Anno domini 2020 Sun, 16 Aug 15:54:59 +0100 Janek Stolarek scripsit:

...

is there some reason to use Wayland?

I was curious whether it would hel with problems I am experiencing with Firefox. Long story short, I either have horrible screen tearing in FF (during scorlling, but more annoying also when playing videos) or I have to restart FF every time I suspend my computer [1]. The latter is not an option for me, so I'm going with the former. I heard that Wayland solves the tearing problem and wanted to give it a try but of course if I run into a dozen of other bugs then this defeats the purpose.

May I ask why you use suspend?

Nik

Janek

[1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1536396

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Janek Stolarek wrote:

I was curious whether it would hel with problems I am experiencing with Firefox. Long story short, I either have horrible screen tearing in FF (during scorlling, but more annoying also when playing videos) or I have to restart FF every time I suspend my computer [1]. The latter is not an option for me, so I'm going with the former. I heard that Wayland solves the tearing problem and wanted to give it a try but of course if I run into a dozen of other bugs then this defeats the purpose.

So what I understand is:

When you turn on the computer firefox works well, then you suspend and when you return from suspend firefox has the above mentioned symptoms. Is this correct?

It could help if you would describe your configuration (hardware: board video card). I remember you mentioned somewhere else HDMI.

Another question: Do you know what is the difference between X11 and Wayland?

regards

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Janek Stolarek wrote:

...

When you turn on the computer firefox works well, then you suspend and when you return from suspend firefox has the above mentioned symptoms. Is this correct?

Yes. The exact details are inthe bug report I linked earlier so I won't repeat them here.

...

It could help if you would describe your configuration (hardware: board video card). I remember you mentioned somewhere else HDMI.

I've experienced this on several different machines and what they all have in common are nvidia's proprietary drivers. These are known to do a poor job with resuming from suspend. I just tested how Chromium video playback behaves after waking from suspend and it has a similar problem. The difference is that with Chromium only rendering of the page is broken and refreshing it fixes the problem. With Firefox the whole browser window disappears and there's no way to restore it.

So what does it have to do with Trinity? You mean if Trinity was on Wayland you wouldn't experience this? Can you try a desktop on Wayland and see if it has the issue?

...

Another question: Do you know what is the difference between X11 and Wayland?

My layman's understanding is that Wayland replaces X11 but it's not a drop-in replacement and requires that a window manager implements support for it. And I understand XWayland acts as a X11 compatibility layer on top of Wayland. That's basically my whole knowledge of Wayland.

Yes, it was discussed once on the devs list AFAIR, but I do not know that someone tried Trinity with it.

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Anno domini 2020 Mon, 17 Aug 14:37:23 +0100 Janek Stolarek scripsit:

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So what does it have to do with Trinity? You mean if Trinity was on Wayland you wouldn't experience this?

If Firefox was on Wayland then - according to what many people say on the internet - I wouldn't have tearing problems. (Recall that I can work around the suspend issue by disabling hardware rendering in Firefox, but that causes tearing.) This assumes that it is possible to render TDE using XWayland and have FF connect to Wayland directly, but I don't know whether that's possible.

If you have an inter graphic card, you might want to try this:

#/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf Section "Device" Identifier "Intel Graphics" Driver "intel" Option "TearFree" "true" EndSection

Nik

...

Can you try a desktop on Wayland and see if it has the issue?

Technically I can but I don't think I want to. I'd have to install Gnome 3 with all its dependencies and then have lots of leftover configuration garbage.

But I think I'll just give up on the idea. It looks like a quite lot of effort and it probably makes more sense to complain to nvidia about the broken drivers rather than look for a workaround.

Janek

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On Mon, 17 Aug 2020 15:10:42 +0100 Janek Stolarek jwstolarek@gmail.com wrote:

...

If you have an inter graphic card, you might want to try this:

As stated, I only have nvidia cards on all my machines.

It seems like a rather extreme solution, but have you tried switching from the proprietary driver to nouveau? Or do you have one of the cards that has performance problems under nouveau?

(Personally, I just use the proprietary driver and ignore tearing when it occurs, but I'm much less sensitive to it than most people.)

E. Liddell

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Janek Stolarek wrote:

To me using nouveau defeats the purpose of having nvidia card.

So what purpose has the nvidia card - especially under Linux and TDE? I have seen no advantage of this - only troubles.

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We've used several NVidia cards over the years - mostly in Thinkpad laptops. I wish they the drivers were FLOSS but we've never had a problem with them.

I have to second in on this. Over the past fifteen years I've only been using nVidia cards. I learned my lesson after I bought an ATI Radeon and ended up selling it soon afterwards because the Linux drivers just weren't working (*). Until now I had a total of six different nVidia cards: three mobile ones in laptops and three in desktop PCs. With nVidia's proprietary drivers these cards Just Work under Linux and deliver high performance comparable with Windows. The amount of problems these drivers cause is really minimal compared to other system components like sound or WiFi, at least from my experience.

(*) AMD suposedly cares now for Linux more than ATI did back in the days and it releases open source drivers. A friend of mine got a Navi 5700 soon after it was released. He spent first weeks not being able to use the card at all since there were no drivers. After a while AMD delivered kernel and Mesa updates that allowed booting into the desktop but still no way to take advantage of card's full performance. In the end my friend ended up selling the card after several months.

