Search Results for 'firefox google'

Dear All,

I tested 3 web browsers(Opera, Google Chrome, Firefox ESR) on this website;
https://testdrive-archive.azurewebsites.net/Performance/Chalkboard/

At the end of the test, you have the total of seconds.

Desktop build in August 2016 ; CPU I5-6400 (4 cores) – 16 GO Ram – NVIDIA GTX960 2GO – Pilot NVIDIA 460 – AntiX-bullseye-a2_x64-full Grup Yorum 26 March 2021 – Kernel: 5.10.22-antix.1-amd64-smp x86_64 bits – Antix installed on USB3 key Sandisk Ultra Flair 150 Mo/s root format ext2

Pay attention regarding Firefox ESR, I have activated the webrender.

The winner is;

Firefox ESR = 7,28 s
Google Chrome = 8,65
Opera = 10,06

If you have installed Antix on a ssd (nmve), the results should be better.

Let me know who is your fastest browser?

Best regards,
Wallon

Attachments:

1. 

   fr_BE-chalkboard-FireESR.jpg
   

[Member PPC]

I was an Opera user for many years, long time ago, on my windows and then Mint days. Until recently, I was a heavy Opera Mini user on my android device- but privacy concerns made me stray away from Opera.

If you don’t worry about your privacy, using closed source browser like Opera, then you have nothing to worry about…
But there are some more privacy friendly browsers that have low RAM footprint- like Ungoogle Chromium (for 64 bits only), and our very customized badwolf (check the recent forum thread on it- it may take a while to get used to, but it’s really low on RAM usage). There are more options available from the Package Installer, too…
For now, badwolf runs great on my single core netbook with 1 gig of RAM, and Firefox-esr is my back-up browser

P.

• This reply was modified 2 years ago by Brian Masinick. Reason: Typo

Hi

Because I know that surfing with little RAM is a problem, I would like to tell you about my new experience with Opera:

I have 1GB of RAM and was looking for the right browser. Firefox wasn’t that bad, but from 2 fb tabs, a google translate and another page it reaches the limit where the swapfile starts to work. I see this well on the “Conky”, a wonderful tool 🙂 With Chromium and Chrome, it is a little worse than with firefox. Brave was about the same as firefox, but the built-in addblocker didn’t convince me at all!

Just out of curiosity and more of a coincidence, I tested Opera and there was a big surprise! Opera runs significantly faster than the up-to-date browsers mentioned above. Opera also has an addblocker built in and it works fine. In addition, Opera has many setting options that I have not found in the other browsers. Obviously Opera manages the memory better than the others! I observe that my RAM usage is never higher than 700MB (out of a total of 927MB available). If I am already close to 700MB and open another tab, the load even sinks and then slowly increases again to around 700MB, but never goes above it. I conclude from this that Opera has a limit on RAM usage and then uses the browser cache. Because the swapfile is NOT beeing activated, should mean it doesn’t swap! Sentational, really 🙂

I had also tested Falkon on my old notebook, also with 1GB Ram. It also ran better than Chromium and Firefox. The version that I installed under Lubuntu still had a static browser cache (not a dynamic one), which has the advantage that it can be increased manually. The maximum was 2GB.

But I recommend installing Opera to anyone who has not tried it yet. You can find it in “Package Installer”. At most, the list needs to be updated beforehand via the terminal. See separate post here:

https://www.antixforum.com/forums/topic/can-i-install-opera-browser/

[Member PPC]

I don’t have that much time to play with my semi-degoogled android device, but f-droid has lots of stuff that can be handy for any user, so, here are some more tips:
-“Saveto“. it’s a tiny app that places a “save to” option on android’s “share” menu, so you can save a file anywhere, instead of just sharing to other people/devices/apps
-“Wifi automatic“- this is so handy I can’t believe android does not come with a similar option out of the box- to save battery, this app allows you to turn off your WiFi connection after any given number of minutes after turning your screen off- and then you can also configure it to automatically enable your WiFi connection every time you turn your screen on! (on my device this takes less than 5 seconds). If you want to be always connected ( while you are awake), you can skip this auto turn WiFi off and program your WiFi to turn on and off between any given time of day (say from 1 am to 8 am, for example)
-“PDF Converter” -I already mentioned Xodo pdf viewer/editor- it’s probably the best pdf editor I ever saw on any platform (I never messed with adobe’s paid software). The downside is that Xodo is not opensource and it’s full of trackers… PDF Converter is a very handy program that enables you to reorder pdf pages, delete pdf pages, merge or divide pdf files, extract image files from pdfs, add or remove password protection and compress pdf files… It does everything but allowing you to edit the text/images that are inside a pdf file- so you can’t even underline text (alllllmost perfect)…
-“Librera PRO“- it’s an e-book/pdf reader, that supports TTS, it’s full of options- it would be one of the best or even THE best e-book reader for android if not a small problem- it is very slow loading epub files. For small files, you almost don’t notice it… Try to load a 1 MB epub file and it takes so long that if you are trying to read something in your commute to work that you almost have time to run back home, pick up a paper book, catch a new train to work and the file is still loading…
As a pdf reader it works great- it lacks reflow, but has a very intelligent zoom feature, that always applies the same magnification to every page, so you an zoom on the text and don’t wast screen space with empty margins… It has a quick dark mode switch- so, for simply reading pdf files, it works great…
-“snapdrop.net“- this is not an app, but a web page that allows you to share files or messages to/from any device connected to your WiFi network- it works much like apple’s airdrop- you can open it from Firefox and place it’s icon on your screen, so it works just like a file transfer app, no installation log-on needed (search the forum for “snapdrop”- userzero even has a picture of this service in action…

