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

[nielshutch]

A bit out of the subject of this thread, but why let Google spy on you when you can use a meta search engine like this one?

Off-topic is my favourite topic!
That's an interesting search engine. I think. Maybe. How does it work? Is there a plugin?
FireFox made me jump through security hoops to connect to its site; Safari wouldn't touch it; Chrome prevaricated, complaining my computer's date & time were wrong. (Huh? Should I be on Swiss time?)
Maybe ArcticFox would have done better ... if it worked.

P.S. I tried DuckDuckGo for a while - it's a bit odd.

P.S.2. I've written a scathing letter to the Tate Gallery; I await major changes to their web site.

 

[nielshutch]

Just worked out how to change FireFox search preferences...will give eTools a go.

 

[RobJos]

Off-topic is my favourite topic!
That's an interesting search engine. I think. Maybe. How does it work? Is there a plugin?
FireFox made me jump through security hoops to connect to its site; Safari wouldn't touch it; Chrome prevaricated, complaining my computer's date & time were wrong. (Huh? Should I be on Swiss time?)
Maybe ArcticFox would have done better ... if it worked.

P.S. I tried DuckDuckGo for a while - it's a bit odd.

P.S.2. I've written a scathing letter to the Tate Gallery; I await major changes to their web site.

Weird. I just checked, it's working perfectly well in AF, SpiderWeb, Nightly, PaleMoon, FX 92, Waterfox, and logged on several non-CEST servers from Brazil to Hong-Kong. No Safari or Chrome in this house, though. Else, you can just add it to the browsers' Search Engines, like any other old SE.

As far as I know DDG "pirats"only Google (as opposed to eTools' 17 search engines.) That implies missing those results that are censored by Google. And, I've been getting such bizarre, out-of-this-world results with DDG (seemingly when searching stuff not in English, or not in Googleland, or not in Latin script) that I've given up on it for anything that's not its Image search or it's Site Search bookmark. OK, eTools' interface is not very elegant, but IMO the results are the best. Only thing I sometimes miss is a time range function.

 

[Gilbert Guldlock]

This is a known issue but basically the work around is to just keep clicking on reopen or whatever the option is and eventually it'll work just fine.

I have tried that 50 times in a row to no avail.

You can always use 27.11.0 if the new one doesn't work. It's a mac 10.6 specific bug thats being looked in to. It doesn't affect 10.7+, WindowsXP or Linux. In the meantime i'd suggest using InterWeb, SpiderWeb, or firefox-legacy. All 3 of them have better web compatibility than AF does. AF's only real advantage these days is its a great all around lightweight browser for slower machines, and some people prefer the old school user interface.

Cheers

Thanks! I must say it's disappointing that for something that started out as to be compatible specifically with 10.6 is the latest version working with every other platform except that. I'm still happy for whatever is being done though.
How did that happen, AF getting obsolete? I haven't followed this. When I discovered AF a little over a year ago I was under the impression that AF was the sole survivor for Snow Leopard. Which one of the new entries has most potential of longevity for SL? I prefer to stick to one.

All I really care about for my Mac mini is NoScript. I use it for SVT Play, but I assume the functionality of that is out of reach for this project. Btw, it now magically works for Fx 52 on my XP machine as well as Fx 48 on another Mac(Book Pro). Seems they changed something to improve compatibility. Old school GUI is great, but being functioning at all is better

 

[nielshutch]

...and back to search engines.
I ran a test using enigmatic search terms [Percyval Tudor-Hart, Cambridge Magazine] & this is what they claim:
Google - 524,000 results, but only 100 listed + a few extras if desired
Yahoo - 70,300 results, more than 150 listed
Bing - 17,200 results, 19 listed. Don't know where the others are.
eTools - 324 results, 33 listed. Can't see how I can get to the rest
DDG - total number of hits not specified (30+)
Predictably, none of them got the right answer (since there isn't one).

