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Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
Google made a change in Chrome 57 that removes options from the browser to manage plugins such as Google Widevine, Adobe Flash, or the Chrome PDF Viewer.
If you load chrome://plugins in Chrome 56 or earlier, a list of installed plugins is displayed to you. The list includes information about each plugin, including a name and description, location on the local system, version, and options to disable it or set it to "always run".
You can use it to disable plugins that you don't require. While you can do the same for some plugins, Flash and PDF Viewer, using Chrome's Settings, the same is not possible for the DRM plugin Widevine, and any other plugin Google may add to Chrome in the future.
Starting with Chrome 57, that option is no longer available. This means essentially that Chrome users won't be able to disable -- some -- plugins anymore, or even list the plugins that are installed in the web browser.
Please note that this affects Google Chrome and Chromium.
Source: http://www.ghacks.net/2017/01/29/google-removes-plugin-controls-from-chrome/
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Unixnut on Tuesday January 31 2017, @02:44PM
...I am going back to seamonkey [seamonkey-project.org]. One of the few people who seem to actually care about building a decent browser rather than being driven by fads and/or denying me control over my own machine.
Shame my distro doesn't have a binary package for them, but other than than it works well, and supports plugins like firefox, and seems to be more stable than ff/chromium has been for me lately.
I am sick of having to fight software to get it to do what I want.
Anyone got any good alternative browser recommendations, feel free to post them to this thread. I heard good things about Pale moon, but haven't tried it yet (might be on my list soon though).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Tuesday January 31 2017, @02:47PM
Isn't there a thing called Chromium?
Oh, shit! Why does it even exist?!
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(Score: 4, Insightful) by Hyperturtle on Tuesday January 31 2017, @03:18PM
The fact they also restricted configuration options in Chromium means that they are really intending to curtail something, or forcefully enable something else.
I wonder if perhaps they are now emboldened with the recent administration changes? Business friendly initiatives allow for much maneuvering.
Considering the new mandate that for every regulation added, one must be removed -- to keep things consumer friendly in order to stop technology that has outpaced the ability to regulate it, we may be entering a new golden age of what the IT industry chooses to do now that they have all the Big Data and little reason to worry about new restrictions in how they use it.
By the time something is declared off-limits, much may already have been done that is considered privacy violating. Or whatever the problem is. Business friendly is called that because it isn't primarily consumer friendly.
But I am a nay sayer. Anyone that adopts one of these ecosystems, or several of them, are sure to be pleased at the conveniences they are provided in exchange for the release from complicated freedoms of choice, right?
(Score: 4, Funny) by DannyB on Tuesday January 31 2017, @04:35PM
So then, Don't Be Evil, unless you can do so quickly enough that it is too late for anyone to do anything about it.
If your boy is chewing on electrical cords, then ground him until he conducts himself properly.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Unixnut on Tuesday January 31 2017, @05:11PM
so.. like high frequency trading? :-P
(Score: 2) by rts008 on Tuesday January 31 2017, @09:01PM
Well, as fast as high speed trading, but closer to a high speed fucking.
Imagine a dry, gritty jackhammer approaching your rectum...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by WillR on Tuesday January 31 2017, @07:09PM
2004: Don't Be Evil.
2010: Evil is subjective and hard to define.
2013: We make military robots now.
(Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Wednesday February 08 2017, @04:36PM
I guess that is more like the ascension of Alphabet.
Google made the promise; we can argue if they broke or bent it.
Alphabet did not make that same promise, and their subsidiares not already held to such things are not beholden to such restrictions.
(Score: 4, Funny) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday January 31 2017, @06:20PM
I wonder if perhaps they are now emboldened with the recent administration changes? Business friendly initiatives allow for much maneuvering.
I'm as freaked out as the next bleeding-heart liberal, but, REALLY?
(Score: 2) by WillR on Tuesday January 31 2017, @07:05PM
(Your distro may patch them in, like Gentoo does if you set certain non-default USE flags, but then it should be on them to maintain a patch to bring about:plugins back)
(Score: 5, Informative) by bradley13 on Tuesday January 31 2017, @02:52PM
I'm currently giving Brave [brave.com] a try. It offers built-in blockers for ads, trackers and scripts, as well as an experimental fingerprinting-blocker. Personally, I don't think their idea a of user-driven payment model will ever work, but that's a separate issue.
