What's left of sidebars for Netscape

Ed Mullen has a great page on Netscape and Mozilla tips and even a page that includes installable links to sidebars that can still be added to SeaMonkey 1.1.xx, a successor to Netscape 7/8 and Mozilla Application Suite.

Unfortunately, some of the sidebars are now outdated, half-work, redirect, cannot be found anymore or are completely offline.

Below is a selection of sidebars I found to be interesting to check them out.

Sidebars that still work:

• The Google sidebar works! Yay!
• The Real.com Guide sidebar only offers search for audio, video, and radio stations (no actual Guide to speak of).

...That are outdated:

The CNN Expanded Sidebar is still live, but stopped having updates since two years ago on March 2, 2009: The Dow Jones index dropped below 7000 on that day, because AIG had a record loss, tech gadgets had become a luxury, and "Twilight" stars were huge.

The links to news sites don't work, because they use a redirect via info.netscape.com (which now redirects to netscape.aol.com ).

In terms of context, the "Last updated" text in the sidebar is inaccurate, because it's most likely a script. That sidebar page is now a virtual time capsule of World news.

Netscape Sidebars

...that redirect:

• Netscape WebCenter Travel (webcenter.travel.netscape.com) — Ah, well, this at least redirects to travel.aol.com, but that's it. At least it's topical.
• Netscape Celebrities (celebrities.netscape.com) — redirects within the sidebar to netscape.aol.com.
• Netscape TV Listings (tv.netscape.com) — redirects in-sidebar to netscape.aol.com.

...that don't work anymore:

(in descending order of importance)

• Netscape Time Zone Converter (cgi.netscape.com) — "Not found" — Ed Mullen's screenshot of it is now a historical artifact;
• Netscape Netbusiness — because netbusiness.netscape.com is completely offline (no 404 page, even);
• Netscape Netbusiness Industry Headlines (netbusiness.netscape.com) — domain is offline;
• Netscape Netbusiness Search (netbusiness.netscape.com) — offline;
• Netscape DevEdge (developer.netscape.com): "This tab is not available right now." — Taken offline since about 11.10.2004 and then moved to devedge-temp.mozilla.org/index_en.html
   
• Netscape Home Improvement (homeimprovement.netscape.com) — "Not Found";
• Netscape Home Improvement House and Home (homeimprovement.netscape.com) — "Not Found";
• Netscape Lifestyles Pet tools (lifestyles.netscape.com) — "Not Found".
   
• American Greetings (lifestyles.netscape.com) — "Not Found"

• The OS/2 sidebar does not work either, because os2.org cannot be reached.

Speaking of which — OS/2 has officially outlived Windows 9x, because according to screenshots, Mozilla Firefox 3.5.4 works in it. OS/2 can also run OpenOffice.org 3.1.1 and OS/2 now lives on as eComStation, where Firefox 3.6 and 4.0 (beta) can also be run.

eComStation is capable of running OpenOffice.org 3.2, VLC Media Player 1.1.4, and CUPS, a free software printer framework (modern printer support).

While Windows 9x only supports Mozilla Firefox 2.0, OpenOffice.org 2.4, and has ageing support for printers (I admit as much that some printers useless with CUPS are supported in Windows 9x)...

Older Flashblock and NoScript for older Firefox and SeaMonkey versions

If you're ever stuck with an older computer and a Live CD (an older version of Knoppix) or an older computer with Windows 95/98/Me and an older version of Firefox or Mozilla or SeaMonkey, then useful extensions (add-ons, but not plugins) for these still exist and can be installed.

(If installing them from a website won't work, download an .xpi separately and install from local storage.)

The most recent version of NoScript to support —

• Mozilla Firefox 1.0.x (in my case): 1.1.4.7 (XPI)

01.02.2011.

Noscript caveat:
Version 1.1.4.7 does not block META redirects within <NOSCRIPT> elements in HTML. — I saw this with one Russian social networking site.

The noscript.forbidMetaRefresh boolean (set to true) in about:config only applies to refresh elements outside <NOSCRIPT> tags.

