maximise the screen. However the "right-click on that top 'title' bar" beside the "x" did bring up options which included maximise and minimise and I think this is the best solution for me as I prefer FbBox to JWM.
I've also uninstalled uBlock and installed AdGuard. I assume this has a default setup by I am confused by a page that seems to be a set of options (please see attached settings.jpg). If these have to be setup could those that are using it please suggest a reasonable setup. Also a screen with comments about a full version appeared (please see fullversion.jpg). Does this mean that the version I've installed is not the full version. If so is the full version a payed for version?

Regards,

Ken.

[WoodLark]

Does anyone know of a way to import logins/passwords from Firefox or Vivaldi into Iron?

[mikewalsh]

@keniv :-

With regard to AdGuard, yes, there IS a 'paid' version'. Do I think it's worth paying for? I wouldn't know; the free version appears to do everything that 99% of people could possibly want, so I'm going to stick with that.

As for settings, well; mine look like this:-

Bring AdGuard up, and click on the 'Settings' cog. Then:-

• General - enable everything except 'self-promotion of websites'

• Filters - everything except 'custom'

• Stealth Mode - everything except 'self-destruction of first-party cookies' & 'block WebRTC'

• Whitelist & User Rules - these are entirely up to the individual

• Miscellaneous - everything except 'Use optimized filters' (these are for the mobile version) and 'Show info on the paid version'

Those are my preferences. You may want to modify yours, but that is, I think, a good starting-point.

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

@WoodLark :-

There's a trick for quickly importing bookmarks; just copy a text file over between profiles. But passwords? I've never been able to find a way to do this; Mozilla browsers use plain-text files.....Chromium-based clones use special 'encrypted' database files for nearly everything, so you CANNOT see what's inside them. However, since I have both a Google a/c AND a LastPass a/c, my passwords are duplicated/saved in both of those anyway.....I don't allow the actual browser to save my passwords.

Sorry I can't be of more help with that one.

Mike.

[keniv]

As for settings, well; mine look like this:-

Bring AdGuard up, and click on the 'Settings' cog. Then:-

• General - enable everything except 'self-promotion of websites'

• Filters - everything except 'custom'

• Stealth Mode - everything except 'self-destruction of first-party cookies' & 'block WebRTC'

• Whitelist & User Rules - these are entirely up to the individual

• Miscellaneous - everything except 'Use optimized filters' (these are for the mobile version) and 'Show info on the paid version'

Those are my preferences. You may want to modify yours, but that is, I think, a good starting-point.

Yep, that does give me a good starting point.

the free version appears to do everything that 99% of people could possibly want

Again, thanks for that, looks like I don't need a paid version.

Regards,

Ken.

[s243a]

Here are the errors I'm getting (upupGG+D):

Code: Select all

[6461:6526:1210/180038.457553:ERROR:object_proxy.cc(621)] Failed to call method: org.freedesktop.UPower.EnumerateDevices: object_path= /org/freedesktop/UPower: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name org.freedesktop.UPower was not provided by any .service files
[6461:6502:1210/180038.576012:ERROR:bus.cc(393)] Failed to connect to the bus: Could not parse server address: Unknown address type (examples of valid types are "tcp" and on UNIX "unix")
[6461:6502:1210/180038.576102:ERROR:bus.cc(393)] Failed to connect to the bus: Could not parse server address: Unknown address type (examples of valid types are "tcp" and on UNIX "unix")
[6493:6493:1210/180038.936592:ERROR:sandbox_linux.cc(374)] InitializeSandbox() called with multiple threads in process gpu-process.
...
[6495:6510:1210/180058.322219:ERROR:ssl_client_socket_impl.cc(963)] handshake failed; returned -1, SSL error code 1, net_error -107

https://pastebin.com/g7f2MPu1

The UPower errors seems irrelevant to me. The, "Failed to connect to the bus" error is likely due to dbus not running (see issue). Anyway, when dbus is running the following environmental variable should be set DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS. I'm not sure why InitializeSandbox() is called when the --no-sandbox flag is called. The ssl error is concerning (Might some of the certificates be out of date?)

Anyway, I don't think any of these errors are chrshing iron. So let's look at some of the memory dump output (same pastebin link as above). The following looks concerning:

Code: Select all

IntentionallyCrashBrowserForUnusableGpuProcess()

The error occurs when I open the youtube page and then open a new tab before the page loads.

