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

[RobJos]

@wicknix Trying to understand why that .ico issue happens in both profiles, offhand I can think of only two things they have in common on my machine:

1. Plugins, several of which date back to the installation of 10.6.8. They are all disabled (“Never Activate”), except Flash, which is set to “Ask to Activate”.

2. In the User Library there's a folder named “Cookies”, with a single file in it, “Cookies.plist”. Quite a while ago, when I became aware of its existence, it was huge, seemingly it had kept track of every bowel movement since the first installation of Firefox (or maybe even the Mozilla browser herself). When I erased it this Cookies.plist got recreated soon after I'd launched FX again, I believe when logging into an Amazon account. Didn't like that, so I replaced it with an empty one, and locked it. The folder's time stamps tell me that the browsers (at least FX and now AF) try to access it, but they don't get anywhere.

I can't imagine how this might affect the registering of site icons, but maybe you can.

On another note: I did a bit of comparing the contents of my current profile with yesterday's “virgin” test profile. In the latter, “cert8.db” fills only 66Kb whereas mine, inherited from FX but accessed daily, fills 1.4Mb. Is that how things should be? I also have a file which isn't there in the test profile, “cert_override.txt” — first line says [# This is a generated file! Do not edit.], the rest isn't understandable to this human. Should I leave it there or get rid of it?

There's another file in my profile, “revocations.txt”, similar contents as far as I can judge, but time stamps show that it gets created every time AF gets launched.

Then...

In the Download dialog box, the setting "Do this automatically for files like this from now on" does not get memorised if downloading alternatives are selected, say FlashGot or Turbo Downloader. It's back on the default “Save File” at a later download. To be honest the alternatives weren't always memorised in Fx either, but at least they were remembered within the same session. Whereas now I have to click about for every single file I'm downloading.

Might be caused by our default setting. Out of the box AF has private browsing mode enabled by default. You can choose to disable that in preferences -> privacy -> history.

Taking a look at the Applications prefs tab, more specifically mp4 files: the options are “Always Ask”, “Save File“, “Use iTunes (default)” and “Use other…” which opens a file selector. Shouldn't we also be able to select installed add-ons with saving capabilities like the two already mentioned?

 

[wicknix]

For the Form History Control add-on you'd have to ask it's creator why it was doing that. Maybe you found a bug.
Plugins are disabled by default in AF (security measure). You can enable any or all of them if you wish.
Any files that are auto generated in your profile i would assume are supposed to be there.

We didn't write the browser or the add-ons/plug-ins, so i can't really answer a few of your other questions. We just gave it a new look, brought in support for otherwise unsupported platforms, and are applying some security updates and bug fixes along the way.

Cheers

 

[RobJos]

[…] We didn't write the browser […]

There must be something I've misunderstood — aren't you the developer of AF? Just to understand where we're at, so I don't bug you with irrelevant questions.

 

[wicknix]

Yes, I am 1 of the 2 devs working on it. AF however is forked from pale moon, which itself is a fork of Firefox. So the browser was already there, we just modified it.

Cheers

 

[RobJos]

Yes, I am 1 of the 2 devs working on it. AF however is forked from pale moon, which itself is a fork of Firefox. So the browser was already there, we just modified it.

Ah, capito. Makes it a bit difficult for me to know what you can and what you cannot address or fix. So I hope you'll put up with me (and tell me to bug off when needed ;-)

Btw., I was just posting a link to this thread on the reddit forum where I found out about ArcticFox. Couldn't get the form field to show at all, or the Reply buttons to be active in AF. Or for that matter in Chromium, which always tends to work when others don't <grr.. ggl>. I finally was able to post something with PaleMoon. Why in the world would reddit not be functional in AF?

 

[wicknix]

My hunch is an extension is causing the issue. If it works in PM, it should work in AF. uBlock or noscript with the wrong settings will break some sites. What happens if you try reddits old layout? (old.reddit.com)

Cheers

 

[RobJos]

My hunch is an extension is causing the issue. If it works in PM, it should work in AF. uBlock or noscript with the wrong settings will break some sites. What happens if you try reddits old layout? (old.reddit.com)

Matter of fact, it does look OK, thanks a lot for the tip. I didn't have anything to post, but the field was there with the whole bit. Not only that, but highlighting a selection of a piece of text, which didn't work in this “new” reddit (but can be done anywhere in this OS's GUI), is now back in town. Anyway, it's not like I spend much time around reddit, and it's only the second time I'm running into a problematic site with AF (repeat: happy!). So long live the Old Reddit, then.