P.

• This reply was modified 2 years ago by PPC.

[Member calciumsodium]

@sybok suggested I do the test on another platform.

So I tried a bushcraft video in vimeo:

https://vimeo.com/44267969

Initially, this video produced more choppy cpu load % compared to the previous youtube video, but did eventually leveled off. That is when I measured the CPU %.

browser CPU %

firefox 50
firefox-esr 47
google-chrome-stable 29
chromium 37
microsoft-edge-dev 38

The pattern reproduces. Google chrome still performed best of these browsers. Again, the chromium based browsers performed better.

• This reply was modified 2 years ago by anticapitalista. Reason: shrunk video

[Member PPC]

Xecure wrote:

I also experienced this on a low powered PC, where firefox and MPV played 1080p videos badly, and VLC and chromium played them without stuttering

I’ve noticed the same exact thing with Firefox and I agree with sybok’s assumption that Google optimized YouTube to run better on their closed source browser- I see no other reason for YT running faster on Chrome than on Chromium (except that it may have some hardware acceleration problems).
On very low resources system, MPV always but always performed better for me than VLC- but I did have to search on-line on how to alter MPV default settings – and make a smart usage of the frame skipping options, etc.
My single core Atom (but 64bits) netbook can play 1080p mkv video files in an 100% watchable way- I only notice some stuttering when a big chunk of the screen changes around, but it does not affect the enjoyment of the video.

P.

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

@skidoo: Yes, that’s perfect. On my system, the list is slightly different because of what I have installed:

$ grep -nr MimeType= /usr/share/applications | grep image/png \
| cut -f 1 -d’:’ | sed ‘s/.*\///’ | cut -f1 -d’.’ | grep -v display-im6

^—v

feh
firefox-esr
firefox
google-chrome
mirage
mtpaint
waterfox-g3

--
Brian Masinick

I wanted to share a recent finding that I experienced regarding browsers in antiX. I quick background and then the test. I recently installed google chrome in antiX and wanted to see how it would perform in antiX. I use google chrome and microsoft edge on my Windows computers both at home and at work. I was watching several youtube videos about fishing, and I noticed that it was streaming very fast. I had been using firefox predominantly in antiX previously. So I was thinking about how I could test to see if there was a difference. I downloaded the lastest version of firefox, firefox-esr, chrome, chromium, and edge:

firefox 88.0
firefox-esr 78.9.0
google-chrome-stable 90.0.4430.93-1
chromium 89.0.4389.114-1
microsoft-edge-dev 92.0.873.1-1

I would watch the same youtube fishing video on each of these browsers and compare CPU %:

With no other major programs running, I would individually launch each of these browsers only and then load the youtube fishing video. Now, upon loading a youtube video, cpu load is initially high. Then cpu load would drop and then stabilize. Visually, I can tell that cpu load is stabilizing because of the cpu load icon at the lower right of the screen in the task bar line directly to the left of the time. When that CPU load trace line is horizontal and even, I would quickly click Show Desktop and record the CPU % level in conky. This is what I found for that video:

browser CPU %

firefox 47
firefox-esr 51
google-chrome-stable 20
chromium 30
microsoft-edge-dev 28

Interestingly, this trend is similar when I was watching other videos as well. My finding suggests that the chromium based browsers (chrome, chromium, edge) perform better than the firefox based browsers with streaming videos. But of the chromium based browsers, chrome performs the best.

This test was performed on an old Toshiba Satellite C55-B5300 laptop using antiX-bullseye-a2-full-64-bit OS. The specs for this cpu is:
Model name: Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU N2840 @ 2.16GHz
Stepping: 8
CPU MHz: 1934.387
CPU max MHz: 2582.3000
CPU min MHz: 499.8000
BogoMIPS: 4333.33
Virtualization: VT-x
L1d cache: 48 KiB
L1i cache: 64 KiB
L2 cache: 1 MiB

Too bad chrome and edge are not available on 32-bit versions. I would really like to test their performance on my antiX 32-bit systems.