Turned out that the functionality blocking META-refresh-in-<NOSCRIPT>-tags was first introduced with version 1.1.4.8RC1 of NoScript, which only supports Mozilla Firefox 1.5 or newer.

02.02.2011.

Multiple Mozilla Firefox 1.0 caveats with the modern Internet:

• Firefox 1.0 is so outdated that only "Basic", "Classic" and "Lite" versions of various popular services work. Remember to place these services' old versions' addresses in the Bookmarks menu or toolbar.
• Windows Live sign-in doesn't work at all.
• Nowadays' popular Websites use scripts and AJAX so intensively that NoScript is invaluable in suppressing unnecessary scripts that may hog system resources (also applies to Firefox 2 and SeaMonkey 1.x).

Windows 95	Firefox 1.5–1.5.0.3:	NoScript 1.5.2 (XPI)
	Firefox 1.5.0.4:	NoScript 1.8.1.3
	Firefox 1.5–	NoScript 1.10	SeaMonkey 1.1.17 –1.1.19
Windows 98/Me	Firefox 2.0.0.20
28.01.2016.
Windows 2000	Firefox 12.0	NoScript 2.9.0.1rc1	SeaMonkey 2.9.1

NoScript versions page

I know I haven't posted much about Flashblock, but it can be had from flashblock.mozdev.org

The legacy options presented in this post pertain to situations where it's impossible to upgrade to SeaMonkey 1.1.19, such as an out of date Live CD (and what if someone has only that?).

Yet when it comes to a Windows 9x operating system, then it's best to install or upgrade to SeaMonkey 1.1.19. Reasons for this in one of my previous posts.

GIMP 2.6 UI text too small?

I had the happy occasion to download, install and use GIMP 2.6.11. Overall it's a very nice image manipulation program, so kudos to developers. One trouble was that its user interface's default text size was too small for my liking. While it may be good on small monitors, it's not good in large monitors and neither is it good for the eyes like that.

So I surfed the web and first found out one solution (forgot the source, of course), and then another one, which is easier (with attribution to the initial suggestion).

R., 05.10.2012. update:

Right, well, this has been brewing for a longer time, but I've now gotten up to describing a more elegant solution that has been available for well more than a year or so. If not more even...

So, anyways, I got the solution for Windows from the help page of the Pidgin instant messenger, and the page is on its own quite straight-forward:

• Download the GTK2 preferences program, also known as the GTK+ Theme Switcher package (version 0.4.1 and Win32) from Sourceforge;
• out of which compressed package you should extract gtk2_prefs.exe into the GIMP program folder, such as this —

  C:\Program Files\GIMP-2.0\bin\

• Then create a shortcut to the program, and then move the shortcut to the desktop or copy it into the GIMP folder in the Start Menu;
• Then make sure GIMP is not running when you change settings with the below program, because upon quitting it might overwrite the settings you've changed.
• Launch the program, which is officially named The Gtk2 Theme Selector. There you should be able to change the look of GIMP, including themes. Of the two default themes I chose Raleigh, because it's nicer-looking, but you can download your own via instructions at the Pidgin help page.

Caveat: If you uninstall or upgrade GIMP, the Gtk2 Theme Switcher program (and any additional installed themes) will be deleted. Not sure about whether settings will also be retained, but after upgrading, you'll need to re-extract the Gtk2 Theme Switcher in order to set the settings right (if need be, again). The program's user interface is quite straight-forward. Save settings/quit the theme switcher, start GIMP.

But the above is a much simpler solution than advice below, which has worked for me, too.

---

And if that doesn't work, then the following should definitely help.

---

First of all, GIMP uses themes and keeps its configuration data in configuration files of those themes; the files are easily editable. Before you do any changes, make a copy of the original first, just in case.