 

[wicknix]

Which one of the new entries has most potential of longevity for SL?

The general consensus seems to be that most people prefer InterWeb, and I do update it from time to time. I do also update spiderweb as well. Depends on your preference. IW had push notifications and webrtc enabled and is more compatible. SW is more locked down, but has a huge preferences pane and old seamonkey style UI.

Cheers

 

[nielshutch]

My apologies - ArcticFox 27.11.0 DOES work with Snow Leopard for me, as does Interweb. (Little Snitch was preventing connections to the internet.) But ArcticFox 27.12.0 still won't open.

 

[B S Magnet]

Thought I'd chip in...on Snow Leopard, my FireFox 48.0.1 is having some trouble, too. On the advice above, I downloaded ArcticFox 27.12.0 but it crashes immediately. The older version 27.11.0 loaded up OK, but couldn't get an internet connection (though FF could).

On this, you may need to double-check your settings under Preferences > Advanced > Network, and under the “Settings…” button, verify that it’s not “usi[ng] system proxy settings” to connect to the internet. Even though it isn’t something I ever use, I found that the default, upon first run, was configured to “Use system proxy settings”.

Meanwhile, FireFox 48.0.1 is mostly OK on Snow Leopard (while Chrome and Safari often won't load sites, even if they can find them). One glitch occured a few months back, when Google limited search functions for FF 48. There is a way around this - lie to Google's spybots and tell them you are running FF 52...

How do I make Google Search do the things it used to do? - Google Search Community

Otherwise, FF runs into trouble with sites of major art galleries (Tate, the Met, etc); it seems fashionable to bury simple HTML tags in fancy code/script, making their artworks invisible to all but the well-heeled élite!
[INSERT emoji of man-with-storm-cloud-over-head HERE]

If Interweb 60.9.5 isn’t your jam, and either FF 48.0.1, FF ESR 45.9, or Arctic Fox 27.11.0 for whatever reason isn’t pulling up a site you need, even with user agent spoofing, Nightly (the Firefox Legacy browser) runs on a Firefox 52 base, and it has run pretty well for the niche occasions I’ve needed to use a different browser.

 

[nielshutch]

If Interweb 60.9.5 isn’t your jam, and either FF 48.0.1, FF ESR 45.9, or Arctic Fox 27.11.0 for whatever reason isn’t pulling up a site you need, even with user agent spoofing, Nightly (the Firefox Legacy browser) runs on a Firefox 52 base, and it has run pretty well for the niche occasions I’ve needed to use a different browser.

Nightly is now my favourite! The way it imports most add-ons from FF is a treat. Meanwhile, ordinary FF is getting ornery, demanding security clearances for parrotgeek & stackexchange. What a cheek.

Thanks for your earlier tips, too, Mr Magnet - legacy uBlock & uMagnet are promising. Already, uBlock removed the click-bait Yahoo puts at the start of an inbox. I can't wait to zap those ghastly YouTube ads as well. (Who needs Grammarly?)

P.S. No matter which SL browser, the Tate still refuses to behave...

 

[RobJos]

P.S. No matter which SL browser, the Tate still refuses to behave...

Which part of the Tate is bothering you? Just been around the site with AF, nothing wrong that I've noticed...

 

[nielshutch]

Hmmm, FireFox 48 has died: its name only appears in the menu bar. Force Quit removes it (but doesn't mention it is inactive). Reloading it achieved nothing. Nightly has sucked its guts out, so I better be happy with that...
[some console details supplied below]

Which part of the Tate is bothering you? Just been around the site with AF, nothing wrong that I've noticed...