An extension? Don't know, my installation of Chromium is as naked as can be... Out of curiosity, I've just tested my just as obsolete (and naked) Yandex browser on this reddit page, it took ages to load the page and rendered it rather poorly, but the comment box and some kind of highlighting were there. I suspect that some webmasters sort of ban certain browsers based on whatever criteria, possibly what they or their bosses ingested the night before. Like, as of today, the British Royal Mail that tells you that it will only work with this and that browser (a selection of 4 or 5 total) when you want to fill in a form to get in touch with what passes as their customer service.

Take care,

 

[RobJos]

Favicons Odyssey

@wicknix : there are zillions of Firefox users out there having problems with their bookmarks and favicons, some of them all the way since 2005. The most common solutions are booting in Safe Mode or deleting places.sqlite, which of course didn't work in my case. But it led me to take another look at the test profile you had me set up some days ago.

I found something curious. When I launch AF the bookmark that you've put there to your GitHub repository does not show any favicon in the Bookmark Toolbar, nor in the Library. But the moment I click on it, here comes the GitHub favicon ! Only for GitHub — as said earlier, no other bookmark saved afterwards brings its favicon with it. Does this say anything to you?

I also noticed that the new, supposedly empty places.sqlite file fills 10.5Mb. Is that the way it should be? Seems like a lot, compared to my 31Mb with 4000 bookmarks and six months of history.

 

[RobJos]

Forgot: in the Finder's info box, an sqlite file is set by default to open with an audio application I don't remember ever having heard of, was apparently installed years and years ago and never used. No other option, unless one selects “Other...” Could that be the problem?

 

[wicknix]

Interesting. Still don't know why you have a favicon issue. Nobody else has reported it, nor can i reproduce it. Hard to debug when there is nothing on my end to debug. And yeah, by default the github bookmark doesn't have an icon, until you physically click on it, then it "loads" and sticks. Wild that that works for you, but nothing else will produce a favicon.

For kicks i myself created a fresh profile, and yes indeed places.sqlite is 10mb. My guess is that is the default size the moz devs allocated. I believe it to be empty, with the ability to expand once it fills up past 10mb.

I'm baffled. The only thing different between most AF users and you is the fact that you imported a firefox profile, which according to pale moons devs is a bad idea, rather than just importing bookmarks/settings via the migration tool. PM (and now AF) went it's own way back in 2015, and hasn't been pure firefox since then. Much code was removed, or rewritten. That's all i can come up with for an answer unfortunately.

Cheers

 

[RobJos]

Interesting. Still don't know why you have a favicon issue. Nobody else has reported it, nor can i reproduce it. Hard to debug when there is nothing on my end to debug. And yeah, by default the github bookmark doesn't have an icon, until you physically click on it, then it "loads" and sticks. Wild that that works for you, but nothing else will produce a favicon.

For kicks i myself created a fresh profile, and yes indeed places.sqlite is 10mb. My guess is that is the default size the moz devs allocated. I believe it to be empty, with the ability to expand once it fills up past 10mb.

I'm baffled. The only thing different between most AF users and you is the fact that you imported a firefox profile, which according to pale moons devs is a bad idea, rather than just importing bookmarks/settings via the migration tool. PM (and now AF) went it's own way back in 2015, and hasn't been pure firefox since then. Much code was removed, or rewritten. That's all i can come up with for an answer unfortunately.

I'd (un)happily go for the Firefox profile import explanation, if it weren't for the fact, remember, that the same thing happens with a new fresh profile. So I'm prone to think that it's something related to my system, but what?

Meanwhile, I have TWO kinds of non-favicons to have fun with. 1. New History in the Sidebar:

2. New Bookmarks everywhere, History in the Library:

And to make things even more exciting, the one on the top was bookmarked in Save-To-Read two days ago. By miracle, the favicon stuck, for the first time. Go figure...

 

[z970]

@RobJos Have you tried downloading AppCleaner (https://freemacsoft.net/appcleaner/), (https://web.archive.org/web/20170620183711/http://freemacsoft.net/downloads/appcleaner1.2.2.dmg), using it to remove Firefox, Arctic Fox, (whatever kind of Fox), and starting from scratch, without importing anything?