• Locations for themes can be found at Edit > Preferences > in the left-side section, click on Themes [since I use the Estonian-language UI, the word is Kujundus; located between User Interface (Liides) and Help System (Abisüsteem)].
• In the right-side main section, you will then see the list of themes and their locations. Theme names correspond to their relevant folder names. By default, there are two: Default and Small.
• Go to the themes folder, and make a copy of the Default folder, rename it. I've renamed it to Default-bigger. Making a copy of the theme folder will keep the original theme.
• Go into the copied theme folder, Default-bigger in my case, and open the gtkrc file. This is the gtk configuration file for GIMP and contains settings directly affecting font size in the user interface. Make a copy of the file first, then open it with a text editor (if you use Windows, I suggest WordPad, because it supports UNIX-style carriage returns, or Notepad2; if resources permit, a local office productivity word processor is good, so long you save the file in the original format).
• The file's settings are similar to formatting rules in a CSS file. Scroll down in the file and look for font-scale and label-scale items. The default size for these are given as 0.8333. Change them to 1.0, as in

  GimpRuler::font-scale          = 1.0

  Save the file, (re)start GIMP. If something goes wrong, you can overwrite the modified file either from its own original copy or the original in the original Defaults theme.

Best Gecko-based browser for Windows 9x

The latest and last versions of Gecko-based browsers to run on Vanilla Windows 98/Me (and 95, with updates and other reservations) are

• Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.20 (Gecko 1.8.1.20, 20081217),
• K-Meleon 1.5.4 (Gecko 1.8.1.24pre, released on 05.03.2010) and
• SeaMonkey 1.1.19 (Gecko 1.8.1.24, released on 16.03.2010).

If there were a competition between the three, then the winner would be SeaMonkey.

The reasons are thus:

• Under similar limited circumstances, SeaMonkey 1.1 is more responsive than Mozilla Firefox  2.

  Here's why: SeaMonkey 1.1's XPFE/XPToolkit-based user interface (UI) technology dates back to Mozilla Application Suite (v1.0 released 05.06.2002, but pre-releases were usable since a year before), while Mozilla Firefox 2.0 (2006) is completely based on a newer toolkit (XUL).

• SeaMonkey 1.1.19 has a newer and more secure Gecko layout engine than Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.20 and K-Meleon.
• SeaMonkey 1.1 has been supported by the two most important extensions to grace web surfing: Flashblock and NoScript.

  K-Meleon also uses the native Windows API for its UI, meaning that it can't run extensions which normally work in SeaMonkey or Mozilla Firefox.
  
  While K-Meleon comes close with its quick UI responsiveness and its rendering engine, it's only good for websites that are safe and are known to not be resource-intensive. Most of the latter still exist as they are, but the most popular sites (for webmail and news) are regularly redesigned to include more fancy features and are therefore made more demanding by way of including extensive JavaScript and AJAX technologies and often embedding multiple manifestations of the Adobe Flash plugin.

Which is why SeaMonkey 1.1.19 adorned with NoScript and Flashblock extensions is about the best Gecko-based browser solution that there is for Windows 9x, even Windows 95.

The only caveat is that SeaMonkey requires at least 64 Mb of RAM to run passably and at least a 266 MHz CPU. Well, a Navigator-only one-window/one-or-two-tab solution works in a PC with just a slightly lesser CPU.

K-Meleon is best for computers with 32–48 Mb of RAM (certainly less than 64 Mb).
Some words of caution: Java and JavaScript could only be allowed for safe and non-demanding websites. Because of a lack of NoScript or like extension for K-Meleon, JavaScript should be turned off for casual browsing (sometimes even a Google Search result may cause a hiccup). Keeping Java on is only recommended when a user consciously recognizes a real and pressing need to use that plugin (maybe a map application over the web).

On Plugins

Although Adobe Acrobat Reader 6.0.6 (released/updated last in 2003) is about the last version for Windows 98 as far as I know, it is still outdated and so more vulnerable to attacks that use the Reader.

While older computers might best handle even older versions of Acrobat Reader, it's most important to disable Acrobat (Java)Script in the Reader's preferences, no matter the version. This should somehow prevent malicious websites using the Reader as an attack vector.

A complete alternative to using Adobe Reader in old computers is muPDF: It's much less resource intensive, supports the newest PDF document display standard (PDF 1.7) and does not use AcroScript. muPDF does not support interactive PDF elements; this is both a caveat and a security/speed measure. muPDF does capture the file type association in Windows, so when using the app, then it's an either-or situation between it and Acrobat Reader. It should still be a no-brainer in old computers.

msn connectivity of Pidgin 2.6.6 in Windows 98

I very recently attempted to connect with Pidgin IM 2.6.6 (the last to run on Windows 98, AFAIK) to the .NET Messenger Service, which handles Windows Live Messenger connections. In short, I wanted to connect to msn, but it was impossible because of certificate issues.