As for my experience of the Tate, its main page (https://www.tate.org.uk/) has a couple of pics, but these are really ads - details of artwork with type over. The remaining 30 pictures are blank grey rectangles.
Searching the collection (https://www.tate.org.uk/search or https://www.tate.org.uk/art) gives 16 grey blanks.
Clicking an entry (e.g. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-two-women-with-a-boy-and-a-small-child-d00831) gives a large grey blank, plus 15 additional suggestions, also grey blanks. Looking at the page source, the actual illustrations are embedded as ordinary html tags for jpg files of different sizes (lines 368-372, again 1748).
These can be viewed using their hidden URLs; the only time the image appears is when "License this image" is clicked (line 414). A medium sized picture appears, marred by their ugly logo.
The different browsers for Snow Leopard yield the same result. All in all - useless for searching the Tate collection. Similar problems have cropped up on sites for other major galleries across the globe. I reckon their web designers went feral during covid lockdowns.

As promised, here is the epitaph for FireFox 48:

Date/Time: 2021-10-02 23:43:38 +1000
OS Version: 10.6.8 (Build 10K549)
Architecture: x86_64
Report Version: 7

Command: Firefox
Path: /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox
Version: 48.0.1 (4816.8.17)
Parent: launchd [125]

PID: 195
Event: hang
Duration: 4.84s (sampling started after 2 seconds)
Steps: 9 (100ms sampling interval)

Pageins: 17
Pageouts: 0

Process: firefox [195]
Path: /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox
UID: 502

Thread 426 DispatchQueue 1
User stack:
1 fmt::rt::v1::_$LT$impl$GT$:🇳🇪:h6330814f79b4ec1dZfW + 6366090 (in XUL) [0x1043e762a]
1 fmt::rt::v1::_$LT$impl$GT$:🇳🇪:h6330814f79b4ec1dZfW + 6366997 (in XUL) [0x1043e79b5]
1 fmt::rt::v1::_$LT$impl$GT$:🇳🇪:h6330814f79b4ec1dZfW + 6366817 (in XUL) [0x1043e7901]
1 fmt::rt::v1::_$LT$impl$GT$:🇳🇪:h6330814f79b4ec1dZfW + 6366080 (in XUL) [0x1043e7620]
1 fmt::rt::v1::_$LT$impl$GT$:🇳🇪:h6330814f79b4ec1dZfW + 6366064 (in XUL) [0x1043e7610]
1 fmt::rt::v1::_$LT$impl$GT$:🇳🇪:h6330814f79b4ec1dZfW + 6366775 (in XUL) [0x1043e78d7]
1 fmt::rt::v1::_$LT$impl$GT$:🇳🇪:h6330814f79b4ec1dZfW + 6366093 (in XUL) [0x1043e762d]
1 fmt::rt::v1::_$LT$impl$GT$:🇳🇪:h6330814f79b4ec1dZfW + 6366229 (in XUL) [0x1043e76b5]
1 fmt::rt::v1::_$LT$impl$GT$:🇳🇪:h6330814f79b4ec1dZfW + 6366788 (in XUL) [0x1043e78e4]
Kernel stack:
9 lo_allintrs + 302 [0x2a1c2e]
9 interrupt + 192 [0x2ab423]
9 lapic_interrupt + 108 [0x2b32f2]
9 mp_kdp_exit + 868 [0x2b4560]
9 sync_iss_to_iks + 124 [0x2aabf6]
ETC, ETC

 

[B S Magnet]

Hmmm, FireFox 48 has died: its name only appears in the menu bar. Force Quit removes it (but doesn't mention it is inactive). Reloading it achieved nothing. Nightly has sucked its guts out, so I better be happy with that...
[some console details supplied below]

As for my experience of the Tate, its main page (https://www.tate.org.uk/) has a couple of pics, but these are really ads - details of artwork with type over. The remaining 30 pictures are blank grey rectangles.
Searching the collection (https://www.tate.org.uk/search or https://www.tate.org.uk/art) gives 16 grey blanks.
Clicking an entry (e.g. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-two-women-with-a-boy-and-a-small-child-d00831) gives a large grey blank, plus 15 additional suggestions, also grey blanks. Looking at the page source, the actual illustrations are embedded as ordinary html tags for jpg files of different sizes (lines 368-372, again 1748).
These can be viewed using their hidden URLs; the only time the image appears is when "License this image" is clicked (line 414). A medium sized picture appears, marred by their ugly logo.
The different browsers for Snow Leopard yield the same result. All in all - useless for searching the Tate collection. Similar problems have cropped up on sites for other major galleries across the globe. I reckon their web designers went feral during covid lockdowns.