FWIW, a few things work differently from what one expects. And the "new session tab" doesn't seem to really open an independent session. But those are quibbles - overall, after a week or so of use, it seems to be pretty good.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by zeigerpuppy on Wednesday February 01 2017, @03:15AM
thanks for the tip, just installed Brave on OS X, looks nice (fast too)
(Score: 3, Informative) by kurenai.tsubasa on Tuesday January 31 2017, @03:04PM
Vivaldi came up yesterday, which I use despite its warts as my main browser. It's at least worth a shot, and it uses Chrome's extensions. I just checked vivaldi://plugins, and as of 1.6.689.40 at least Widevine and the Chromium PDF viewer can be disabled yet. I don't expect that will go away just given how customizable the thing is. Themes remain a weak area compared to Seamonkey and Firefox.
Pale Moon is also a good alternative, but unfortunately it's Windows only. Otter [otter-browser.org] also looks worth a shot.
I haven't used Midori [midori-browser.org] in a while. It's mostly there but crashy under Windows. Good for general browsing, but I found that pretty much anything involving a shopping cart is broken in it. A shame too because it's really lightweight. A Chromium compile on my Gentoo box can take over six hours, but that thing's compiled and merged well under an hour iirc.
Seamonkey has been a stable, reliable fallback for a browser, and it's still my mail client of choice in Windows since I need HTML mail at work. (Claws Mail for home where I don't give a rip about HTML mail.) I'm really hoping Seamonkey will continue to follow updates from Firefox and Thunderbird without pulling in the mental retardation. It's good to have something solid around without all the bells and whistles.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 31 2017, @03:25PM
Pale Moon runs on Linux and there is a third-party build available for Mac OS X. Stop spreading misinformation.
(Score: 2, Informative) by kurenai.tsubasa on Tuesday January 31 2017, @04:48PM
Good catch. Binaries here [palemoon.org].
Additionally, Pale Moon is included in and can be installed directly from the default repositories of the following distros:
- Manjaro
- PCLinuxOS
- Puppy Linux
- MEPIS/MX-15
- Arch User Repository (AUR)
- Gentoo Overlays [here? [github.com]]
- Slackbuilds
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Tuesday January 31 2017, @04:23PM
Midori is pleasant under Linux, but I'm using firefox instead since Google disconinued Chrome on my machine.
The Midori I tried is the one packaged by my distro, Devuan,
Observations about Midori:
(1) I can't figure out how to import bookmarks from Firefox or Chrome.
(2) When I use file:// to access files on my local hard drive, it doesn't sort them into any recognisable kind of alphabetical order.
(3) And I can't find documentation or a forum on which to discuss these matters. It's items (1) to (3) that really get in my way.
(4) This one is minor. There's something off in the spacing of letters within words. Not sure what.
Otherwise, it's quite pleasant to use.
-- hendrik
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday February 01 2017, @02:04AM
Google disconinued Chrome on my machine.
I'm running Devuan and Chromium 55 is in the repo for me. You weren't expecting the closed source Chrome in a Debian based distro, right? If you really want it there is a .deb available from Google. So unless you are still living in the dark ages with a 32bit machine you are good to go.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Saturday February 04 2017, @03:49PM
Thanks for the reminder. Chromium now installed. I wasn't expecting it to stay around for my 32-bit machine after Google dropped 32-bit Chrome. Well, 32-bit Chrome still runs, but it is no longer updated or patched, so it is probably a security risk and I do not use it. But I see 32-bit Chromium is still advancing in version numbers, presumably in step with 64-bit chrome.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Tuesday January 31 2017, @04:47PM
I just installed Vivaldi. I'm going to give it a test run today, but so far, I could see myself replacing chrome with it as my new standard.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday January 31 2017, @03:05PM
If it's Webkit/Blink you want, maybe it's time to try Vivaldi [vivaldi.com].
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by NickFortune on Tuesday January 31 2017, @03:34PM
Happy Pale Moon user here. I'd recommend it.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Tuesday January 31 2017, @04:01PM
Indeed, I have tried many free browsers.
Firefox: Full featured, but they keep breaking it.
Chromium: Full featured, but keeps taking a lot of memory vs. other browsers.