Not sure if this will help but here is where in the source this function is called:
https://chromium.googlesource.com/chro ... te.cc#413

If I add the --disable-gpu flag iron doesn't even start and I get the following error:

Code: Select all

[18983:18995:1210/192841.520374:FATAL:gpu_data_manager_impl_private.cc(442)] GPU process isn't usable. Goodbye.

I might need a "software render" for the "--disable-gpu" option to work. See:
https://peter.sh/experiments/chromium-c ... -switches/

[s243a]

The error occurs when I open the youtube page and then open a new tab before the page loads.

Not sure if this will help but here is where in the source this function is called:
https://chromium.googlesource.com/chro ... te.cc#413

If I add the --disable-gpu flag iron doesn't even start and I get the following error:

Code: Select all

[18983:18995:1210/192841.520374:FATAL:gpu_data_manager_impl_private.cc(442)] GPU process isn't usable. Goodbye.

I might need a "software render" for the "--disable-gpu" option to work. See:
https://peter.sh/experiments/chromium-c ... -switches/

I found a solution. My solution was to add the following option:

--enable-oop-rasterization Turns on out of process raster for the renderer whenever gpu raster would have been used. Enables the chromium_raster_transport extension. ↪

Edit: See next post
https://peter.sh/experiments/chromium-c ... -switches/

What led me to this was wondering about software rendering, since my gpu seems to cause chrome to sometimes crash. I first checked to see that I had the openGL packages installed (i.e. libgl*) , but chrome doesn't normally use these. I found this about by asking google the question, "Does Chrome uses OpenGL?",and somewhere along the way this lead me to:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skia_Graphics_Engine
https://software.intel.com/content/www/ ... omium.html
https://skia.org/

Looking at the second of these links I saw the word rasterization used, and so I searched the command line options for the word "rasterization". So, I'm not using the "--disable-gpu flag". Instead, I'm using the "--enable-oop-rasterization option, which likely has a similar effect except that the rendering is done externally to chrome/chromium/iron etc.

[s243a]

The error occurs when I open the youtube page and then open a new tab before the page loads.

Not sure if this will help but here is where in the source this function is called:
https://chromium.googlesource.com/chro ... te.cc#413

If I add the --disable-gpu flag iron doesn't even start and I get the following error:

Code: Select all

[18983:18995:1210/192841.520374:FATAL:gpu_data_manager_impl_private.cc(442)] GPU process isn't usable. Goodbye.

I might need a "software render" for the "--disable-gpu" option to work. See:
https://peter.sh/experiments/chromium-c ... -switches/

I found a solution. My solution was to add the following option:

Code: Select all

--enable-oop-rasterization 	Turns on out of process raster for the renderer whenever gpu raster would have been used. Enables the chromium_raster_transport extension. ↪

https://peter.sh/experiments/chromium-c ... -switches/

What led me to this was wondering about software rendering, since my gpu seems to cause chrome to sometimes crash. I first checked to see that I had the openGL packages installed (i.e. libgl*) , but chrome doesn't normally use these. I found this about by asking google the question, "Does Chrome uses OpenGL?",and somewhere along the way this lead me to:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skia_Graphics_Engine
https://software.intel.com/content/www/ ... omium.html
https://skia.org/

Looking at the second of these links I saw the word rasterization used, and so I searched the command line options for the word "rasterization". So, I'm not using the "--disable-gpu flag". Instead, I'm using the "--enable-oop-rasterization option, which likely has a similar effect except that the rendering is done externally to chrome/chromium/iron etc.

While that worked better it still eventually crashed. The following seems to work so far on chromium (rather than --enable-oop-rasterization):

Code: Select all

--use-angle  	Select which ANGLE backend to use. Options are: default: Attempts several ANGLE renderers until one successfully initializes, varying ES support by platform. d3d9: Legacy D3D9 renderer, ES2 only. d3d11: D3D11 renderer, ES2 and ES3. warp: D3D11 renderer using software rasterization, ES2 and ES3. gl: Desktop GL renderer, ES2 and ES3. gles: GLES renderer, ES2 and ES3. ↪

so I'll see if it also works for Iron

[vin]

Great browser. I luckily came across it.
I feel it's speedier than firefox.
And, chrome & firefox consume a lot of data on startup. So I avoid them.

Any idea whether all 'tracking' has been removed from the code of chrome? (as in case of iridium browser)
Thanks.

UPDATE :- just now visited this url which claims that Iron tracks even more.
https://spyware.neocities.org/articles/iron.html