As promised, here is the epitaph for FireFox 48:

Date/Time: 2021-10-02 23:43:38 +1000
OS Version: 10.6.8 (Build 10K549)
Architecture: x86_64
Report Version: 7

Command: Firefox
Path: /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox
Version: 48.0.1 (4816.8.17)
Parent: launchd [125]

PID: 195
Event: hang
Duration: 4.84s (sampling started after 2 seconds)
Steps: 9 (100ms sampling interval)

Pageins: 17
Pageouts: 0

Process: firefox [195]
Path: /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox
UID: 502

Thread 426 DispatchQueue 1
User stack:
1 fmt::rt::v1::_$LT$impl$GT$:🇳🇪:h6330814f79b4ec1dZfW + 6366090 (in XUL) [0x1043e762a]
1 fmt::rt::v1::_$LT$impl$GT$:🇳🇪:h6330814f79b4ec1dZfW + 6366997 (in XUL) [0x1043e79b5]
1 fmt::rt::v1::_$LT$impl$GT$:🇳🇪:h6330814f79b4ec1dZfW + 6366817 (in XUL) [0x1043e7901]
1 fmt::rt::v1::_$LT$impl$GT$:🇳🇪:h6330814f79b4ec1dZfW + 6366080 (in XUL) [0x1043e7620]
1 fmt::rt::v1::_$LT$impl$GT$:🇳🇪:h6330814f79b4ec1dZfW + 6366064 (in XUL) [0x1043e7610]
1 fmt::rt::v1::_$LT$impl$GT$:🇳🇪:h6330814f79b4ec1dZfW + 6366775 (in XUL) [0x1043e78d7]
1 fmt::rt::v1::_$LT$impl$GT$:🇳🇪:h6330814f79b4ec1dZfW + 6366093 (in XUL) [0x1043e762d]
1 fmt::rt::v1::_$LT$impl$GT$:🇳🇪:h6330814f79b4ec1dZfW + 6366229 (in XUL) [0x1043e76b5]
1 fmt::rt::v1::_$LT$impl$GT$:🇳🇪:h6330814f79b4ec1dZfW + 6366788 (in XUL) [0x1043e78e4]
Kernel stack:
9 lo_allintrs + 302 [0x2a1c2e]
9 interrupt + 192 [0x2ab423]
9 lapic_interrupt + 108 [0x2b32f2]
9 mp_kdp_exit + 868 [0x2b4560]
9 sync_iss_to_iks + 124 [0x2aabf6]
ETC, ETC

The Tate appear to be using newer versions of Javascript to serve the page. I experience this with sites like the New York Times and the CBC. Generally speaking, sites more recently drafted from the ground up are relying principally on a current iteration of Javascript functions, with which earlier browsers are having trouble.

I checked the Tate with Interweb 60.9.5 on Snow Leopard and am also witnessing what you are:

While it’s apparently and technically possible to build the latest Chromium for Snow Leopard, the Chrome Legacy project has not actually built a version of Chromium which will work in a Snow Leopard environment. The maintainer of that project is reportedly disinterested in Snow Leopard.

 

[RobJos]

The Tate appear to be using newer versions of Javascript to serve the page.

If you disable the site's own javascripts, you get some kind of contours (not much help). Sometimes playing with javascript can be useful.. Once, wicknix said something to the effect that nowadays site developers are just selling their whatever to Chrome, i.e. to the Matrix (my paraphrasing!). When I come across sites like those, I walk out on them, unless it's something I really really need. Their problem, not mine. There's just so much stuff out there, impossible to get bored.