The typical solution is to upgrade Pidgin to version 2.7.6, but this version relies on the gtk+ 2.10.xx or newer runtime (a library), which won't run on Windows 98/SE, so users of this operating system may feel stuck.

The solution is thus:

• Close Pidgin.
• The real solution is at SQuID's rants blog post or at the Pidgin developer site.
• Caveats: The filenames must be
  Microsoft_Secure_Server_Authority_2010.pem
  and
  Microsoft_Secure_Server_Authority_2010.pem
  If by any chance the files saved save as *.pem.log
  or anything that does not directly end with a .pem extension, then rename them to *.pem (the asterisk stands for filenames).

The following was my initial solution, but there was a chance that it might not have worked. For other purposes, I left it as a tutorial on how to export and save certificates in W98/Me.

• Go to
  C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\.purple\certificates\x509\tls_peers
  or
  C:\WINDOWS\Profiles\Profilename\Application Data\.purple\certificates\x509\tls_peers
• There you will see what appear to be .com (command) files which are appropriately shown as such by Windows Explorer, but they are actually certificates. Amongst them you will see the omega.contacts.msn.com file. Back that file up by moving it somewhere else, but keep that directory window open and copy its address bar contents into the clipboard.
• With Internet Explorer, connect to
  https://omega.contacts.msn.com
  You may get a denied directory listing, but perhaps the most important part of it is that you'll be presented with a new certificate. —
• View the certificate, go to the Details tab.
• In the Details tab, click the "Copy to File..." button;
• In the Certificate Manager Export Wizard, click next;
• Choose the Base64 encoded X.509 (.CER) format, click the Next button;
• In the Export File Name step, browse to
  C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\.purple\certificates\x509\tls_peers
  or your profile location (best now to paste the location of .purple certificates into the File Name field and then pressing the Enter button for the filepicker to reach the folder), then write the filename as omega.contacts.msn.com, click Save. As the full filename path is now given in the "File name:" field, click Next.
• In the next step, you'll see the certificate export summary, where you'll just have to click Finish and the system will prompt that the export has completed successfully. But that's not everything.
• Restore the abovementioned tls_peers folder window and you'll see that omega.contacts.msn.com may not be that, but omega.contacts.msn.com.cer

  (that is, if you can see the .cer extension. If not, but the file has a certificate icon and not a program icon, go to View > Folder Options > View tab > and in Advanced Settings, uncheck "Hide file extensions for known file types", click OK).

  The solution is to rename the .cer file by removing .cer from the filename. Windows will ask for a confirmation as to changing the file extension (the renamed file will have .com extension). Confirm the rename.
• If it's impossible to change Windows settings as to showing filename extensions (you may be using a work computer, but such a situation is rare with a Windows 9x PC), and if you still can access MS-DOS Prompt, then rename the file from there:
  Type
  cd "C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\.purple\certificates\x509\tls_peers"
  or just type
  cd "
  and paste the certificate directory address by accessing the window menu (click once on the MS-DOS icon and choose Paste from the Edit submenu), type another quote,
  press Enter.
  Your profile directory path may vary as stated above depending on settings.
  Use dir command to get a directory listing. That should show short and long file names. If you see omega.contacts.msn.com.cer as the filename of the msn certificate, rename it:
  rename omega.contacts.msn.com.cer omega.contacts.msn.com
  That should do it. Type exit, press Enter key to close the MS-DOS Prompt window.
• Now start Pidgin and see what happens at the msn login. I could successfuly log in, so you should hopefully not have any trouble either.

I got the initial above solution from Ticket #12906 at the Pidgin developer site.