Therefore, I have been using the chromium-based browsers for more of the cpu intensive web browsing.

• This topic was modified 2 years ago by anticapitalista. Reason: shrunk video

[Member lonegunmen]

Xecure wrote:

Maybe try
chromium --no-gpu --disable-setupid-sandbox
Just to see if can you launch it with no GPU support. It is strange that firefox (SSE2 support required) works but Chromium based browsers dont. There must be something else that is giving chromium problems.

Finally discovered why Chrome based browsers don’t work on my system. It’s because of SSE3 support. Chrome, Chromium, Brave, Vivaldi and even Ungoogled Chromium need SSE3 support now. My AMD Athlon 64 3200+ supports SSE2 but not SSE3, so that’s why it kept returning “illegal instruction” errors in terminal and why Brave kept returning errors. Hopefully this will help someone else who needs this information.

Here’s the link to Chrome’s system requirements:
Chrome Browser system requirements

Scroll down the page and under Linux system requirements

Linux®

To use Chrome Browser on Linux®, you’ll need:

64-bit Ubuntu 14.04+, Debian 8+, openSUSE 13.3+, or Fedora Linux 24+
An Intel Pentium 4 processor or later that’s SSE3 capable

So no Chrome based browsers for this system it would seem.

[Member ModdIt]

The Athlon 64 Processor 3200+ does according to spec sheet support SSE2 but not 3 or 4.

Pls see if Vivaldi will run, it is a chrome based browser and available for Linux 64 bit (and 32 bit)
as a deb.
You might also like to try ungoogled chromium and or LibreWolf,

Firefox is not my favorite browser but can be quietened down. OTB it is sending data to
mozilla search terms to google, and pinging every time you blink.

I find it More than suspicious that Brave is complaining about invalid systemD machine ID.

That is a poettering/Red Hat induced Tracking feature, aka unique ID.
Keep on deleting it every time you feel like it. A new different one gets generated next boot.

Do Not feel left out, in antiX there is an ID in /var/lib/dbus/machine.id
Delete it before a shutdown anytime you feel like it, new one generated next boot

[Member rayluo]

MCreaves wrote:

The issue now is when I go to logout > suspend, it doesn’t suspend but instead shuts the computer down apparently. When I come back later, it’s totally off.

Hi @MCreaves, I happen to encounter an issue which initially looks similar. When I suspend my “new” Thinkpad computer, it would apparently shutdown, and then even automatically reboot.

Interestingly, later I realized that symptom was not exactly “suspend shuts down (and reboot) computer”. With a hint from somewhere else, I turned off the “Automatically turn on via LAN” feature from BIOS. Then, suspending my computer would not cause auto reboot. It seems the suspend is indeed working, because this computer happens to have a breathing light effect in its power button.

But then, the real problem in my case is that I can not successfully wake up the computer. Once wake up, the computer goes into reboot.

MCreaves wrote:

I don’t really know much about suspend on Linux since it has pretty much always just worked.

Same here, the suspend behavior works fine on my another two older Thinkpads.

MCreaves wrote:

After a lot of research, it seems that the issue might be related to an outdated BIOS

How would you know it is caused by BIOS? I also want to learn how to troubleshoot this.

In my case, Lenovo did a good job on continuing releasing newer BIOS version several times a year. But I want to make sure I have to go that route. I never did any BIOS upgrade before.

PS: My computer.

