[tde-users] Re: non-starting browsers - more info

On Friday 25 February 2022 12:21:48 Dr. Nikolaus Klepp wrote: Okay, so it appears that I don't necessarily have a problem connecting to various sites. Somehow or other, settings got changed in palemoon, and I don't have a clue why. Cookies were enabled, for example, though I didn't find any that had actually been stored, so it seems it was reset during reinstallation. (Mind you, I copied over all my folders from my old desktop, so that my user settings ought to have stayed the same.) Likewise, I was blocked from certain sites due to a palemoon extension, https enforcer; which I had already installed and enabled before, but now unaccountably my settings were changed to block all http connections. I don't generally allow them, but there are certain pages that still only have http, for example: http://www.bluesbeforesunrise.org/ -- which was a real crisis for a few hours, as I listen to this show religiously. Anyway, so getting blocked from various sites seems to be a non-issue, and only distracts from the main problem, which is why only a couple browsers will start up. And they are two rather non-mainstream browsers. I can live for a while without these other browsers, but eventually I will need to check my bank account, or buy something online, and will need vivaldi. And some of my research, due to my unwholesome interest in history and such, is only ever conducted with an ultra-secure browser like icecat over Tor. The thing is, I've been using this laptop since about the first week or so of December, and within the first day or two I had it running pretty well. If anything, I've gradually got rid of any problems, and it seemed like I was almost *there* (wherever that is), where I could just do what I do and stop thinking about the machine itself all the time. Now all of a sudden this issue, with almost none of my usual browsers able to start up at all: it's blind-sided me, and I don't even know where to look for the cause. I'm considering uncommenting those lines and trying non-free and contrib in my sources, just to see if it has any effect. But that sounds crazy, since I have an internet connection, can download stuff, can send and receive emails, and at least two of my browsers do actually work, sort of. Unless there is any good reason to suppose otherwise, I will assume that there is a common cause for these things (non-starting browsers), and that the exceptions to the rule (those browsers that do start up, namely palemoon and links2) must have something in common, besides being rather non-mainstream, that sets them apart. Bill Bill