 

[nielshutch]

The Tate appear to be using newer versions of Javascript to serve the page. I experience this with sites like the New York Times and the CBC. Generally speaking, sites more recently drafted from the ground up are relying principally on a current iteration of Javascript functions, with which earlier browsers are having trouble.

Exactly. So I was perfectly within my rights when I shot this off to the Tate:
"Examining the source code for your pages, I find there are simple HTML links to the pictures, but they are buried in bloated code/script. This renders individual artworks invisible. The Tate should have had more concern for researchers and ordinary users with their 'updated' website, and some regard for backward compatibility."

The Tate compounds its crimes. After a page is left open for a while, they time it out and direct you back to your search. Or so they say. In fact, they send you to https://www.tate-images.com/index.asp, which seems to be a shop selling reproductions. Here, multiple pictures of artworks appear, but of smallish size and no relevant data. Any parameters for the previous search are lost. I have let them know:
"It would seem the Tate is only allowing images if they stand to make some money from it."

When I come across sites like those, I walk out on them, unless it's something I really really need. Their problem, not mine. There's just so much stuff out there, impossible to get bored.

Except institutions such as the Tate have a public responsibility; it is their duty to make their collections available to any old dodderer (that other bloke, not me), without obliging him to purchase all new software and hardware. A range of crimes have recently appeared - failure to read their own css, inability to load images in separate tabs by right-clicking, etc.
Other public galleries on my list: British Museum, the Met, Art Gallery of NSW, MoMA, Art Institute of Chicago...just scratching the surface.
On a similar note: I can't download either Federal or State covid tracing apps to my iPhone 4s. It isn't smart enough.

But where were we? Oh yes, Nightly has eclipsed my FireFox and I now have the Death Star in my dock!

 

[nielshutch]

...one more thing - accessing GMail.
- ArcticFox needs prompting to get to the Account Chooser after signing out of any mailing address. The option to store passwords is greyed out (perhaps because I have a master password already?).
- Interweb is OK, sweetly old-fashioned even.
- Nightly will work unless uMatrix is installed. Then, it seems, you won't be able to get to Gmail at all.

 

[B S Magnet]

Exactly. So I was perfectly within my rights when I shot this off to the Tate:
"Examining the source code for your pages, I find there are simple HTML links to the pictures, but they are buried in bloated code/script. This renders individual artworks invisible. The Tate should have had more concern for researchers and ordinary users with their 'updated' website, and some regard for backward compatibility."

The Tate compounds its crimes. After a page is left open for a while, they time it out and direct you back to your search. Or so they say. In fact, they send you to https://www.tate-images.com/index.asp, which seems to be a shop selling reproductions. Here, multiple pictures of artworks appear, but of smallish size and no relevant data. Any parameters for the previous search are lost. I have let them know:
"It would seem the Tate is only allowing images if they stand to make some money from it."

Except institutions such as the Tate have a public responsibility; it is their duty to make their collections available to any old dodderer (that other bloke, not me), without obliging him to purchase all new software and hardware. A range of crimes have recently appeared - failure to read their own css, inability to load images in separate tabs by right-clicking, etc.
Other public galleries on my list: British Museum, the Met, Art Gallery of NSW, MoMA, Art Institute of Chicago...just scratching the surface.
On a similar note: I can't download either Federal or State covid tracing apps to my iPhone 4s. It isn't smart enough.

But where were we? Oh yes, Nightly has eclipsed my FireFox and I now have the Death Star in my dock!

I wouldn’t describe this as an act of criminality. Neglectful? Certainly. Exclusive? To some extent, yes.