Janek

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I guess time change, and of course your mileage may vary... I got bored with having to recompile nVidia proprietary drivers from a command line because they got screwed by some kernel update.

Times do change, indeed. On Debian (and I would expect other popular distributions as well?) nvidia drivers are being provided in the repository and recompiled on every update of the drivers or the Linux kernel. You can even automate module signing for the purposes of Secure Boot. So there's no longer a need to do anything manually.

Janek

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Anno domini 2020 Tue, 18 Aug 09:08:03 +0100 Janek Stolarek scripsit:

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So what purpose has the nvidia card - especially under Linux and TDE?

High gaming performance.

X-Plane 11 ?

...

I have seen no advantage of this - only troubles.

You can say exactly the same about GPUs of other manufacturers - Internet forums are filed with problems AMD and Intel cards are causing under Linux.

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what games can one play, that would require intensive 3d rendering?

I am sure that if you are really interested in the answer - and somehow I doubt you are - you can easily find it yourself.

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Anno domini 07:18:37 Tue, 18 Aug 2020 -0600 (MDT) Marvin Jones via trinity-users scripsit:

Please take this harangue to private email.

Why? For oldtimers it's interesting to see why people need GPUs with more rendering power than the server in the basement. For me it would be X-Plane, but X-Plane 9 was the last one with Mars and that still runs on my T61.

Nik

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On Tue August 18 2020 05:59:30 deloptes wrote:

Does gaming work in Linux - what games can one play, that would require intensive 3d rendering?

In addition to FLOSS games and commercial games with Linux ports, ProtonDB reports 11,384 Windows games work on Linux with Steam's Proton compatibility layer - a souped up version of Wine.

I enjoy strategy and management more than shooting so a typical 3D rendering game for me would be Transport Tycoon 2.

One of my favorite games is Factorio. Yes it's 2D but it makes heavy use of modern graphics cards to combine and scale the tiles at high speed.

--Mike

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So what purpose has the nvidia card - especially under Linux and TDE?

Also hardware support for video encoding, though that's not my (primary) use case and I haven't tested it yet.

Janek

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Huh? how the fuck do you manage to get tearing with nvidia proprietary drivers? Nvidia drivers is the thing that lets you have tear free desktop on X without using compositor....

Apparrently, Firefox devs are very capable. (In case that wasn't clear from previous emails, I only have tearing problems in FF). Tearing has been a long-standing and recurring problem for many Firefox users.

Janek

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And it only happens with hardware acceleration enabled in FF?

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1536396#c4

Janek

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Now I got confused. Once you say only FF and once you say Chromium also has the problem

Only FF has tearing problem. Both FF and Chromium have the problem of window areas disappearing when the applications are rendered on the GPU. With Chromium this isn't fatal and can be recovered from by reloading the webpage. FF needs to be restarted.

And all of this happens "after suspend". I wonder what has TDE to do with all of this at all.

Did anyone claimed that TDE is somehow involved in this? I certainly didn't.

So let me explain a bit. You insist using NVidea card with proprietary driver and complain on the TDE user list that it has some kind of issue. I just don't understand why you are doing all of this.

You are accusing me of things I didn't do and I don't like that. I wrote to the list asking about TDE running under Wayland and that was it. This is the ONLY information I ever asked for. Read my emails again and you will see that you started to question my motives and I only provided additional information to satisfy your curiosity. So, to be perfectly clear, I don't expect:

* help with nvidia drivers * advice which GPU to use * advice which web browser to use * suggestions for different workflows

I found out it is better to use Intel (the embedded card) as it has good to perfect support not only from Linux but also from Intel.

Good for you.

I don't know if it helps. And anyway I have a feeling that the answer to your original question is NO and it seems no one tried it.

This is exactly what I originally asked about and was interested in. Thank you.

Janek

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On Sunday 16 August 2020 09:54:59 am Janek Stolarek wrote:

...

is there some reason to use Wayland?

I was curious whether it would hel with problems I am experiencing with Firefox. Long story short, I either have horrible screen tearing in FF (during scorlling, but more annoying also when playing videos) or I have to restart FF every time I suspend my computer [1]. The latter is not an option for me, so I'm going with the former. I heard that Wayland solves the tearing problem and wanted to give it a try but of course if I run into a dozen of other bugs then this defeats the purpose.

Janek

[1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1536396

Hi Janek,

Not sure this will help, but somewhat seems related?

https://forum.mxlinux.org/viewtopic.php?f=104&t=59942

There are several other posts in the MX forums somewhat related to suspend and screen issues as well. Their forum search isn't the best, but it's easy enough to use Google with the site:example.com modifier.

Best, Michael

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On Wednesday 19 August 2020 11:10:06 Janek Stolarek wrote:

...

Not sure this will help, but somewhat seems related?

No, that seems quite different. You sure you posted a correct link?

