Arctic Fox web browser for 10.6 (32 & 64-bit)

[z970]

Just two quick Qs: can you install this OS on the same machine as Snow Leopard, or do you need to install it on a separate volume? And: what kind of applications do you run there — meaning native Mac, Linux, MS, old or new?

Now, for what I need it, launch that application and do a couple of quick operations, VB + Lubuntu are almost as fast as the native Mac's.

You can dual boot it on the same drive, on a different partition. The installer should detect Snow Leopard and offer to install eOS alongside it. Otherwise, I'd be happy to guide you using the manual way.

I run Linux applications, typically new...

I'm not sure I understand your following questions, or at least their wording.

In any case, happy inter-dimensional traveling.

@xeno74

For simplicity's sake, could you outline the steps you took to compile AF on Fedora, at least for reference? That would be very much appreciated, thank you.

 

[xeno74]

I see.

Will do, thank you.

Hi z970mp,

I tested my 64-bit PowerPC version again on Fedora and openSUSE today. It works really fantastic! I can watch YouTube videos without ViewTube. Big websites work without any problems. Awesome! I love this browser! Maybe you have to check your Debian again or you can test the Arctic Fox package from the Power Progress Community.

Download: arcticfox_27.9.15_ppc64.deb

Cheers,
Christian

 

[z970]

@xeno74 The Power Progress package has the same faults, likely because they took your version for PPC64 and didn't actually compile anything themselves.

 

[xeno74]

@xeno74

For simplicity's sake, could you outline the steps you took to compile AF on Fedora, at least for reference? That would be very much appreciated, thank you.

Here are my build steps on Fedora 27 PPC64: forum.hyperion-entertainment.com

Build dependencies for Debian:

apt-get install build-essential libgtk2.0-dev libdbus-glib-1-dev autoconf2.13 yasm \
libegl1-mesa-dev libasound2-dev libxt-dev zlib1g-dev libssl-dev \
libsqlite3-dev libbz2-dev libpulse-dev zip python2.7 python-dbus

 

[RobJos]

(Regarding site-specific icons appearing or not in History, Bookmarks and Tabs)

@RobJos :
4) I haven't run in to that yet. Could be a possible side effect of importing your FF profile.

Could you tell me where in the Profile such things are stored? It seems — seems! — that the icons that do show are those that already were there in my Firefox profile, whereas the icons of sites that are accessed in AF, but never were in Fx, don't show. Maybe a question of permissions on certain files or folders?

 

[wicknix]

I don't think those files are "human readable". However I still think it's caused by your firefox profile. Try this once. Open Terminal.app, cd /Applications/ArcticFox.app/Contents/MacOS then ./arcticfox -P
This will open the profile manager window. Create a new profile, set it as default, start arcticfox. Browse around and set some bookmarks. My guess is the bkmark/history icons will show as they should. If that is the case, then it's your FF profile causing issues. To go back to your default profile run the ./arcticfox -P command again and choose your old profile. Hope that helps.

Cheers

 

[z970]

@xeno74 ./mach build went well, but it's telling me it could not find a Mozilla runtime when it gets to ./mach run and that a ton of files in obj-ff-dbg/browser/installer/package-manifest are missing when I put in ./mach package.

I used the .15 .tar from the Releases section, and got the same result with the .16a1 main pool (with the clone / download option).

Did you change your .mozconfig for the .15 compile, and where did you get your original source?

 

[xeno74]

@xeno74 .

Did you change your .mozconfig for the .15 compile, and where did you get your original source?

No, I didn't change the .mozconfig for the version 27.9.15. You can download the original source via the following links.

v27.9.15.tar.gz
v27.9.15.zip

 

[RobJos]

I don't think those files are "human readable". However I still think it's caused by your firefox profile. Try this once. Open Terminal.app, cd /Applications/ArcticFox.app/Contents/MacOS then ./arcticfox -P
This will open the profile manager window. Create a new profile, set it as default, start arcticfox. Browse around and set some bookmarks. My guess is the bkmark/history icons will show as they should. If that is the case, then it's your FF profile causing issues. To go back to your default profile run the ./arcticfox -P command again and choose your old profile. Hope that helps.

Thank you, I'll try that. Maybe not right away, not much time at hand at this moment.

 

[xeno74]

Hi All,

There is an issue with WebP on PowerPC. Sometimes you get washed out images. Wart Hog Matt has a workaround for this issue.

I tested it today and it works!

1. about:config

2. I confirmed 'I promise to be careful!'
3. I searched for 'image.http.accept'
4. I double-clicked on 'image.http.accept'
5. I set the value of 'image.http.accept' to 'image/jxr,image/png,image/;q=0.8,/;q=0.5'
6. I reloaded the problematic website. It's very important to reload the website because if you don't do it, then it only opens the website from the cache.