 

[RobJos]

@RobJos Have you tried downloading AppCleaner (https://freemacsoft.net/appcleaner/), (https://web.archive.org/web/20170620183711/http://freemacsoft.net/downloads/appcleaner1.2.2.dmg), using it to remove Firefox, Arctic Fox, (whatever kind of Fox), and starting from scratch, without importing anything?

Thanks a lot, but I don't think that it's what I need. Ages ago I used to use MacKeeper (<horrors>) for that purpose, and to tell you the truth, since getting rid of it (</horrors>) I haven't had a need for such an application — thanks to having more GBs than I can use, and launching GrandPerpective if it looks like there's some abnormally large stuff in there. Apart from the odd glitch at bootup (because the SSD HD is too fast for the system), everything is working perfectly fine on my machine, OS, applications, whatever. It's only this one strange behaviour. If I followed your advice, I'd get rid of 4000+ bookmarks, over 500 saved passwords and who know how many other settings. Which is exactly what I wanted to avoid in the first place.

 

[z970]

Thanks a lot, but I don't think that it's what I need. Ages ago I used to use MacKeeper (<horrors>) for that purpose, and to tell you the truth, since getting rid of it (</horrors>) I haven't had a need for such an application — thanks to having more GBs than I can use, and launching GrandPerpective if it looks like there's some abnormally large stuff in there. Apart from the odd glitch at bootup (because the SSD HD is too fast for the system), everything is working perfectly fine on my machine, OS, applications, whatever. It's only this one strange behaviour. If I followed your advice, I'd get rid of 4000+ bookmarks, over 500 saved passwords and who know how many other settings. Which is exactly what I wanted to avoid in the first place.

AppCleaner is a simple and elegant uninstaller which will remove more lingering files (like libraries, preferences, etc.) than just putting an application into the trash. Speaking from years of prior experience, it is nowhere close to MacKeeper, which is a disguised virus. Everyone should have an installation of AppCleaner because of the asinine fact that there is no real way to uninstall things in OS X.

I think it may be helpful if you backed up your Firefox libraries with their saved passwords and whatnot, and tried uninstalling the Foxes and starting from scratch with an AF import from said backed up files.

If not, then I've done all I can do.

 

[RobJos]

AppCleaner is a simple and elegant uninstaller which will remove more lingering files (like libraries, preferences, etc.) than just putting an application into the trash. Speaking from years of prior experience, it is nowhere close to MacKeeper, which is a disguised virus. Everyone should have an installation of AppCleaner because of the asinine fact that there is no real way to uninstall things in OS X.

I think it may be helpful if you backed up your Firefox libraries with their saved passwords and whatnot, and tried uninstalling the Foxes and starting from scratch with an AF import from said backed up files.

I don't want to sound negative, and I'm really thankful for any help, but A. Firefox is not an option anymore, I now have weeks of new bookmarks, history entries and passwords on AF. AF is working so well that I haven't had the need to launch FX since, except to check on a couple of things (non-functional Deezer was one of them).

And B. the reason why I took my whole FX profile to AF was precisely because you can only export/import the bookmarks, not the rest — especially the passwords — of what you call my libraries (you can do that from Safari or Chrome if they're installed, but not from Firefox). Actually, as explained in an earlier post, I did import my FX bookmarks again a bit later using the regular export/import procedure, and after erasing those that had come with the original Fx profile. After a bout of assiduous clean-up, removing all the FX-specific stuff, my AF profile, contents-wise, now looks pretty much like a newly created one, plus the stuff that belongs to the new add-ons.

 

[Dronecatcher]

AppCleaner is a simple and elegant uninstaller which will remove more lingering files

Though be aware it doesn't always remove all files - I often find it leaves some folders untouched.

 

[z970]

Firefox is not an option anymore, I now have weeks of new bookmarks, history entries and passwords on AF. AF is working so well that I haven't had the need to launch FX since, except to check on a couple of things (non-functional Deezer was one of them).

I didn't mean literal Firefox, though that was a fault of my wording. Just anything based on Firefox. TFFox. Arctic Fox.

After a bout of assiduous clean-up, removing all the FX-specific stuff, my AF profile, contents-wise, now looks pretty much like a newly created one, plus the stuff that belongs to the new add-ons.