But anyway, I decided to abandon the Wayland idea. I did to things instead. Firstly, I posted a bug report to nVidia forums [1]. This seems to have gone unnoticed, but someone has posted a similar bug report for the latest line of drivers [2] (450.xx - I'm on 440.xx since 450 is not yet in backports) and it looks like nVidia is actually working on this. There is hope. Secondly, I made a decision to abandon Firefox and give Vivalid a try. Firefox has been going in a wrong direction for me for the past couple of years (essentially removing configuration options and adding features that are major annoyance and enabled by default) and the bugs that I mentioned earlier were the final nail to a coffin. After the first few days of using Vivaldi I am very happy with it. No more tearing problems like in Firefox and no more problems with suspending to RAM. Most importantly, customizability of Vivaldi is just stellar. Performance could be better but I guess you can't have everything. If I don't run into any critical bugs it looks like I'll be staying with this browser.

Janek

[1] https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/t/bug-rendering-broken-after-waking-fro m-suspend/147206 [2] https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/t/resuming-from-suspend-issue-driver-45 0-57-fedora-32-modesetting-enabled-gtx-750-ti/146265

I did try Vivaldi, and it has some good things about it; however, it is not exactly free/libre, GNU/Linux, Richard-Stallman-approved.

For what it's worth, I found Vivaldi-Snapshot to work better for me. But I only use if for a few specific tasks, when I do not browse over a proxy, etc. Even so, Vivaldi makes connections to gezillions of different IP addresses. (I might have a screenshot hidden away somewhere.) Since it is for something I must do over a direct connection anyway, I will assume that Vivaldi is no worse than other browsers for protecting my data, and I only use if for a few tasks, or a couple sites, a few times in a month.

Otherwise, have you considered other Mozilla-based browsers, such as Icecat, which can be "hacked" (in the good sense of the term) and reconfigured in all sorts of interesting ways that other browsers cannot. There is also PaleMoon, as well as a few others, and most of these preserve some of the old Mozilla features that we have missed.

I am sure you have your own reasons for choice of browser, so I will refrain from rants against proprietary or "non-free" software.

Bill

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On Wednesday 19 August 2020 14:12:39 Janek Stolarek wrote:

...

I did try Vivaldi, and it has some good things about it; however, it is not exactly free/libre, GNU/Linux, Richard-Stallman-approved.

Indeed. The team claims that although the code is not on a Free license (aside from Chromium modifications, which are BSD license), but it is openly available for inspection:

https://vivaldi.com/source/

...

Vivaldi makes connections to gezillions of different IP addresses.

I would be guessing it queries external sites for data needed to provide functionality like ad blocking (it needs to regularly update the ad filters), etc. Firefox seems no better here, I think.

No, certain browsers typically make lots of connections like this: Chromium, for example, but Vivaldi is worse. In a nutshell, it usually comes down to the degree to which they are proprietary versus free/libre. (I am not saying that this is the actual "cause"; it is probably just a coincidence that keeps happening, again and again and again.)

Mozilla-type browsers do not display such behavior; although, I ought to qualify my statement, this is *after* I have modified it quite a bit, making dozens of changes in about:config and elsewhere.

...

Otherwise, have you considered other Mozilla-based browsers, such as Icecat

I haven't heard about Icecat. I will take a look.

...

There is also PaleMoon, as well as a few others, and most of these preserve some of the old Mozilla features that we have missed.

I do have Palemoon, which I primarily use when I need to download huge files. Palemoon has the Flashgot plugin, which intergates with Trinity's KGet allowing to easily redirect links to TDE's download manager. It's a pity that when Firefox moved to Quantum it left behind so many good extensions that have not been replaced until now and most likely will never be replaced.

...

I am sure you have your own reasons for choice of browser, so I will refrain from rants against proprietary or "non-free" software.

I do prefer my software open source and only go for closed source when there's really a significant difference in software quality.

Janek

I keep repeating, I am not really an evangelist for GNU/Linux; I am only interested in what works. If "non-free" software just worked (and did not leave obvious traces of how it is actually working against its users), then I would probably still be running Windoze or the rotten Apple.

Again, it is probably just a coincidence that I prefer free/libre and GNU/Linux, because coincidentally it just works.

Bill

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Anno domini 2020 Thu, 20 Aug 20:30:58 +0100 Janek Stolarek scripsit:

...

No, certain browsers typically make lots of connections like this: Chromium, for example, but Vivaldi is worse.

Yes, but the key question is *why* are they makling these connections. If they are sending your private data somewhere that of course is be bad. But if they are fetching data actually used to improve privacy? Modern pbrowser provide tracking protection, dangerous site protection, ad blocking - they need to get the data required to get this right from somewhere. So, to me the fact that a browser is making connections to various web servers doesn't really tell me anything about its security or privacy practices.

I did try out Icecat. This one is truly for the masochists. If I want a browser where nothing works because of privacy concerns I go with Tor. It was however interesting to try out something new, if only for 10 minutes.

I use Tor on a daily base. Looks like you visit interesting places on the net, if it does not work - Government sites for example. From my point of view any connection a program makes to any "service" that I did not ask for is not accceptable, what "good" intentions ever. E.g. "Bad site protection" in firefox gives your browsing hotory to a private company - that's not fair exchange for a mediocre blacklist.

Nik

Janek

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Anno domini 2020 Thu, 20 Aug 21:07:01 +0100 Janek Stolarek scripsit:

...