The site is, however, hostile from the vantage of accessibility design as it doesn’t degrade gracefully for viewing on legacy browsers. The following from the Tate, as seen with Nightly 52.9, presents an excellent example and perhaps a bit of irony around the matter of site accessibility:

On the contrary, the Tate appears to follow a passively browser-centric approach — “passive”, in that there isn’t a prompt to download the latest version of a browser, but the functional breaking of the site implies a prompting to download a current version of the browser. This limits accessibility to only the most recent OSes capable of running a recent version of a browser.

In that sense, it is design with exclusion in mind.

 

[nielshutch]

Disability and Art? They've nailed it.

"degrade gracefully" = Decorum Degradatio
That's going on my coat of arms.

 

[RobJos]

Except institutions such as the Tate have a public responsibility; it is their duty to make their collections available to any old dodderer (that other bloke, not me), without obliging him to purchase all new software and hardware. A range of crimes have recently appeared - failure to read their own css, inability to load images in separate tabs by right-clicking, etc.
Other public galleries on my list: British Museum, the Met, Art Gallery of NSW, MoMA, Art Institute of Chicago...just scratching the surface.

That's brave of you. Trouble is, by the time you've knocked down one windmill (= convinced "them" to down-modify, 0.001% chance in my experience), 20 more will have arisen. As I see it, there are (at least) two factors at play:

1. planned obsolescence brought to higher degree of sophistication;

2. something I'll tentatively call “human counter-obsolescence”. Corporation GWXYZL has 10 developers who have produced a fine site that's elegant and does perfectly well what it's supposed to do. Thereafter GWXYZL finds itself with 9 out of those 10 (keep 1 for maintenance) busy thumb-twiddling, which, in the fine economic system we're living in, implies firing them all. Of course, our 9 are perfectly aware of this, so what do they do? They keep themselves busy with something, anything, regardless of whether it's useless, destructive, or downright stupid. Everyone up the chain will definitely know how to convince the top management that all their initiatives are absolutely necessary to the company. Users, customers? Who cares, when they're trying to save their asses...?

Of course, it's self-defeating in the long run, and bound to crumble like the rest of our fine economic system is currently in the process of doing.

 

[RobJos]

...one more thing - accessing GMail.
- ArcticFox needs prompting to get to the Account Chooser after signing out of any mailing address. The option to store passwords is greyed out (perhaps because I have a master password already?).
- Interweb is OK, sweetly old-fashioned even.
- Nightly will work unless uMatrix is installed. Then, it seems, you won't be able to get to Gmail at all.

OTOH, if you give any importance to this, you have ProtonMail, MailFence, Yandex, or simply hosting mails under your own domain.

 

[nielshutch]

That's brave of you. Trouble is, by the time you've knocked down one windmill (= convinced "them" to down-modify, 0.001% chance in my experience), 20 more will have arisen.

Sigh. Windmills everywhere. I had some success with the Art Gallery of NSW, who quoted the wrong work of mine in a bibliography. I informed them of this, and how 4 of the 7 illustrations were upside down, and that none of the links on their site worked. They seem to have corrected these errors. Only some could be java-related; their layout is still a mess, as seen on this screen shot of the top of their front page:

The links function (thanks to me), if you can find them. The blue circle at the top is in fact an outsize looking glass, a clickable link to a search function. The eyeless woman below is part of a video (floating phones with pithy comments) and there is no easy way to turn it off.

Windmill indeed - perhaps they need another tilt.
Decorum Degradatio!

 

[mktchin]

Arctic Fox 27.12.0 (32-bit) works well on my Mac Mini 1.83 GHz Core 2 Duo running Mac OS X Server 10.6.8.

 

[Varjak]

@B S Magnet, I downloaded and tried your uBLock Origin add-on 1.16.4.30 for my Arctic Fox [thanks by the way] installation and it installed (I installed it by dragging the file into an AF window as I think is standard). But it still doesn't stop the ads on YouTube.