Pale Moon: Full featured; used it for months; found that there were a lot of pages that would load in Firefox and Chrome but not Pale Moon. That's a no-go.
Midori: Small, fast, no features.
Dillo: If it's a joke, I don't get it.
For the past several months I've been using Firefox+theme plugins+modify-behavior plugins, but not 100% happy with it.
Today, I finally imported all my bookmarks into SeaMonkey and decided to give that a go.
Posting this reply from SeaMonkey.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday January 31 2017, @04:06PM
Vivaldi [vivaldi.com]! Arrggh!
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by requerdanos on Tuesday January 31 2017, @04:33PM
I understand and appreciate that $PROPRIETARY_BROWSER may be someone's preferred solution, but as long as free software does the job for me, I am not likely to look beyond the free world. Fair enough?
(Score: 2, Disagree) by takyon on Tuesday January 31 2017, @04:38PM
I look forward to your series of code audits!
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 31 2017, @04:54PM
I fail to see the point of your comment. To me, freedom is important in and of itself and it's a great injustice if software denies users their freedoms.
Regarding audits, if the software respects my freedoms, I can audit the code myself (as you suggested), hire someone to audit the code, choose to trust someone who already audited the code, etc. And of course, you can modify the code and share the modifications, and the entire community can do so as well. With proprietary software, you are dependent upon a particular developer, and they could far more easily abuse their powers. Free software simply gives you far more options, and that's undeniable.
Your comment is pretty much an example of the nirvana fallacy. No software can be 100% secure and free of backdoors even if it respects your freedoms, but freedom-respecting software is still far better than proprietary software, and that's good enough.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by jmorris on Wednesday February 01 2017, @02:06AM
It isn't just code audits, it is the forks. When a closed product goes bad or changes revenue models you are simply boned. See Windows 10. Or more on topic, Opera. Contrast to Firefox or Debian.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Tuesday January 31 2017, @09:21PM
I do not understand your arrggh!. Are you annoyed everyone is ignoring Vivaldi? Are you telling me it's terrible? Are you you complaining because it is proprietary? Is it even proprietary? Is it too heavy to run in a mere two gigabytes of RAM?
Please explain.
-- hendrik
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday January 31 2017, @10:11PM
I decline.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Tuesday January 31 2017, @11:17PM
It does seem odd that you so strongly thought it should be on the list of
that were tried.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 01 2017, @05:19PM
Well yes, but one would think that you must eventually reach bottom.
(Score: 1) by charon on Tuesday January 31 2017, @07:25PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 01 2017, @05:21AM
My bank's website would not recognize it as a compatible browser
Crazy question: You did try a User Agent Switcher to spoof the site and tell it you were using something on their brain-dead list. Right?
...and proper sniffing[1] only looks for the rendering engine--not the browser name.
[1] Browser sniffing is mostly unnecessary.
If a site is built to be standards-compliant, any standards-compliant browser will work on it.
Setting up their landing page so that you can't get through it with a non-standards-compliant browser should do the trick without stupid shit like browser sniffing.
(I'm flashing back to Acid2 & Acid3 here.)
Does your bank's front page even pass the validator? [w3.org]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by charon on Wednesday February 01 2017, @09:43AM
Yes and it still didn't work. There was something lacking in the browser until somehow it was there in an update I had skipped. And it's not that it was a huge amount missing, the only thing it balked at doing was some crazy javascript thing for transferring money between accounts. Displayed everything just fine.
It seems to validate except for a couple missing alt text on img errors.
(Score: 2) by number11 on Tuesday January 31 2017, @10:22PM
PaleMoon has worked just about everywhere for me. There are a few websites that don't like the user-agent string, but I use SecretAgent to lie about the user-agent anyhow. There remain a few websites that are problematic, but it's hard to tell if the fault lies with PaleMoon, SecretAgent, NoScript, AdBlock Latitude, my VPN, or something else. Some of those sites give problems with Chromium-based browsers as well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 31 2017, @10:48PM
The fault generally lies with the third party script libs a lot of sites embed, they have faulty UA sniffing in them to determine script capabilities instead of querying if something is supported directly which will break them for any UA they fail to recognize.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Wednesday February 01 2017, @02:25PM
How is a site supposed to query support for essential HTML elements and CSS selectors and properties before sending the HTML and CSS to the browser, particularly if the user has disabled script? IE 8 is unsupported and therefore presumed vulnerable, but IE 9 is still supported for a few more months.