Looks like you visit interesting places on the net

YouTube. By default works neither in Tor nor in Icecat.

Janek

youtube works with tor browser bundle :) ... but if your IP is correct you are in UK, so you could run into your goverment censorship with tor.

Nik

Anno domini 2020 Thu, 20 Aug 14:20:14 -0700 William Morder via trinity-users scripsit:

On Thursday 20 August 2020 13:14:31 Nikolaus Klepp wrote:

...

Anno domini 2020 Thu, 20 Aug 21:07:01 +0100

Janek Stolarek scripsit:

...

...

Looks like you visit interesting places on the net

YouTube. By default works neither in Tor nor in Icecat.

Janek

youtube works with tor browser bundle :) ... but if your IP is correct you are in UK, so you could run into your goverment censorship with tor.

Nik

YouTube is getting harder to access, but I never watch online, anyway. There is this little item called youtube-dl, which allows me to download their videos, so that I can watch at my leisure, without viewing their ads, or waiting for buffers, and I can watch it as many times as I want. Also, if you know what you are doing, there is no problem with running "torify youtube-dl" when trying to grab a video. And geographical restrictions also vanish (with a little work).

LOL ... that nice tool is the reason for konqueror popping up to blame me "your free disk space is under 5% ...". The ads I never see, my first line of defense is uBlock Origin + uMatrix. Have you ever gotten the age restricion removed?

If other people trust unknown entities somewhere "out there" having access to my browsing history, or whatever else of my data they get in their clutches, then they must be better adapted to this digital age than I.

I may eventually return to a totally pre-computer life. There are still some places in the world without all this time-wasting crap, where people read actual books made of paper, or play music with actual instruments made of wood.

:)

Bill

Bill

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On Thursday 20 August 2020 12:56:08 Dr. Nikolaus Klepp wrote:

Anno domini 2020 Thu, 20 Aug 20:30:58 +0100

Janek Stolarek scripsit:

...

...

No, certain browsers typically make lots of connections like this: Chromium, for example, but Vivaldi is worse.

Yes, but the key question is *why* are they makling these connections. If they are sending your private data somewhere that of course is be bad. But if they are fetching data actually used to improve privacy? Modern pbrowser provide tracking protection, dangerous site protection, ad blocking - they need to get the data required to get this right from somewhere. So, to me the fact that a browser is making connections to various web servers doesn't really tell me anything about its security or privacy practices.

I did try out Icecat. This one is truly for the masochists. If I want a browser where nothing works because of privacy concerns I go with Tor. It was however interesting to try out something new, if only for 10 minutes.

I use Tor on a daily base. Looks like you visit interesting places on the net, if it does not work - Government sites for example. From my point of view any connection a program makes to any "service" that I did not ask for is not accceptable, what "good" intentions ever. E.g. "Bad site protection" in firefox gives your browsing hotory to a private company - that's not fair exchange for a mediocre blacklist.

Nik

Right on, Nik.

Bill

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Now why, I ask, should Google get something via wget from my machine when Vivaldi starts up?

What happens if you got Vivalid Settings -> Privacy and disable using of Google's DNS and privacy protection services? (I totally realize the irony of this - Google offering privacy protection against 3rd parties. Duh.)

but my point is, I CAN MAKE IT DO WHAT I WANT -- and nothing else.

Yes, that's ultimately what matters. And I do respect your choice of browser. I also tend to be cautious when it comes to many aspects of modern technology (e.g. don't use a smartphone due to privacy concerns).

Also, thank you for reminding me about youtube-dl. I've used it once or twice but then completely forgot about it. I do wonder though - how do you know what to download without visiting YT?

Janek

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On Thursday 20 August 2020 15:19:41 Janek Stolarek wrote:

...

Now why, I ask, should Google get something via wget from my machine when Vivaldi starts up?

What happens if you got Vivalid Settings -> Privacy and disable using of Google's DNS and privacy protection services? (I totally realize the irony of this - Google offering privacy protection against 3rd parties. Duh.)

Janek

Okay, sorry for the delay. It took me a while to get round to your question, but as I said it is that time of the month. I need to pay bills, and do business-type stuff online, and Vivaldi-snapshot at present is useful for those tasks.

I already had Google privacy protection turned off, pretty much Google everything turned off, except for Google DNS, so I don't know if there is much difference.

What *did* happen, however, was really annoying.

When I upgraded Vivaldi-Snapshot to the most recent build, I suddenly lost all my settings: started getting cookies I didn't want, V would remember my browsing history, even reset my home page, totally undid my preferences.

Then I tried to remember how I had it, and restored my settings. I'm pretty sure that this happened once before, too. I was still getting used to Vivaldi, maybe 6 months or a year ago, so my memory of the details is fuzzy, but I seem to recall my settings were wiped after an upgrade.

Vivaldi is definitely better than Chromium. While doing a little online research (shopping for hardware), Chromium made my system come almost to a complete halt, and I would sit there for five or ten minutes just waiting to scroll up or down a few lines.

Vivaldi doesn't give me any of those problems, but still needs work, I would say. Or maybe I need to explore it further; but thus far I have not unlocked its mysteries. It would be nice to look inside, like I can do with Mozilla-type browsers, and Vivaldi should have about:config.