I successfully tested it on the following Linux PPC distributions:

• Fienix PowerPC 32-bit (X1000)
• MATE PowerPC Remix/ubuntu MATE 17.04 32-bit (X1000)
• openSUSE Tumbleweed 20170924 PPC64 (X1000)
• ubuntu MATE 16.04.5 LTS PowerPC 32-bit (X1000 and X5000)
• Fedora 27 Server PPC64 (X5000)
• Ubuntu 10.04.4 LTS PowerPC 32-bit (X1000 and X5000)
• Debian Sid PowerPC 32-bit (X1000)

Many thanks to Wart Hog Matt for this workaround!



Cheers,
Christian

 

[wicknix]

@XaPHER was the one who originally solved this back on page 2 or 3 of this thread, but it probably doesn't hurt to have it posted again for those who don't want to poke through all 10 pages.

Cheers

 

[sparty411]

Hey, all. Might it be possible for me to add Arctic Fox to my PATH in Debian, or do something that allows it to save websites I've visited, etc? As far as I can tell, the browser goes back to an untouched state every time I launch it.

 

[z970]

Hey, all. Might it be possible for me to add Arctic Fox to my PATH in Debian, or do something that allows it to save websites I've visited, etc? As far as I can tell, the browser goes back to an untouched state every time I launch it.

Yeah, that happened to me for a long time while using it, and it wasn't until I realized private browsing was on by default that it started remembering anything, so go turn that off if you wish.

Can you explain what you mean by adding things to your PATH?

 

[sparty411]

Yeah, that happened to me for a long time while using it, and it wasn't until I realized private browsing was on by default that it started remembering anything, so go turn that off if you wish.

Can you explain what you mean by adding things to your PATH?

Ah, ok, I'll do that!
What I meant was making the binary appear to be an installed program, as opposed to portable. I created a symlink that allows me to launch it with "arcticfox" from the CLI. That'll do,I guess.

 

[z970]

Ah, ok, I'll do that!
What I meant was making the binary appear to be an installed program, as opposed to portable. I created a symlink that allows me to launch it with "arcticfox" from the CLI. That'll do,I guess.

Download the Arctic Fox .tar and save it to your Downloads directory.

Install Arctic Fox: (depends: firefox-esr preinstalled) (warning: will replace firefox-esr)

1. Copy this text:

cd ~/Downloads/ && sudo tar xvjf *.bz2 && sudo mv -f ~/Downloads/arcticfox/ /usr/lib/ && sudo nano /usr/share/applications/firefox-esr.desktop

And paste it into Terminal. Delete "-esr" if you don't have Firefox ESR.

2. Delete everything on screen (place a heavy object on the "delete" key for 5 minutes).

3. Copy this text and paste it into the now empty Terminal window:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Arctic Fox
Comment=Browse the World Wide Web
GenericName=Web Browser
X-GNOME-FullName=Arctic Fox
Exec=/usr/lib/arcticfox/arcticfox %u
Terminal=false
X-MultipleArgs=false
Type=Application
Icon=/usr/lib/arcticfox/browser/icons/mozicon128.png
Categories=Network;WebBrowser;
MimeType=text/html;text/xml;application/xhtml+xml;application/xml;application/vnd.mozilla.xul+xml;application/rss+xml;application/rdf+xml;image/gif;image/jpeg;image/png;x-scheme-handler/http;x-scheme-handler/https;
StartupWMClass=arcticfox
StartupNotify=true

4. Save (ctrl+s), close the Terminal window, and make sure it worked by checking your Applications menu for the new Arctic Fox entry.

-

To Update Arctic Fox: (depends: arcticfox preinstalled)

1. Copy and paste this text into Terminal:

cd ~/Downloads/ && sudo tar xvjf *.bz2 && sudo rm -rf /usr/lib/arcticfox/ && sudo mv -f ~/Downloads/arcticfox/ /usr/lib/

2. Make sure the update was successful by verifying the version number under "About Arctic Fox".

-

To Remove Arctic Fox:

1. sudo apt autoremove firefox-esr && sudo rm -rf /usr/lib/arcticfox/

2. Make sure Arctic Fox is not in the Applications menu.

-

@wicknix, I think it might be very beneficial if you copied my installer into the original post for future reference. Or I could package it into a text file, and it could be offered there as a download.

 

[Amethyst1]

/home/<username> can be replaced by ~ which is a shortcut to the current user's home directory. So /home/<username>/Downloads becomes ~/Downloads etc. no matter the actual username.