System:    Host: antix1 Kernel: 4.9.235-antix.1-amd64-smp x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 8.3.0 
           parameters: vga=0x0317 tz=America/Los_Angeles quiet splasht disable=lx zswap.enabled=1 
           Desktop: IceWM 1.9.1 dm: SLiM 1.3.6 
           Distro: antiX-19.3_x64-full Manolis Glezos 15 October 2020 
           base: Debian GNU/Linux 10 (buster) 
Machine:   Type: Laptop System: LENOVO product: 2342CTO v: ThinkPad T430 serial: <filter> Chassis: 
           type: 10 serial: <filter> 
           Mobo: LENOVO model: 2342CTO v: Win8 STD DPK TPG serial: <filter> UEFI [Legacy]: LENOVO 
           v: G1ET91WW (2.51 ) date: 01/09/2013 
Battery:   ID-1: BAT0 charge: 17.9 Wh condition: 18.3/47.5 Wh (39%) volts: 12.2/10.8 
           model: SANYO 45N1001 type: Li-ion serial: <filter> status: Unknown 
Memory:    RAM: total: 15.43 GiB used: 790.3 MiB (5.0%) 
           RAM Report: permissions: Unable to run dmidecode. Root privileges required. 
PCI Slots: Permissions: Unable to run dmidecode. Root privileges required. 
CPU:       Topology: Dual Core model: Intel Core i5-3320M bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Ivy Bridge 
           family: 6 model-id: 3A (58) stepping: 9 microcode: 16 L2 cache: 3072 KiB 
           bogomips: 20752 
           Speed: 2602 MHz min/max: 1200/2600 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 2602 2: 2598 3: 2600 
           4: 2600 
           Flags: acpi aes aperfmperf apic arat arch_perfmon avx bts clflush cmov constant_tsc 
           cx16 cx8 de ds_cpl dtes64 dtherm dts epb ept erms est f16c flexpriority fpu fsgsbase 
           fxsr ht kaiser lahf_lm lm mca mce mmx monitor msr mtrr nonstop_tsc nopl nx pae pat pbe 
           pcid pclmulqdq pdcm pebs pge pln pni popcnt pse pse36 pts rdrand rdtscp rep_good sep 
           smep smx ss sse sse2 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 syscall tm tm2 tpr_shadow tsc 
           tsc_deadline_timer vme vmx vnmi vpid x2apic xsave xsaveopt xtopology xtpr 
           Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: Split huge pages 
           Type: l1tf mitigation: PTE Inversion; VMX: conditional cache flushes, SMT vulnerable 
           Type: mds status: Vulnerable: Clear CPU buffers attempted, no microcode; SMT vulnerable 
           Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI 
           Type: spec_store_bypass status: Vulnerable 
           Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization 
           Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Full generic retpoline, STIBP: disabled, RSB filling 
           Type: srbds status: Vulnerable: No microcode 
           Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected 
Graphics:  Device-1: NVIDIA GF108M [NVS 5400M] vendor: Lenovo driver: nouveau v: kernel 
           bus ID: 01:00.0 chip ID: 10de:0def 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.4 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa 
           resolution: 1920x1200~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: NVC1 v: 4.3 Mesa 18.3.6 direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel 7 Series/C216 Family High Definition Audio vendor: Lenovo 
           driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:1b.0 chip ID: 8086:1e20 
           Device-2: NVIDIA GF108 High Definition Audio vendor: Lenovo driver: snd_hda_intel 
           v: kernel bus ID: 01:00.1 chip ID: 10de:0bea 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k4.9.235-antix.1-amd64-smp 
Network:   Device-1: Intel 82579LM Gigabit Network vendor: Lenovo driver: e1000e v: 3.2.6-k 
           port: 6040 bus ID: 00:19.0 chip ID: 8086:1502 
           IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter> 
           Device-2: Intel Centrino Wireless-N 2200 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel port: 5000 
           bus ID: 03:00.0 chip ID: 8086:0891 
           IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter> 
           IP v4: <filter> scope: global broadcast: <filter> 
           IP v6: <filter> scope: link 
           IF-ID-1: docker0 state: down mac: <filter> 
           IP v4: <filter> scope: global broadcast: <filter> 
           WAN IP: <filter> 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 169.48 GiB used: 4.62 GiB (2.7%) 
           ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Intel model: SSDSC2BW180A3L size: 167.68 GiB block size: 
           physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s serial: <filter> rev: LF1i scheme: GPT 
           ID-2: /dev/sdb type: USB model: USB Flash Disk size: 1.80 GiB block size: 
           physical: 512 B logical: 512 B serial: <filter> rev: 1.0 scheme: MBR 
           Optical-1: /dev/sr0 vendor: MATSHITA model: DVD-RAM UJ8C0 rev: SB01 
           dev-links: cdrom,cdrw,dvd,dvdrw 
           Features: speed: 24 multisession: yes audio: yes dvd: yes rw: cd-r,cd-rw,dvd-r,dvd-ram 
           state: running 
RAID:      Message: No RAID data was found. 
Partition: ID-1: / raw size: N/A size: 12.29 GiB used: 51.7 MiB (0.4%) fs: overlay source: ERR-102 
           label: N/A uuid: N/A 
           ID-2: /live/boot-dev raw size: 1.75 GiB size: 1.71 GiB (97.95%) used: 1.21 GiB (70.8%) 
           fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sdb1 label: antiX193x64gvmcd 
           uuid: d7d21374-f867-4fc2-89f2-bf6755613faa 
           ID-3: /live/linux raw size: 1.14 GiB size: <root required> used: <root required> 