Among other browsers out there, IMHO worth checking out: Midori, Qupzilla, and Seamonkey. There is supposed to be a Chromium-ungoogled, too, something like that, available in repositories: Chromium with everything Google removed. I just heard about it a few days ago.

Bill

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On Tuesday 25 August 2020 03:18:23 Janek Stolarek wrote:

...

When I upgraded Vivaldi-Snapshot to the most recent build, I suddenly lost all my settings: started getting cookies I didn't want, V would remember my browsing history, even reset my home page, totally undid my preferences.

Vivaldi creates a separate set of setting for its development build, just the same way Firefox creates spearate profiles for Nightly or ESR builds. Check out ~/.config/vivaldi and ~/.config/vivaldi-snapshot

...

my settings were wiped after an upgrade.

In the past custom CSS and JS were being wiped out during upgrades. Now Vivaldi has improved and only custom JS can get wiped out - it definitely gets disabled, but with a bit of luck the custom.js file might still be in place after an upgrade.

...

Vivaldi should have about:config.

+1 on that. Conversely, Firefox should have interface inspector to ease customization of user interface.

...

Among other browsers out there, IMHO worth checking out: Midori, Qupzilla, and Seamonkey. There is supposed to be a Chromium-ungoogled, too, something like that, available in repositories: Chromium with everything Google removed. I just heard about it a few days ago.

Chromium is Chrome with everything Google removed. Or so the internet claims, because I haven't inspected the source code myself.

Janek

I just happened to run into it again: https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium

Here is where I heard about it: https://degoogle.jmoore.dev/ Other good stuff on this page.

Bill

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On Tue, 25 Aug 2020 10:45:16 -0500 Michael mb_trinity_desktop@inet-design.com wrote:

Somewhere I ran across a fork of FF55(ish, before FF went to the ‘dark side’), sadly I didn’t bookmark it, wish I had, I’d test that one out too.

Don't know if it's the specific one you saw, but you might want to try Waterfox ( https://www.waterfox.net/ ) if you haven't already. (I'm comfortably settled with Pale Moon, but video is not a significant component of my browsing activity.)

E. Liddell

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On Tue, 25 Aug 2020 13:10:36 -0500 Michael mb_trinity_desktop@inet-design.com wrote:

On Tuesday 25 August 2020 12:24:25 pm E. Liddell wrote:

...

Don't know if it's the specific one you saw, but you might want to try Waterfox ( https://www.waterfox.net/ ) if you haven't already. (I'm comfortably settled with Pale Moon, but video is not a significant component of my browsing activity.)

Thanks E!,

Waterfox’s about page says nothing about this, and it’s just a random reddit post, so I don’t know if this is true or not:

https://www.reddit.com/r/waterfox/comments/ifrrrt/wf_freezes_when_accessing_... popsathome, 4 hours ago

“You're not the only one. Something strange going with Waterfox since it was bought out by an advertising company.”

Otherwise it does sound good, the whole no telemetry bit.

A company called System1 appears to have bought them out late last year (I wasn't aware of it, but I'm not actively using the browser). Since the browser is MPL-licensed and the source is in plain sight on Github ( https://github.com/MrAlex94/Waterfox ), I wouldn't worry too much.

E. Liddell

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On Tuesday 25 August 2020 08:45:16 Michael wrote:

On Tuesday 25 August 2020 08:48:24 am William Morder via trinity-users

wrote:

...

On Tuesday 25 August 2020 03:18:23 Janek Stolarek wrote:

...

Chromium is Chrome with everything Google removed. Or so the internet claims, because I haven't inspected the source code myself.

Janek

I just happened to run into it again: https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium

Here is where I heard about it: https://degoogle.jmoore.dev/ Other good stuff on this page.

I'm dumping FF (and won’t use Chrome or Opera). Oddly, for most general browsing, I’m using the Tor Browser Bundle*. Not for banking or other login stuff. I’ve also been exploring Vivaldi and Pale Moon (one of the MX dev’s packages it, otherwise I’d have never heard of it). While this is in no way authoritative:

Vivaldi seems to leave too many ads displayed. Pale Moon has some minor issues with playing videos slow.

Somewhere I ran across a fork of FF55(ish, before FF went to the ‘dark side’), sadly I didn’t bookmark it, wish I had, I’d test that one out too.

I think I’d like about a dozen browsers, each used for a specific set of activities:

Browser A: Banking Browser B: WHM/cPanel Browser C: Amazon Browser D: Hosting companies Browser E: ... Browser F: FB Browser G: ...

At least in theory it’d make it hard to cross track activities...

Best, Michael

Just saw your list: This is exactly what I do, and why I keep collecting browsers. They are all just a little different, and with luck you find one that suits your needs for a given task, for just one site. There are a couple of browsers that I use for just one site, which seems silly to say it, but definitely works better in practice.

Bill

• Granted you have to write a wrapper script and restart everyday to stop

even the TBB wanting to track you through the ‘persistent gateway’ they try to enforce. If anyone wants a copy, send a PM.