I'm using Arctic Fox 27.10 on a Mac Mini Core 2 Duo 2.66 with 8 GB of RAM from Mid-2010 (3rd gen.). Do I need to change some settings? Do I need to upgrade to a newer version of AF? I had actually thought that AF 27.10 was the last one compatible with my computer until I found this thread. I use the Mac Mini almost exclusively as a home theater PC attached to a TV to watch videos and use YouTube, but I can't stand the ads. I used Adblock Plus happily on the last version of Firefox that worked on Snow Leopard, but now I'm tired of the ads, which have increased significantly on YouTube. I can watch YouTube via the smart TV function and various media sticks (Roku, Fire Stick), but I prefer the interface of using YouTube through the browser.

I admit to being out of my depth on this, so any help is appreciated. Thanks.

 

[B S Magnet]

@B S Magnet, I downloaded and tried your uBLock Origin add-on 1.16.4.30 for my Arctic Fox [thanks by the way] installation and it installed (I installed it by dragging the file into an AF window as I think is standard). But it still doesn't stop the ads on YouTube.

You should try running both uBlock Origin legacy and uMatrix together. With uMatrix, you have a granular level of control over what your browser will load.

This, once set and saved (the “save” button in uMatrix is the padllock icon), should halt the ads. In the short-term, uMatrix does require manually permitting specific servers on a web site before you’ll see video (in the example below, the servers from the “googlevideo.com” and “ytimg.com” domains had to be manually green-lighted first; manual green- or red-lit servers are those seen in dark green and in red, respectively). Those settings, once saved, should work for all future video YT playback (which should just work without the ads or headaches).



This example is how I have YT set up on Interweb (which is what I use more often than Arctic Fox). I don’t see ads. I pretty much only run uBlock Origin Legacy and uMatrix together as my browser baseline as a prophylaxis against ads.

I'm using Arctic Fox 27.10 on a Mac Mini Core 2 Duo 2.66 with 8 GB of RAM from Mid-2010 (3rd gen.). Do I need to change some settings? Do I need to upgrade to a newer version of AF? I had actually thought that AF 27.10 was the last one compatible with my computer until I found this thread. I use the Mac Mini almost exclusively as a home theater PC attached to a TV to watch videos and use YouTube, but I can't stand the ads. I used Adblock Plus happily on the last version of Firefox that worked on Snow Leopard, but now I'm tired of the ads, which have increased significantly on YouTube. I can watch YouTube via the smart TV function and various media sticks (Roku, Fire Stick), but I prefer the interface of using YouTube through the browser.

Yah, AdBlock Plus isn’t efficacious as it once was years ago.

Have you given Interweb a try?

I admit to being out of my depth on this, so any help is appreciated. Thanks.

No worries. If you can, give the uBlock Origin legacy and uMatrix combo a try. They’re produced by the same developer, and they can be used either together or separately.

 

[nielshutch]

Yah, AdBlock Plus isn’t efficacious as it once was years ago.

T

 

[nielshutch]

B S Magnet said:
"Yah, AdBlock Plus isn’t efficacious as it once was years ago."

True.
AdBlock recently let through a piece of click-bait, an ad Yahoo puts at the top of mail inbox to look like new mail.
uBlock seemed to cope with it. So did AdGuard, which lets you click on the offender and decide how much you want to block.

There is lots of documentation for uBlock:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/
&
https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock#ublock-origin
There is even an active Reddit page:
https://old.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/

uBlock has an advanced-user option, too. It's a grid-like array like uMatrix, to attend to bits and pieces of a site. There is some documentation for uMatrix, though most of it is archived:
https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/support-umatrix/5131
&
https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix

I disabled uMatrix, as it seemed to disable Gmail's Account Chooser. (I know, I know - consorting with the enemy!) Maybe it deserves another go, though all that fine print...NoScript is already confusing enough.

Where will I find the time, with all these windmills at which to tilt (at)?
I have sent the screenshot above (#1095) to Sydney's art gallery.

P.S. You will be pleased to know the Met's site now works fine in Snow Leopard; they tried to blame my browser at first, but I have written to forgive them.