           fs: squashfs dev: /dev/loop0 label: N/A uuid: N/A 
           ID-4: /media/LIVE-UEFI raw size: 49.0 MiB size: 48.2 MiB (98.43%) used: 4.2 MiB (8.7%) 
           fs: vfat dev: /dev/sdb2 label: LIVE-UEFI uuid: 2332-E684 
           ID-5: /media/antiX-Frugal raw size: 12.00 GiB size: 12.00 GiB (100.00%) 
           used: 3.35 GiB (27.9%) fs: btrfs dev: /dev/sda8 label: antiX-Frugal 
           uuid: fa9586e9-344c-4ef0-98f4-6363a14e2c19 
           ID-6: swap-1 size: 20.00 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) fs: swap swappiness: 10 (default 60) 
           cache pressure: 50 (default 100) dev: /dev/sda7 label: N/A 
           uuid: 761e7835-77ea-45bf-9e09-ea5f22263bbe 
Unmounted: ID-1: /dev/sda1 size: 1000.0 MiB fs: ntfs label: WINRE_DRV uuid: 7E94A2F794A2B0D7 
           ID-2: /dev/sda2 size: 260.0 MiB fs: vfat label: SYSTEM_DRV uuid: 68A5-CC68 
           ID-3: /dev/sda3 size: 128.0 MiB fs: <root required> label: N/A uuid: N/A 
           ID-4: /dev/sda4 size: 122.54 GiB fs: ntfs label: N/A uuid: 5A8C599C8C59738B 
           ID-5: /dev/sda5 size: 450.0 MiB fs: ntfs label: N/A uuid: ECCA0B3DCA0B0414 
           ID-6: /dev/sda6 size: 11.34 GiB fs: ntfs label: Lenovo_Recovery uuid: CA369CCE369CBD3F 
USB:       Hub: 1-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 3 rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s 
           chip ID: 1d6b:0002 
           Hub: 1-1:2 info: Intel Integrated Rate Matching Hub ports: 6 rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s 
           chip ID: 8087:0024 
           Hub: 1-1.2:3 info: Standard Microsystems USB 2.0 Hub ports: 4 rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s 
           chip ID: 0424:2514 
           Device-1: 1-1.2.1:5 info: Microsoft Optical Mouse with Tilt Wheel type: Mouse 
           driver: hid-generic,usbhid interfaces: 1 rev: 2.0 speed: 1.5 Mb/s chip ID: 045e:00d1 
           Device-2: 1-1.2.2:6 info: Cooler Master type: Keyboard,HID driver: hid-generic,usbhid 
           interfaces: 3 rev: 1.1 speed: 12 Mb/s chip ID: 2516:0059 
           Device-3: 1-1.2.4:7 info: MosArt type: Mouse driver: hid-generic,usbhid interfaces: 1 
           rev: 1.1 speed: 12 Mb/s chip ID: 062a:4102 
           Device-4: 1-1.6:4 info: Chicony Thinkpad T430 camera type: Video driver: uvcvideo 
           interfaces: 2 rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s chip ID: 04f2:b2db 
           Hub: 2-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 3 rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s 
           chip ID: 1d6b:0002 
           Hub: 2-1:2 info: Intel Integrated Rate Matching Hub ports: 8 rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s 
           chip ID: 8087:0024 
           Hub: 3-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 4 rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s 
           chip ID: 1d6b:0002 
           Device-5: 3-2:2 info: N/A type: Mass Storage driver: usb-storage interfaces: 1 rev: 2.0 
           speed: 480 Mb/s chip ID: 1845:0105 serial: <filter> 
           Hub: 4-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 4 rev: 3.0 speed: 5 Gb/s 
           chip ID: 1d6b:0003 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 77.0 C mobo: N/A gpu: nouveau temp: 70 C 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 4112 
Repos:     Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/antix.list 
           1: deb http: //la.mxrepo.com/antix/buster buster main nonfree nosystemd
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/buster-backports.list 
           1: deb http: //deb.debian.org/debian buster-backports main contrib non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-stable-updates.list 
           1: deb http: //ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ buster-updates main contrib non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list 
           1: deb http: //ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ buster main contrib non-free
           2: deb http: //security.debian.org/ buster/updates main contrib non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list 
           1: deb [arch=amd64] https: //download.docker.com/linux/debian buster stable
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list 
           1: deb [arch=amd64] http: //dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main
           No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/onion.list 
           No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/various.list 
Processes: CPU top: 5 
           1: cpu: 26.0% command: yad pid: 8719 mem: 29.6 MiB (0.1%) 
           2: cpu: 24.8% command: firefox-esr pid: 6370 mem: 227.5 MiB (1.4%) 
           3: cpu: 10.2% command: firefox-esr pid: 6196 mem: 372.8 MiB (2.3%) 
           4: cpu: 1.5% command: xorg pid: 5017 mem: 70.1 MiB (0.4%) 
           5: cpu: 0.2% command: dockerd pid: 4748 mem: 91.1 MiB (0.5%) 
           Memory top: 5 
           1: mem: 372.8 MiB (2.3%) command: firefox-esr pid: 6196 cpu: 10.2% 
           2: mem: 227.5 MiB (1.4%) command: firefox-esr pid: 6370 cpu: 24.8% 
           3: mem: 138.6 MiB (0.8%) command: firefox-esr pid: 6482 cpu: 0.2% 
           4: mem: 100.6 MiB (0.6%) command: firefox-esr pid: 6393 cpu: 0.1% 
           5: mem: 91.1 MiB (0.5%) command: dockerd pid: 4748 cpu: 0.2% 
Info:      Processes: 192 Uptime: 18m Init: SysVinit v: 2.93 runlevel: 5 default: 5 Compilers: 
           gcc: 8.3.0 alt: 8 Client: shell wrapper v: 5.0.3-release inxi: 3.0.36 