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On Wednesday 19 August 2020 04:40:55 pm William Morder via trinity-users wrote:

You might consider creating a custom hosts file. Somewhere I believe I have a URL where you can download a file of hosts to block, but I have added to this on my own. I would be glad to share my hosts file, but it is big; not just big, but abnormally big, currently 16 mb.

Please :)

I'm pretty tired of 'fixing' ad-block lists everytime they get paid to whitelist [bad-stuff]. You could use:

https://anonfiles.com/

Or any of the file upload platforms. It would make us happy :0

Thanks, Michael

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On Wednesday 19 August 2020 15:29:49 Michael wrote:

On Wednesday 19 August 2020 04:40:55 pm William Morder via trinity-users

wrote:

...

You might consider creating a custom hosts file. Somewhere I believe I have a URL where you can download a file of hosts to block, but I have added to this on my own. I would be glad to share my hosts file, but it is big; not just big, but abnormally big, currently 16 mb.

Please :)

I'm pretty tired of 'fixing' ad-block lists everytime they get paid to whitelist [bad-stuff]. You could use:

https://anonfiles.com/

Or any of the file upload platforms. It would make us happy :0

Thanks, Michael

Okay, so I did a little quick editing. It might still be kinda messy, but feel free to edit yourself however you like.

https://anonfiles.com/N2taZeNeoa/hosts-pornstar-BIG-20200819 https://cdn-33.anonfiles.com/N2taZeNeoa/28886b49-1597884364/hosts-pornstar-B...

I might upload this in some other places, such as the Internet Archive, in order to keep it alive "out there"; when I change anything in the list, I will change the date and/or name.

Note that I have duplicated the list after 127.0.0.1 and 0.0.0.0; somewhere I read that the second is sometimes preferable for blocking hosts, so I have used both. It doesn't seem to affect my system in any negative way.

If there are dire security concerns over how I have done this, please inform us. Otherwise, I only added to the list as I found it on github; then I added my quickie how2 instructions. I added the moniker F.N. Eedjit for reference, so that others can follow the chain of how the list was built up.

Again, most of us who are reading this mailing list *probably* don't need these explicit instructions, and especially not all 5 steps. It didn't occur to me that doing this was complicated until I undertook to make it simple and easy-to-follow for n00bs who would try it. Hence all the steps.

Bill

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On Sunday 30 August 2020 17:35:52 Michael wrote:

On Wednesday 19 August 2020 07:53:43 pm William Morder via trinity-users

...

On Wednesday 19 August 2020 15:29:49 Michael wrote:

...

On Wednesday 19 August 2020 04:40:55 pm William Morder via trinity-users

...

You might consider creating a custom hosts file. Somewhere I believe I have a URL where you can download a file of hosts to block, but I have added to this on my own. I would be glad to share my hosts file, but it is big; not just big, but abnormally big, currently 16 mb.

Okay, so I did a little quick editing. It might still be kinda messy, but feel free to edit yourself however you like.

Thanks Bill,

...

Note that I have duplicated the list after 127.0.0.1 and 0.0.0.0; somewhere I read that the second is sometimes preferable for blocking hosts, so I have used both. It doesn't seem to affect my system in any negative way.

AFAIKT 0.0.0.0 seems prefered. It's also what both StevenBlack and Peter Lowe use, so I'd bet it's right.

...

If there are dire security concerns over how I have done this, please inform us. Otherwise, I only added to the list as I found it on github; then I added my quickie how2 instructions. I added the moniker F.N. Eedjit for reference, so that others can follow the chain of how the list was built up.

I don't think there are any security concerns, but I wasn't able to follow what was something you added or was from a block list itself.

Okay, the hosts after 127.0.0.1 and 0.0.0.0 are (or ought to be) identical; I just looked at it, and they don't seem to match, although I thought that I had done it already.

So far as "what has been added" by the present author, well, good luck there. I mostly recognize where my hand has touched, but others may not spot the tell. Mostly you can identify mine by how messy the entries are, especially because they tend to repeat elements in the address, e.g.:

0.0.0.0 fao.org 0.0.0.0 *.fao.org* 0.0.0.0 coml.org 0.0.0.0 *.coml.org* 0.0.0.0 nco-assets.s3.amazonaws.com 0.0.0.0 maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com 0.0.0.0 *maxcdn* 0.0.0.0 *bootstrapcdn* (etc. ... trying to block unwanted elements on annoying pages).

Also, those sections that have headers (e.g., # [hosted on cloudfront]) were the work of somebody else. I have added from here and there, and also add to my hosts file while I am online, and happen to notice some strange activity on my firewall, or start having connection issues.

By the way, I use kedit-trinity to load my hosts file at startup. That way, it is always available, and I can edit or add on the fly. (This is my master copy, of course.) Then I use cp to overwrite the hosts file on my system, and update by running "sudo /etc/init.d/nscd restart". However, I will start using medit or some other text editor, as kedit doesn't like to hand such big files.

I do (did) the same with my firestarter rules and sources.list, too, by the way, updating on the fly, then overwriting. Kedit is useful for this, because it will load specific files at startup; I've tried other text editors, but leafpad, for instance, only loads a blank document. Other text editors that serve

I wrote the attached to automate it a bit, downloading StevenBlack's list weekly and merging that into a 'user' created list, then copying it to /etc/hosts.