Recap on SeaMonkey 1.1 > 2.0 migration: Add-on caveats

Themes

Even if a profile is migrated, SeaMonkey 2.0 will default to its default theme. If you used a Modern theme (built-in), then you'll have to choose it from the Add-on Manager and restart SeaMonkey. The selection and amount of themes for SeaMonkey 2.0 is different than for SeaMonkey 1.x.

Extensions (this is the difficult part)

• Extensions must be installed anew.


• The whitelist of servers where extensions and themes can be installed from might not be migrated.


• Globally installing an extension requires administrative rights.
  
  Unlike with Mozilla Firefox, whereby globally installing an extension installs it into every private user profile for all users of an operating system (so that there are multiple copies around of the same extension), doing this for SeaMonkey actually installs the extension into SeaMonkey's extensions folder that resides in the program's install directory.
  
  The pitfall is that a limited Windows xp user would then be unable to update a required extension for compatibility. I had that with two spelling dictionaries.
  
  The quick-and-dirty solution in my case was to temporarily set the user as administrator, update the extension for compatibility and then remove the user's administrator credentials. Bah.
  
  While global extension installation could potentially be very convenient in terms of getting to install only one extension at once for all profiles (=different SeaMonkey users), it does introduce a number of security and other considerations:
  
  
  
  1. One is that, for example, in Windows xp, SeaMonkey is installed into the Program Files folder, where limited users have limited rights, which means that they cannot update the extension, even for compatibility (can't modify folder contents).
  
  
  2. If SeaMonkey were installed into a public directory — such as
     C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents — then the whole suite would be left vulnerable to tampering either by its users or a malicious program (both would have to have awareness of the program's different location).
  
  
  3. Change user access rights for relevant extensions' folders where they are in
     Program Files\SeaMonkey\extensions.
     
     A few words of caution: I have not tried this myself, but some of the user support forum topics related to SeaMonkey have suggested that limited users should be given rights to the whole SeaMonkey install directory, so that they would be able to update their extensions. I do not recommend giving rights to the whole program directory, but giving rights to limited users for only the extensions directories.
     
     While this would make SeaMonkey reasonably tamper-proof, the extensions would be the few to remain vulnerable to tampering.
     
     To easily see which add-on is installed into which folder, install the MR Tech Toolkit extension. It extends the Add-on Manager with lots of useful tools, but the function you need is "Browse install directory" when right-clicking an extension.
     
     Once the Windows Explorer folder for the extension is open, click on the folder whitespace, and on the Properties command. This should open the Properties window for the current folder. There, in the Security tab, click on Users from the Group or User names list and click on the Modify checkbox in the "Allow" column. Click the Apply button, but don't leave the window yet. Click the Advanced button and in the "Advanced Security Settings for extensionfoldername" list, verify that the set permissions for separate user(s) or a group of users apply to "This folder, subfolders and files".
     
     This action thus leaves SeaMonkey more-or-less tamper-proof, but may leave directories of specific extensions vulnerable to tampering.
  
  
  4. Best to install extensions separately into every profile? What if there are more than five users and what if a few of those users have more than one SeaMonkey profile?


• I had trouble installing Flashblock from addons.mozilla.org, so I had to add flashblock.mozdev.org to the whitelist and install from there. No trouble installing NoScript from addons.mozilla.org.


• As it usually is with SeaMonkey browsers, the Flashblock toolbar button will not show automatically. Instead of opening the Preferences window, click on any free space in the SeaMonkey toolbar, then on Customize... A Firefox-like toolbar customization dialog should show up and the Flashblock toolbar item can be added wherever a user chooses in the toolbar (the standard location was next to the Home button in the Personal Toolbar). Because the computer where I installed SeaMonkey 2.0 does not have a printer, I dragged the printer button off the toolbar.


• Server whitelists for Flashblock and NoScript do not migrate automatically. I had to manually type in server names into the new Flashblock whitelist, but I think its file can be migrated (haven't checked how to do it). NoScript allows exporting the whitelist, so I did that from SeaMonkey 1.1 and imported the whitelist in SeaMonkey 2.0 after installing NoScript.

It has always been the developers' intention for Mozilla (later SeaMonkey, which became Mozilla's successor; and a branched-off Mozilla Firefox) to have global and per-user extensions.

