Re: Getting back to 2.49.5, but for how long ?

[alexyu]

NFN Smith wrote, on 05 Feb 21 22:28:


(Snip)

There's still plenty of people that are using both XP and Windows 7,
because they have reasons not to upgrade.  But in the same way,
there's holdouts that won't upgrade Firefox past 52.9, or Thunderbird
past 68.12, often because they don't want to lose the ability to run
XUL extensions.


That describes me very well:  I'm using a dual-boot system with XP SP3 
and Win 7 SP"2" (constantly updated with Simplix's updates); in both 
partitions there are the exact same versions of SM (2.49.5) and FF 
(52.9.0 ESR), which AFAIK are at the 'limit of compatibility' (between 
each other and with the OS's), so that I can use basically the same 50 
or so XUL Extensions (of which I'd say 20-30 are important to me) in SM 
and FF, in both OS's.


FRG has warned me of the mounting trade-offs this entails, specially 
with these older versions' growing incompatibility with newer site 
functions, and I admit that the day may come when I have to 'grow up' 
(hopefully, by then FF will also have grown up so much that it may have 
Web Extensions which I can use to fulfill most of the functions of my 
current XUL ones).


I do have a WinXP-only HW which I haven't been able to get an adequate 
substitute for in Win7, but that's only part of the reason:  I find XP 
easier to use and customize, and some old programs don't work well in 
Win7 -- So, for me, XP is still very much alive, and being used every 
day as my main OS quite satisfactorily.  It may not be representative, 
but most of the sites I go to work quite well with XP -- and, for those 
which don't, a User-Agent switch with PrefBar is usually enough; and 
there's always the option to access the site using W7.


This setup with two OS's (WXP & W7) on separate partitions on one 
dual-boot disk, with copies of SM and FF on both, is the main reason to 
keep SM 2.49.5 as the last one:  I want to keep the most compatibility 
possible between WXP and W7 versions of SM/FF, and SM 2.53 only works in 
W7 (plus, it breaks several Extensions important to me).


On this last point, this may be a stronger reason than you'd expect: 
What brought me to the Mozilla Suite, and then SeaMonkey, was its being 
an integrated suite and, mainly, for the existence of ready-made addons 
for a great lot of functions and ways to work that I prefer very much: 
In some cases, I had thought for years that "I would like to do 
this-and-this", and then discovered there actually was a working 
extension to do that.  After you get used to this, it's VERY hard to go 
back to a browser/mail program which is designed with the MCD (minimum 
common denominator) in mind, and with no way to change it to be more 
like you want (another reason to not want more recent versions of FF, 
which usually seem less enticing to me).


This pair (SM 2.49 and FF ESR 52.9.0) seem to be the last possibility to 
use the same extensions and basic profiles on SM and FF, which is also 
something I want to keep; this way, I can use an FF 57 U.A. without 
being much off the mark, since FF ESR 52.9 should have security updates 
up to about FF 60.  However, I do expect/hope that most sites I want to 
go to will support FF 56 (and SM 2.49, indirectly) for several years 
more, with judicious use of User Agents, so at least parts of their main 
functionality may still be available for longer.


The main 'unexpected bonus' came when I decided to have just one profile 
(on a non-standard location) for each 'set' (one for both SM's, one for 
both FF's, to achieve a seamless browser/email experience on the two 
OS's (because I use each one for different purposes, but want to have 
that possibility):  When I first implemented this, I knew that some 
files in the Profile used 'physical' addresses but, since the Profile 
would be accessed by any OS in any order, I hoped that SM/FF would 
automatically handle this (a behavior I noticed during previous tries 
towards this setup), and it seems to work well so far.


I can also copy the 'relevant' corresponding files ('places', cookies, 
logins, etc.) from SM to FF, and they work fine -- and the same is true 
for one profile for WXP and W7 versions of SM/FF:  I can save a session 
in XP, reboot to W7, open SM, and 'reopen last session', and it works 
flawlessly!