The script will help us all, I think.

It's chopped up a bit from pulling out my normal includes and commented out user testing, so eyeball it before using it.

Also as far as I could research, there are no services that need to be reloaded/restarted after editing the hosts file. (Which I found odd, but 'eh...)

Best, Michael

I don't claim to "know" anything at all, especially about computers. I try to learn from others who do know. And -- according to "them" -- after overwriting your hosts file, you need to run "sudo /etc/init.d/nscd restart"; which does sort of make sense.

The only thing I know, is that I know nothing; but then, there are some people who don't even know that much.

Bill

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On Monday 31 August 2020 00:11:31 Stefan Krusche wrote:

Am Montag 31 August 2020 schrieb William Morder via trinity-users:

...

Okay, the hosts after 127.0.0.1 and 0.0.0.0 are (or ought to be) identical; I just looked at it, and they don't seem to match, although I thought that I had done it already.

In /etc/hosts IP adresses are assigned to domain names. The difference is if a domain name is being assigned 0.0.0.0 the request will be send to digital nirvana. If it is assigned 127.0.0.1 it will be served by localhost, if you have a web server running so you can see there has been something blocked/deviated. IIUC.

If you don't have a web server running to respond to these it doesn't make sense to use 127.0.0.1 in /etc/hosts to block domains because the system first tries to serve these requests before ending with an error… well, I don't know the exact mechanism, but you can save these computing cycles by using only 0.0.0.0 in /etc/hosts. Again, IIUC.

...

So far as "what has been added" by the present author, well, good luck there. I mostly recognize where my hand has touched, but others may not spot the tell. Mostly you can identify mine by how messy the entries are, especially because they tend to repeat elements in the address, e.g.:

0.0.0.0 fao.org 0.0.0.0 *.fao.org* 0.0.0.0 coml.org 0.0.0.0 *.coml.org* 0.0.0.0 nco-assets.s3.amazonaws.com 0.0.0.0 maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com 0.0.0.0 *maxcdn* 0.0.0.0 *bootstrapcdn* (etc. ... trying to block unwanted elements on annoying pages).

I don't think you can use wildcards in /etc/hosts. That's why hosts-based blocklists are usually very, very big. See man hosts:

DESCRIPTION This manual page describes the format of the /etc/hosts file. This file is a simple text file that associates IP addresses with hostnames, one line per IP address. For each host a single line should be present with the following information:

    IP_address canonical_hostname [aliases...]

Fields of the entry are separated by any number of blanks and/or tab characters. Text from a "#" character until the end of the line is a comment, and is ignored. Host names may contain only alphanumeric characters, minus signs ("-"), and periods ("."). They must begin with an alphabetic character and end with an alphanumeric character. Optional aliases provide for name changes, alternate spellings, shorter hostnames, or generic hostnames (for example, localhost).

HTH

Kind regards, Stefan

Everybody is welcome to add to the list or modify or correct (although it would be nice if we all share common resources among ourselves). I don't claim that I know what I am doing here, or that I know why it works, although you explain more clearly what I have heard or read elsewhere.

I do know that I see a big difference between using a customized hosts file instead of (only) depending on ad-blockers. As soon as I overwrite the hosts file with my list, I find that my system is more stable. It's not only the ads that get blocked, it seems, but also other unwanted connections.

Bill

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Anno domini 2020 Mon, 31 Aug 09:33:33 +0200 Stefan Krusche scripsit:

Hi Bill,

Am Montag 31 August 2020 schrieb William Morder via trinity-users:

...

I do know that I see a big difference between using a customized hosts file instead of (only) depending on ad-blockers. As soon as I overwrite the hosts file with my list, I find that my system is more stable. It's not only the ads that get blocked, it seems, but also other unwanted connections.

Sure, that's what I want as well :-) I'm using a huge /etc/hosts as well, but only with 0.0.0.0 so all requests from unwanted domains get send to nowhere without my system (localhost) trying to serve them before.

The purpose of using 127.0.0.1 in /etc/hosts, AIUI, is to make the web server on localhost show some substitute page/image/whatever to indicate something has been blocked. If you don't have a web server running on localhost and configured to serve such requests it doesn't make sense to put 127.0.0.1 in /etc/hosts to my understanding.

HTH

Kind regards, Stefan

I had a blacklist in /etc/hists some time ago, too - autogerated, always fresh from the net. One could argue if that was a good ide. Anyways this is the sniplet from rc.local:

# HOSTS-Datei mit Adblocker :-) ( sleep 5m cat > /etc/hosts << XXX # insert your hostname here 127.0.0.1 localhost t61

# The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts ::1 localhost ip6-localhost ip6-loopback ff02::1 ip6-allnodes ff02::2 ip6-allrouters XXX

wget http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.txt -O - 2>/dev/null | grep ^0.0.0.0 >> /etc/hosts ) &

But some time ago my old firewall died. I replaced it with a RPi1+OpenWRT. There's a package for openwrt that does basicly the same thing (as does pihole - which I was inclied to use earlier ut turned out to be mostly marketing blablabla). I cannot say if these DNS based nirvanas are any good. But together with uMatrix and uBlockOrigin it does a decent good job.