[Member ModdIt]

Thanks to previous posters. even many experienced user get caught by scammers
at times.

On sneakiness, watch conky, listen to fans, if they start to run loud and
you are not working cpu or gpu hard look for a reason.
as delivered most browsers will run headless, often very busy doing something
a website has asked/commanded them to do. This also happens to tor browser.

Firefox has tools for (remote) screenshots, remote setting changes, formfill,
hidden in browser/features folder.

If you are very trusting you can leave those as is, save passwords in the browser,
synchronise data across devices with corporate offerings too. Bookmarks, passwords,
login data. Store your important files for free in a cloud which can turn to bitter
cold hailstones tomorrow. Your data on offer in darknet or just gone because the server
without warning.

Advice there, Read the privacy notice, for firefox reserve a day or so, palemoon is clear
and concise. Be unpredictable, use different browsers at whim, do not save passwords in
the browser, at least until recently firefox saved and showed them in plaintext.
I do like and use use Librewolf and ungoogled chromium, have learned a lot from the way
LibreWolf uses policys to controll compiled in features.
Please be aware, Many policy settings only work correctly with FF LTS release !!!.

Use js only if you have to, no script is pretty good for controll but you need to learn
how.

Know how to use top and kill,
if your browser is running headless after some page visit you will need them.
A few days ago that happened repeatedly on Zeit.de which is very reputable.

Do not just shutdown, I have seen a browser restart headless afer a shutdown and reboot
high cpu network and disk activity. I wrote that stick full using dd then reinstalled.

GHacks is one of my go to places for learning, I go way beyond the standard user.js offering,
also add a policy file to lock some sensitive settings.

NEVER refresh firefox when the nagging popup shows, that resets everything to as delivered.
You must remove hidden extensions after every update, delete crash reporter, updater pingserver too.
Crash reporter can reportedly capture and send a memory dump, trust in that where a settings server
is active, null.

Long post but big subject.

• This reply was modified 2 years ago by ModdIt.

[Member PPC]

Anonymous wrote:

instead, I would suggest
https://f-droid.org/

Hi Skidoo! I missed your sense of humor…

I do, in fact, suggest using f-droid for installing opensource apps, and also adding to it repos for Firefox/Bromite/Newpipe to keep the browsers (and streaming app) up to date without relying on manual updates or the Play Store…

I suggested only activating the Play store when there’s need to update software that’s not available via f-droid. There are many thousands of applications for android on the Play store (maybe millions?), and only hundreds off apps on f-droid- if the user wants to use the android device for any other use than as a phone/calendar/camera/calculator/document viewer/ media player/ opensource software/ internet related stuff, and wants/requires certain apps, I consider (maybe wrongly) that it’s safer to activate the Play store temporarily, and install/update those applications than risk installing apk’s found on-line.
There’s also Aurora store, that supplies the free apps available on the Play store, but, as far as I know, it violates Google’s license, allowing the use of the Store without a google account… Google can deactivate your account if it finds out you’ve been using it…

If a user does not require any particular app/game other than what comes pre installed with the OS (Facebook/messenger/and all such crap) and gets by with the apps I suggested above (you can even use open source only chess and checkers games, available on f-droid, I suggested only those I liked best)
since stuff like webmail/ 9gag /youtube /social networks/ cloud drives/ etc, can be used via web browser, and you can create icons for those “web apps” on your device, there’s really no need to install and use android apps for that… You don’t clutter your device, you don’t have to keep updating the apps, and you close your browser, and clean the cookies/cache and there’s no great loss of privacy.

I admit that I have many non opensource apps on my device, even some games (for me and my kid) that were installed using the Play store. There are even some console grade level games I got for free.