Mozilla 1.0 finally came out on 05.06.2002. Seeing what Mozilla 1.0's (minimum) system requirements were (modest by nowadays' standards) can give a helpful glimpse into what kind of hardware and software people were using at that time.

This was an era when single-user operating systems in computers were still a norm: four years after the release of Windows 98 and two years after Windows Me was released. Hard disk capacity then (2001–2002) — well, roughly ten years back — was about 10% of what it is now (2010) and there wasn't any lack of people who used much older computers. It's duly possible that hard disk capacity was seen as a premium back then, because after Mozilla 1.0 was released, it was criticized for its bloat.

Mozilla 1.0's full installer for Windows was 9.8 Mb, releases for Linux were between 11.6–13.9 Mb, and release sizes for exotic operating systems ranged between 16–26 Mb. The size of the Windows installer was actually normal, because the installers for Netscape Communicator 4.x and Internet Explorer 5 weren't all that much more smaller, as both included bundled software.

I guess the bloat factor was two-pronged:

Those who lived through those times, can remember how Internet Explorer reigned supreme.

Actual software bloat

IE users eager to try out something new would probably perform a 'normal' install of Mozilla (or Netscape 6.X) and only thereafter discover that Mozilla wasn't only a browser, but an application suite with an extensive feature set, while Internet Explorer was duly perceived as a stand-alone program. And that the typical installs of Netscape 6.X would also bundle a number of other tag-along apps, like RealPlayer and AOL Instant Messenger.

In all actual fact, Outlook Express, Windows Media Player, Microsoft NetMeeting and various other bits were just as well bundled with large ('Normal'/'Typical') Internet Explorer installations, only that Internet Explorer was marketed by Microsoft as an inalienable part of the Windows operating system; other said programs were bundled as parts of Windows 95OSR2.x, Windows 98/Me and newer. Yet people launching Internet Explorer both on Windows and Mac knew and saw that they were only launching a browser and not a whole suite of applications (e-mail, newsgroups, chat/IM) they probably didn't have any need for.

Slow user interface responsiveness

Much of Mozilla's user-facing behaviour was based on Netscape Communicator 4.x, but its cross-platform user interface toolkit was completely new.

Netscape 6.X and newer were subsequently based on Mozilla's underlying code base. People used to Internet Explorer or even Netscape 4.x found Mozilla 1.0 as not particularly responsive compared to IE and Netscape 4.x and I know I can attest to that when seeing SeaMonkey 1.1.xx work on older hardware.

In terms of system resource usage, Mozilla 1.0 would run more-or-less properly on the kind of metal specified in its system requirements. Nevertheless, the new cross-platform user interface toolkit (intended to ease development, which I believe it did) was not native to any existing operating system and thus imposed a performance penalty on any hardware that wasn't top-of-the line. Hence the talk of bloat.

All this gave plenty of impetus for Mozilla developers to create a separate browser which eventually came to be Mozilla Firefox. And lo and behold, Mozilla Firefox 1.0 ran well and faster on even older hardware (CPU considerations aside).

To continue soon?

---

What is so great about SeaMonkey, is that the underlying technology didn't change much throughout the great ten years between Mozilla 1.0 and SeaMonkey 1.1.19, which really is proof of the package's superiour design considerations.

SeaMonkey 2.0 periodic slowdowns

After I migrated a Windows XP computer from SeaMonkey 1.1.19 to SeaMonkey 2.0.6, it turned out that the program experienced short, yet periodic slowdowns which were also evident in Process Explorer with CPU spikes that were related to the process.

The particular profile of SeaMonkey has the following extensions:
Flashblock 1.3.16, NoScript 2.0.1 and three spelling dictionaries.

As I surfed around to look for any kind of resolution, I stumbled upon the two most relevant forum threads, one in MozillaZine and the other on NoScript.

The best hint was given in this InformAction posting, where the workaround is to disable ABE (Application Boundaries Enforcer), which also disabled the holdups, but I hope for a better solution without sacrificing some on security.

Where to disable ABE:
NoScript Options > Advanced tab > ABE subtab > Remove checkbox at "Enable ABE (Application Boundaries Enforcer)"