Nik

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On Monday 31 August 2020 07:22:53 Michael wrote:

{snip a bunch!}

Summary version! We keep saying the same thing and re-asking the same questions. Boiling everyone’s [correct AFAIK] statements into a whole. {Hopefully I didn’t miss anything!}

Brevity is the soul of something or other. Or so I've heard. Personally, I believe we ought to give verbosity and prolixity a try, just to see how it works out.

...

0.0.0.0 vs. 127.0.0.1

It doesn’t matter, both get served locally. [Paste both into a web browser :) ]

AFAICT this is the convention now:

• Use 0.0.0.0 to block.
• Use 127.0.0.1 to connect to your local web server, proxy, or other local

port.

Why the historic use of 127.0.0.1 to block?

I don’t know, and do not take this as truth… It’s possible 0. didn’t exist original and was added after 20??. Based on memory 127. was the only number I ever saw in hosts files pre 2000-2005? (I ran the Linux Router Project (LRP, the precursor to LEAF) through most of the 90s and early 00s.)

...

the two variants used in tandem -- for example, you mentioned "if you have a web server"? Maybe, then, it would be useful to create a home version and a web server version.

No.

Pretty much both sets of entries would be needed at the same time. They aren’t going to overlap.

Errata: Okay, in some bizarre circumstance where you want (hard to figure out a need) the same exact address to be blocked in one instance and served locally in another, then yeah, you’d need to list ‘swap.’

...

I believe Michael mentioned some kind of script?

this is the sniplet from rc.local:

# HOSTS-Datei mit Adblocker :-) ( sleep 5m cat > /etc/hosts << XXX # insert your hostname here 127.0.0.1 localhost t61

# The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts

::1 localhost ip6-localhost ip6-loopback

ff02::1 ip6-allnodes ff02::2 ip6-allrouters XXX

wget http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.txt -O - 2>/dev/null | grep ^0.0.0.0 >> /etc/hosts ) &

This is essentially what the script I wrote does. It separates the logic from the hosts entries so you can manage ‘# insert your hostname here’ easier, add custom blocks easier, and is a bit safer, but it’s the same. I’ve attached it again.

PS: The block list I used (StevenBlack's) combines winhelp2002’s, Peter Lowe's, and many other block lists into one, so scan it to see if it’s already got any you want to add to the wget pulls.

...

Could/should I run both a hosts block list and Ad Blocker?

Yes. They will both catch ‘nasty’ things the other won’t. Most noticeable will be an Ad Blocker will catch self served ads on sites you want to visit. And AFAIK most Ad Blocker lists (get paid to) whitelist Google ads, which the hosts block list will catch.

Best All, Michael

PS: If anyone does find another block list to add, send me the wget pull link and I’ll finish the script to handle multiple combines.

Very cool. Thanks.

Bill

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On 2020-08-31 02:52:41 William Morder via trinity-users wrote:

On Monday 31 August 2020 00:33:33 Stefan Krusche wrote:

...

Hi Bill,

Am Montag 31 August 2020 schrieb William Morder via trinity-users:

...

I do know that I see a big difference between using a customized hosts file instead of (only) depending on ad-blockers. As soon as I overwrite the hosts file with my list, I find that my system is more stable. It's not only the ads that get blocked, it seems, but also other unwanted connections.

Sure, that's what I want as well :-) I'm using a huge /etc/hosts as well, but only with 0.0.0.0 so all requests from unwanted domains get send to nowhere without my system (localhost) trying to serve them before.

The purpose of using 127.0.0.1 in /etc/hosts, AIUI, is to make the web server on localhost show some substitute page/image/whatever to indicate something has been blocked. If you don't have a web server running on localhost and configured to serve such requests it doesn't make sense to put 127.0.0.1 in /etc/hosts to my understanding.

HTH

Kind regards, Stefan

The first hosts files that I found online all put 127.0.0.1, which I blindly accepted. It seemed to work okay, but then I heard about using 0.0.0.0. My instinct was that the second choice was better; because 127.0.0.1 is also the address I use for proxy configuration, so it goes somewhere.

Better that I should send unwanted requests to nowhere, rather than any somewhere. This is why I raised the question about security in my earlier post. If proxy traffic is directed there, then there must be somewhere that it can go; and if some bad actor knows this -- well, maybe it is a stretch, but perhaps it could be used by a malicious intruder.

0.0.0.0 makes more sense.

I wonder if there are some situations in which 127.0.0.1 might be preferable, or the two variants used in tandem -- for example, you mentioned "if you have a web server"? Maybe, then, it would be useful to create a home version and a web server version.

Anyway, I don't want to go through and change items line-by-line, and to run find-and-replace will still leave me with a lot of duplicates, and the list is already big enough to be unwieldy for kedit to handle. I believe Michael mentioned some kind of script?

Bill

I would think that 0.0.0.0 is not really an address at all, whereas 127.0.0.1 (x7F 00 00 01) is the loopback address that lets the computer talk to itself. I suppose 0.0.0.0 is someone's lazy idea for not having to remember loopback. :-)

Leslie

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