As far as I know, the best image to pdf scanner for android [something I used a lot at my work] is not free- I got it for free on a sale ( MS’s app is really free, and comes very close to it in functionality, though- I don’t like MS, but I do have to admit that they do some nice and effective apps- bitch as much as I do about Windows, if it was really that bad to use, Linux would be ruling desktop computers, since Windows 7 was replaced by that appalling Windows 8)

If people like android games- it can be used as a pretty decent portable gaming console, for some kinds of games- much cheaper than a real portable console – but some (many) apps almost ask you to promise the developer your first born son in order to use the app (many games that are “free” during a sale, for example, ask to access your contact list, and control calls, etc- Why the **** does a game not work without all that? Simple- it’s a scam- you play a “free” or cheap game, but give the Dev’s all your data…

In an ideal world, we should all be using a really opensource phone (does not matter to me if it runs Linux, opensource only android, or as last option -a non privacy invading closed source OS, whatever… I had a old touchscreen symbian phone, some 10-12 years ago, that did some 90% of the stuff I use my android device for- I listened to stuff, read e-books, took photos, read documents, played some nice games… I only got my first android after my last “non smartphone” device died on me… and I seriously considered getting, a couple of years ago, a non android nokia phone with a nice camera to replace my then failing android device…

Side note:
My only tablet device is and android 4.4.1.- probably some 5-6 years old- and still works and looks brand new (except for the occasional freeze, that a reset solves- that has been happening for some months now- nothing last for ever and the hardware is probably failing…)

P.

Hi folks

During this lock down period, I’ve been informing myself on how android devices “spy” on us. I’ve always know about that, and, to some people, that may not be scary. However I did not like to learn stuff like this:
-A recent research pointed out that, on average android/IOS devices send your private data (like phone number, IMEI, location, and possibly contacts, browsing history, etc, etc) over the net (to Google/Apple servers) and that android devices send 20 times the data IOs devices send… (I think I listened to this on Wired UK podcast title something like “your phone sends your data every 4.5 minutes”)
-I’m going through a very bad economic situation, so I do not have a spare android device to try to install and alternative degoogled ROM, so I tried to degoogle my android 10 device as much as possible without rooting/installing a new OS.
the end result is not perfect, but not that bad…
At least my Samsung android 10 device allows, using the Options drop down menu, to disable “Google play” store and “Google services”.

Before doing such extreme measure I recommend doing this:
Go trough the Options menu on your android device you can disable stuff like personalized adds, period Bluetooth devices, clear and disable your google history, etc.- that does allow you a small increase on privacy, but not by much, and that because something I learned on the Youtube channel “Rox Braxman Tech”- do you know the “GPS” icon on your android device? That does not turn off your GPS- it simply disables it’s use from third party apps, but not Google Services- you GPS is on 24/7, and, as soon as you connect your device to the internet, that data is sent to Google’s servers.
Also this- if you connect to a WI-fi network and your device has GPS service, the precise location of that network is sent to Google (including the rooter’s ID)…
Even if you don’t allow third party apps access to your location, that can be estimated from your last know position, using the phone’s sensors (Braxman has a short video showing how to activate a secret android icon on the options that allows to switch off all sensors- including camera and mic (but not GPS)- you can only use your mic for phone calls if you disable sensors. It’s a instant on/off switch, very handy.

Turning off Google Playstore does not improve your privacy by much- and you do have to turn it back on to check for application updates (for apps installed from the Play Store)
Turning off Google Services does seem to improve your privacy by a lot, but alsos puts you, if you are a google service’s user, in a world of pain- Google Chrome, Maps, Youtube and Gmail app’s complain about not working without “Google services”- hell, even “contacts” complains about that, although it still works ok, but producing an anoying notification. Netflix complains the same way, but still works…

I have a few suggestions to using a “semi-ungoogled device” – before turning off the Play store, install several alternative apps to use instead the default apps:
Also, change your device from the options menu so you can side-load apps. Navigate to F-droid’s page and install it’s apk- it’s an android apps store that offers only open source aplications.
From Playstore or f-droid install:
“Simple Contacts Pro” – to use instead of Google’s Contacts- it’s similar and allows you to import export your contact’s list to a file and save it/upload it to whereever you want.
“Simple Calendar” instead of Calendar – if, for some reason, your calendar does not work without google services. You also have, on f-droid “Etar – OpenSource Calendar” that’s also very good, with material design.
“Firefox” – to use instead of “Google chrome”- if you want an extra layer of privacy install this extras: “Ublock Origin”, “Privacy Badger” and “Decentral eyes”
Also search the web for Bromite Browser – it’s a fully open source “degoogled” Chrome for android
“NewPipe” – a Youtube video player/downloader (or create a link to Youtube’s webpage on your home screen, using Firefox/Bromite)
“Gmail”- create a link to gmail’s webpage on your home screen, using Firefox/Bromite. If you want to access gmail off line, install K-9 mail, from F-droid
“Maps”- install a free and preferebly off line gps map software- in Portugal we do have MeoDrive, that’s add supported, with unusntrosive adds