And even if you have convinced the user to allow script on your domain, how is a site supposed to query support for new language features introduced in ECMAScript 6? You can't catch a SyntaxError, and the commonly used snippet involving a new Function violates any Content Security Policy that doesn't include 'unsafe-eval'.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 02 2017, @03:40PM
The site is supposed to send 1 html file and 1 css file to the browser
The browser then figures out which part of the css to use
Their is absolutely no *need* for 90%+ of all sites to script anything, the scripting may add some nice shiny-ness but that's about all for the vast majority of sites (of course thanks to braindead frameworks lots of site don't work at all without scripting, but that's under control of the one making the site)
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Wednesday February 01 2017, @05:35AM
"there were a lot of pages that would load in Firefox and Chrome but not Pale Moon. That's a no-go."...change the user agent string so it read Firefox instead of Pale Moon, works like a charm and any page that will load in FF will then load in PM. Its in about:config , easy peasy.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday January 31 2017, @04:06PM
Use links.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 31 2017, @04:44PM
At this point the only thing it accumulates from firefox is security fixes.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 31 2017, @04:51PM
From their FAQ: [palemoon.org]
Note that Pale Moon will never adopt the Australis (Firefox 29 and later) interface and aims to remain a fully XUL-driven browser with full user interface customizability.
And also later on the same page [palemoon.org] (emphasis by me):
Pale Moon is most certainly not "just a rebuild" of existing Firefox code, unlike other "alternative" Firefox browsers out there. As Pale Moon has developed, so has the amount of individual code for the browser, steadily diverging Pale Moon from its sibling in the direction aimed for in this browser - having transformed it from an optimized build (which it was when it first started out in 2009) into a true "fork" of Mozilla code and being completely independent now.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday January 31 2017, @04:41PM
Seamonkey (Netscape) is still the best, always has been. You can stop looking for alternatives.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Tuesday January 31 2017, @06:48PM
Agreed. I was using palemoon for a while, but it was using a lot of ram, so I switched to Seamonkey, it's faster, more stable, and has more features. I tried using several of the command line driven browsers, but I didn't get into any of them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 01 2017, @05:27AM
Netsurf?
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Friday February 03 2017, @09:50AM
Netsurf, surf, and a few other odd ones with hard to remember jumble-of-letters names (do w3m and links count? they're command line driven and text mode, but also fully featured with tabs and such). Maybe if I linked a bookmark file into zsh completions it would be smoother, but as-is I couldn't get them to "flow" right for me. The minimalism in UI and resource use, and good fit into a tiling window manager attracted me, but in the end it was too much work to do all that typing to pull up sites when I could fire up seamonkey.
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday January 31 2017, @10:16PM
While I agree that SM is one of the best and am posting from it. Its days are numbered. There's a shortage of developers, as happens with volunteer driven projects, and it is based on Gecko. Besides the horribleness of keeping up with all the changes that Mozilla does lately, and the fact that Mozilla developers have been ordered to spend no company time at all on SeaMonkey or Thunderbird, there's the problem that once Mozilla drops support for stuff such as extensions, xul, xpcom, etc, SeaMonkey is fucked. They may switch to the 54ESR branch for a while, and 54ESR may be supported for more then a year as it is the branch that will continue to support XP but the writing is on the wall. Mozilla does not want users, and SeaMonkey is a user.
(Score: 2) by jelizondo on Tuesday January 31 2017, @05:16PM
I use Pale Moon as my standard browser, even do I have to use Chrome and even Edge sometimes to test something or other.
Pale Moon is not perfect but at least it remains true to the original Firefox concept and as far as I can tell, it doesn’t phone home or does other nasty privacy-busting shit. It supports almost all plug-ins for Firefox, so you can have NoScript, Firebug and other stuff function as expected.
Bottom line: better than most alternatives.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday January 31 2017, @07:29PM
See, I found it couldn't use my most important add-ons, the high-end ad blockers, which basically made me drop it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 31 2017, @09:45PM
Which distro? I use Palemoon on Ubuntu and antiX
(Score: 2) by Murdoc on Wednesday February 01 2017, @01:52AM