Okay, never mind.
[doublepost=1551894616][/doublepost]

Though be aware it doesn't always remove all files - I often find it leaves some folders untouched.

Do you use anything else?

 

[RobJos]

AppCleaner is a simple and elegant uninstaller which will remove more lingering files (like libraries, preferences, etc.) than just putting an application into the trash. Speaking from years of prior experience, it is nowhere close to MacKeeper, which is a disguised virus. Everyone should have an installation of AppCleaner because of the asinine fact that there is no real way to uninstall things in OS X.

Apart from the Firefoxes' issue maybe I should have said that I haven't had much stuff to clean up at all, because for many years I haven't been installing anything new — this is Snow Leopard, after all, and I've passed the age of exploring new software for its own sake. Whatever cleaning had to be done was done back then, with, yes, MacKeeper. And to be exact, although it's outside of this thread, my getting away from MK, not renewing my subscription and uninstalling it had nothing to do with any accusations of virusing, true or false (absolutely untrue on my machines), nor with the racist slur that was hurled at them all over the net (Russians! Ukrainians! Soviets!), but rather that their support was totally, utterly hopeless.

 

[Dronecatcher]

Do you use anything else?

No, it's part of my standard install routine but I know it's not thorough - I've never had any problems but often come across stuff it's missed - if you're tight on space it pays to do a manual search through caches/prefs/support etc

 

[z970]

No, it's part of my standard install routine but I know it's not thorough - I've never had any problems but often come across stuff it's missed - if you're tight on space it pays to do a manual search through caches/prefs/support etc

There's AppZapper, but that requires a purchase and I'm not sure if it's available for PowerPC...

 

[Amethyst1]

There's AppZapper, but that requires a purchase and I'm not sure if it's available for PowerPC...

https://appzapper.com/downloads/appzapper180.dmg

 

[z970]

https://appzapper.com/downloads/appzapper180.dmg

Does it still tell you to pay up?

 

[wicknix]

@RobJos One more idea i thought of. Open about:config and search "icon" and see if these look the same on your end.

Cheers

 

[RobJos]

@RobJos One more idea i thought of. Open about:config and search "icon" and see if these look the same on your end.

View attachment 825061

Sorry, I hadn't got the usual message saying there was a new post. Just checked, yes those entries are the same here. Could changing the “1024” help in this case?
[doublepost=1552046917][/doublepost]

Interesting. Still don't know why you have a favicon issue. Nobody else has reported it, nor can i reproduce it. Hard to debug when there is nothing on my end to debug. And yeah, by default the github bookmark doesn't have an icon, until you physically click on it, then it "loads" and sticks. Wild that that works for you, but nothing else will produce a favicon.

I have to correct something here, after experimenting a bit more with that “test” profile… As said, opening previously unlaunched sites in new tabs, the favicons do appear in the Tabs bar, but the bookmark entries obtained through the menu shortcuts (+D / +Sft+D) or by dragging them to the Library, only show that non-icon of sorts. However, if I launch those sites again (can be in the same session, right away after saving them) by clicking on these very same bookmarks entries… here come the favicons!

Bizarre. At this point I wish things would behave like that in my “normal” profile too, but no such luck.

 

[RobJos]

Favicons Odyssey: back to Penelope, & zapping the suitors [aka.: Between a Fix and a Workaround]

[…] opening previously unlaunched sites in new tabs, the favicons do appear in the Tabs bar, but the bookmark entries obtained through the menu shortcuts (+D / +Sft+D) or by dragging them to the Library, only show that non-icon of sorts. However, if I launch those sites again (can be in the same session, right away after saving them) by clicking on these very same bookmarks entries… here come the favicons!

Well, here I am, as per this Mozilla doc. The first step, installing and running the Places Maintenance addon, didn't help — said I had a beautiful, perfect, impeccable, sweet and lovely database.

But the next option, deleting places.sqlite and all files with a like-sounding name, got me to the same place (≠ pun) I was at in the “test” profile: by launching the bookmarked sites, I'm now able to get their favicons to show. Which is suppose I'll have to live with. The price, as far as I can judge a few hours later, is only the loss of the History entries, which I also can live with. A loss which is not total: if I really need to find someting again, I can still open a backup of the profile in that little dialog box that opens at launch.

I certainly wouldn't have got this far without all your suggestions, wicknix. Again, many thanks.