Some apps, like homebaking may not work without Google Services being active (to use them activate those services and then deactivate them again, after using your Bank)- ideally, do not use mobile devices to do your banking, use a secure computer.
Whatsapp, Messenger, Netflix, Spotify and Kindle still work ok, without google services (but I know Netflix complains about it). Although I use Messenger for video calls, I have not tested Facebook’s app- you should not use it anyway, if you are really into social networks, use a secure browser to access them- the Facebook app has access, that is sent to FB’s servers to too much information about you, even when you are not using that app.

If you disable Google Services, close contacts, Chrome, Maps, youtube and gmail, from your applications configuration menu, unless you want to bee bombarded by notifications to turn on Google Services.
I’ve not tested Games that require Google Play, because I don’t have any, but they should require Google services…

Add to the bottom of your main screen “Simple Contacts Pro” (instead of Contacts) and your selected browser instead of “Chrome”. If you want to have your opensource applications updated, install them from F-droid (search on-line on how to add Firefox’s/ Bromite’s, Newpipe’s repository to F-droid, and you’r set.

I recently made a list off free apps for android, but, here are some opensource/free (add supported) nice apps to use on your android device:
*OpenBoard- opensouce version of Google’s keyboard (get it on f-droid)
*Joplin- opensource note/todo (get it on f-droid)
*Xodo- PDF viewer/editor/creator (not open source, but free)
*AntenaPod (opensource podcasts manager) (get it on f-droid)
*FeedR (open source off-line news reader) (get it on f-droid)
*VLC media player (opensource multimedia player, works off-line or on-line) (get it on f-droid)
*Koreader (opensource, e-book/pdf/odt reader – not pretty, but effective- get it on f-droid)
*Collabora Office (android’s LibreOffice port- not opensource, does not seem to be open source- but very good to read office documents (including MS office) and do small editions to those dcouments – available in PLaystore or Collabora’s website directly
*Microsoft Lens- scan documents in pdf format- not open source, but can be used Off-line, without privacy problems)- available in Google PLaystore

Casual games for almost all tastes, for your commute, or WC time 🙂
*Patience Revisited (Klondike solitaire, etc)- available in Google PLaystore
*Domination (opensource version of Risk boardgame)
*Strategy (free version of Stratego boardgame)- available in Google PLaystore
*CrossWords (via F-droid)- opensource, multilingual version of Scrable boardgame)
*ChessFree (not open-source, but free Chess game, add supported- non intrusive adds, for 1 or 2 players, works off-line)- available in Google PLaystore
*Dalmax checkers(not open-source, but free Checkers game, add supported- non intrusive adds, for 1 or 2 players, works off-line)- available in Google PLaystore
*Puzzles (opensource puzzle games, via F-droid)- includes Sudoku (Solo), Minesweeper (Mines), Brigdes (Brigdes), Same Game (Same Game), Mastermind (Guess) and much more
*Mahjong Builder- it’a a Mahjong solitaire, opensource, via F-droid.
*Blockinger – very nice opensource Tetris clone, via F-droid.
*Freedoom – opensource Doom FPS android port (untested my be)

For using all other apps, activate google services and play store, check for updates, install whatever app you need and disable those services again… But think, before installing crap on your device- do you really need those apps installed? Are they good for you?

Enjoy, P.

• This topic was modified 2 years, 1 month ago by PPC.

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

I updated my installed instance of antiX 21 a2 yesterday. At the time the upgrade *appeared* to work fine, but upon booting it today it refused to enter graphical user mode, and messages indicated that several previously installed programs were failing (I *think* eulogind was of them), but I failed to capture the errors because I did not write them down by hand. Networking WAS still working so in theory the problems could have been manually fixed by reinstalling several packages.

I rebooted into my USB antiX 21 a2 image, which was STILL working. One thing I tried while I was in it was the package installer. A few of the Web browsers that were not working previously are now working, including Chromium, Google Chrome, and Firefox, plus Palemoon, so that is very good news.

I updated my USB image a couple of times and remastered it each time; that functionality seems to be working pretty well; I did not encounter any issues.

After rebooting my new remastered USB image I reinstalled antiX 21 a2 over the failed image and I am using it successfully with Firefox now, along with many other programs.

I’m sorry that I do not have better details to explain the problem I encountered; on the other hand, the improvements made over the past 2-3 days are significant and the Alpha images have made quite a bit of positive progress, which is evident in the new image that I am currently using. The image I have installed now (also updated on USB is working without any errors detected.

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Brian Masinick