 

[z970]

/home/<username> can be replaced by ~ which is a shortcut to the current user's home directory. So /home/<username>/Downloads becomes ~/Downloads etc. no matter the actual username.

Thank you, sir! Always learning.

 

[sparty411]

Thank you, sir! Always learning.

I did it a little bit differently than how you instructed, but it more or less worked for me. Thanks! BTW, I found that in nano, Alt+A to select text, and Ctrl+K to cut is much faster than holding down backspace.

 

[z970]

BTW, I found that in nano, Alt+A to select text, and Ctrl+K to cut is much faster than holding down backspace.

Thank you, sir! Always learning.

For some reason, I never thought nano was able to do that.

 

[RobJos]

I don't think those files are "human readable". However I still think it's caused by your firefox profile. Try this once. […] Create a new profile, set it as default, start arcticfox. Browse around and set some bookmarks. My guess is the bkmark/history icons will show as they should. […] Hope that helps.

Sorry to have to disappoint you, wicknix, but that didn't do it. See for yourself:

a. Saving all bookmarks

b. Dragging bookmarks one by one

The only hiccup in the Terminal was related to the fact that all my Internet applications are stashed inside of a subfolder in the Applications directory. I'll let you figure if that, improbable as it sounds, could have an effect on this .ico issue.

Meanwhile, before getting around to this, things became a bit more clear, sort of: contrary to what I thought, site icons always show in the Tab bar, but it's really random whether or not they'll show in the Library — although I can say that most recent ones (saved in A-fox) do not show, whereas most old ones that had been showing in Firefox still do so. One reservation here: a year ago or so, I had (silly me) done a cleanup of sorts in the FX profile that had wiped out all of the .ico's. But, as opposed to what is happening now, they were getting restored gradually as I went on accessing the relevant sites.

In the Classic Add-ons Archive I came across an add-on called Favicon Reloader, “a Mozilla/Firefox Addon to reload Favicons by retrieving information from all bookmark locations”. It seemed to do its thing (Context menu, before you think it's nowhere to be found!), bypassing some 404's and the like here and there. Yet, after churning through all of my 4000+ bookmarks (patience!), every single apparently valid entry ended up being tagged with this: “Perhaps site redirection. Please try link manually”. Not a clue what it means and what to do about it. No way I'm gonna do it manually, of course.

Btw, this Classic Add-ons Archive is a real treasure trove, with almost 17,000 add-ons. Just note that it is an add-on itself, and that it downloads its own database, adding to the Profile folder an .xpi and an .sqlite file totalling over 100Mb. It came up with a few extremely useful things in it, more later.
[doublepost=1551555486][/doublepost]

The Title Bar is absent on launch. The only (clumsy) way I can get it to appear is with Opt/Alt+Ctl+T — a shortcut from one of the Tab extensions that opens a new Private Tab (btw., disabling it didn't make the Title Bar come back.) This produces an empty Title Bar without min/max/close buttons — apparently the default for a Private Tab. Repeating Opt/Alt+Ctl+T, the page's actual title then shows up — with its min/max/close buttons — and remains in place as long as AF is running.[...]

@RobJos:
I had to "break" the titlebar/min/max/close buttons in private browsing windows again to re-enable the developer tools. I had fixed it at one time, but it broke devtools. I will try to fix that again some day without breaking devtools. For now i'd recommend the private-tabs extension to bypass that issue.

In the test profile I created according to your instructions (above, to figure out the .ico issue), the Title Bar does show up automatically at launch. So I guess that it's be something in my setup, but what? Had a look at the prefs once again, could it be that your default is “Show my home page”, whereas mine is "Show my windows and tabs from last time"? These, incidentally, are never (of course) Private Tabs, which I don't use very often anyway.
[doublepost=1551556455][/doublepost]

URLs upon hovering over links do not show up in the Status Bar in 27.9.15 either.

Here's what I found in that same Classic Add-ons Archive:

URL Tooltip for Firefox 15+ 1.3.1, which does just that: shows the URL as a tooltip when hovering over it. Works perfectly well. Actually, I like this much better than having to move my eyes to the Status Bar.

As a bonus, same place, DeTiny Short Url, which reveals what's behind a “tiny” URL (Context menu over a link, result at mouse location in a small floating window).

what I do often see [in the Status bar] — across the different tabs — is the URL of some page that was opened recently. When and why it shows up and goes away again, I cannot tell.

It's gone. Don't ask. Must have been a bug from an add-on I got rid of.

 

[wicknix]

@RobJos : Glad you found some workarounds or replacements for problematic add-ons. Still stumped on your icon issue. Icons display fine here on 10.6 - 10.11 on every install. Even displays fine on 2 Linux installs. Screenshot below on 10.6.
(the multiple bookmarks toolbar folders are from multiple imports of various bookmark.html files that i haven't sorted yet)

Yes, the classic add-on archive is a great resource. Just be aware that because they are firefox add-ons, and not forks made specifically for pale moon, there is always the chance for odd behavior or breakage. PM and AF are thousands of lines of code different from pure firefox. Other than that, most of those add-ons should still work without issue.

Cheers

 

[RobJos]

@RobJos : Glad you found some workarounds or replacements for problematic add-ons. Still stumped on your icon issue. Icons display fine here on 10.6 - 10.11 on every install. Even displays fine on 2 Linux installs. Screenshot below on 10.6. […]
(the multiple bookmarks toolbar folders are from multiple imports of various bookmark.html files that i haven't sorted yet)

Now, reading your last sentence, there's one detail I forgot to tell you about. Not that it makes me understanding things any better (if you are stumped...!) After I'd imported my FX profile as described, I was still using FX for quite a while before I made the final move to AF — that is, I was still adding and removing bookmarks all the time. So, when I was done setting up AF, extensions and the whole bit, I erased all the bookmarks that had been imported originally, and I re-imported the current ones using the straightforward method in the menu of FX's Library (it gave me some hassle with the Save-To-Read add-on, but that's another story).

At this point, I think that there's something, somewhere on my machine, that keeps AF from registering those .ico's (it's receiving them allright, otherwise they wouldn't show in the tabs). Which is a bit of a pain. I'm not an icon freak, text is my thing, but those icons are useful in overviews.
[doublepost=1551564920][/doublepost]

@RobJos : Yes, the classic add-on archive is a great resource. Just be aware that because they are firefox add-ons, and not forks made specifically for pale moon, there is always the chance for odd behavior or breakage. PM and AF are thousands of lines of code different from pure firefox. Other than that, most of those add-ons should still work without issue.

Here's one more resource: Legacy Firefox extensions. Don't know to what degree it overlaps the Classic Add-ons Archive.

On the positive side, I have to say that the YouTube Multi Downloader v4.4 (MP3, FHD, AVI, MP4, FLV, WKV, ACC, M4V, etc) - Saveclipbro.com user script via the Greasemonkey for Pale Moon 3.31.4 add-on beats anything of this kind I've seen on FX so far.

Also: I used to think that FX's increasing sluggishness in the course of a day was very much related to the size of the Inactive System Memory (blue) in the Activity Monitor, whether it was left by FX itself or by another application. Well, I'm glad to tell you that AF also seems to “create” some blue memory, but that it has apparently no effect on performance.

Now, after all this nice stuff, here's something BAD. While fine-tuning the Form History Control add-on, which I have used for years in FX too, I discovered today that it had been saving the contents of a mail from a specific webmail interface that I always open in a Private Tab/Window. I wouldn't know if this was also the case in FX, as the add-on is set to delete its contents after a few days (I'd have to try and look into an old back-up of the FX profile). Right now, I have tried to tell the add-on to not remember form entries from that and other specific domains, and hope I got things right, but to me this sort of… leak? doesn't seem right at all. Only you would be able to tell if it's the add-on that's misbehaving or not.

 

[z970]

OK, I've got another problem.

Under regular powerpc Debian Sid (64b kernel, 32b userspace), both Arctic Fox .15 G3 (no altivec) and G4 (altivec) refuse to launch when "./arcticfox" is entered in the arcticfox directory, citing: "<jemalloc>Compile-time page size does not divide the runtime one. Segmentation fault".

Ideas?

 

[xeno74]

OK, I've got another problem.

Under regular powerpc Debian Sid (64b kernel, 32b userspace), both Arctic Fox .15 G3 (no altivec) and G4 (altivec) refuse to launch when "./arcticfox" is entered in the arcticfox directory, citing: "<jemalloc>Compile-time page size does not divide the runtime one. Segmentation fault".

Ideas?

Please try the following packages:

arcticfox-27.9.15-2-ubuntu10.04-powerpc.tar.bz2

arcticfox-27.9.15-ubuntu12.04-powerpc.tar.bz2

— Christian

 

[z970]

Please try the following packages:

arcticfox-27.9.15-2-ubuntu10.04-powerpc.tar.bz2

arcticfox-27.9.15-ubuntu12.04-powerpc.tar.bz2

— Christian

Never mind, I got Arctic Fox working by installing it from the Fienix repository. All is good now.

PS: I have discovered a fully-functional Firefox 52.9 ESR (no bugs) is available from the Fienix repository. I believe it's now safe to say that PPC Linux has de-facto more updated browsers than OS X.