FRG said that "SeaMonkey was never designed to work that way", and I 
also imagined that this was true, but I see that nevertheless it DOES 
"work that way" for me.  I imagine that, on starting, SM/FF 'take a look 
around' to see in what 'environment' exactly they're running, and then 
make adjustments to their 'system files' to reflect that environment, so 
that, eg, "C:\Documents and Settings\{user}\Application Data" becomes 
C:\Users\{user}\AppData\Roaming", "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users" 
becomes "C:\ProgramData", etc. -- and vice versa.  I've noticed that 
even the Extensions which use 'physical addresses' seem to work fine, 
too, so it feels like it's safe -- but maybe I'm missing

Re: Getting back to 2.49.5, but for how long ?

[NFN Smith]

David E. Ross wrote:

On 2/4/2021 10:52 AM, Rubens wrote:


Today I upgraded to 2.53.6.

But half of my dear extensions used for years stopped working.

Some of them have new WebEx-compatible updates though.

Does anybody know which future Seamonkey version is planned to support WebEx ?



Would it be possible to get a list showing what Webextensions and newly
internal SeaMonkey features are available that are equivalent to the old
xul extensions?  I am still with SeaMonkey 2.49.5 because I have some 28
extensions that I either really like or else truly depend upon.





Actually, in my other reply, I didn't really answer the gist of this 
question.


With WebExtensions, it's an entirely different API than was what was 
used originally in XUL.  With WebExtensions, that's a Google creation. 
The plus to WebExtensions is that it allows for extensions to be used 
interchangeably by both Firefox and Chrome (and I suspect, a way of 
keeping extension developers from completely defecting from Firefox 
work).  However, at the core, what WebExtensions is capable of doing is 
still primarily focused on what Google wants to do with Chrome.


The two are radically different, enough where for any extension, it has 
to be re-coded in WebExtensions from the ground up.  For many XUL 
extensions, that's not possible, for a variety of reasons.  For some, 
the old extensions have been done by hobbyists (often, only a single 
developer) and where the last of what was available in XUL represents a 
lot of years of evolutionary development. Many have been unable or 
unwilling to invest that kind of time to start over again. However, a 
different issue is that there's some number of things in XUL that simply 
don't exist in WebExtensions, and where it's simply not possible to do 
that function with the limitations imposed, as much as an extension 
developer would want to.


David, I know that you're a long-time enthusiast of PrefBar, and that's 
one of the extensions that has died.  The author indicates that many of 
the functions of PrefBar are now available in other WebExtensions work, 
but not all of them, and I think that was a factor of the author 
deciding not to continue.  For me, the most compelling thing about 
PrefBar is the control that allows for changing UA strings quickly. 
I've seen 3 or 4 in Firefox, and one that is sufficiently similar that 
I'm happy with that.  But it is different, and there's other functions 
in PrefBar that I use occasionally enough that it's not a problem, even 
if I still wish they were there.


With other extensions, I've seen some new ones that have the same name 
as old ones, but with "-WE" appended, indicating that it performs the 
same function as the old one, but that it's coded in WebExtensions.  And 
I've found plenty of other extensions that are more or less the same 
function of what I've had in XUL, but where they're not the same.  Some 
of it is simply new UI, but sometimes, capacities are different (both 
new things and loss of old things), as dictated by what's possible with 
the tool set provided by WebExtensions.


From my experiences with Firefox (and I do keep a profile with as many 
functional equivalents as I have with my preferred set in Seamonkey as 
possible), most of the capacities that I want in extensions are there, 
although not necessarily in the same way as I'm accustomed to seeing in 
Seamonkey.  And where some of the functions will never be there, because 
WebExtensions doesn't make it possible.


It's also worth noting that this is where Thunderbird struggled up until 
about 78.3, in handling the Enigmail extension.  Enigmail relies on 
functions that were included in XUL, but are not in WebExtensions, and 
there's enough Thunderbird users that want the PGP integration that the 
Thunderbird developers decided to bundle the capacity into Thunderbird 
directly.  I didn't follow things closely enough to know why Thunderbird 
chose to do the 68.x branch based on Gecko 56, the way that Seamonkey 
continues to do, but in retrospect, it could be that one of the major 
factors was that Thunderbird releases based on Gecko 68 continued to 
support XUL, because Thunderbird was simply not ready for supporting PGP 
directly.


As I suggested in another posting of experimenting with betas, something 
that might be worth doing is setting up a profile in an ESR version of 
Firefox (possibly a portable apps installation), and then seeing how you 
can replicate the functionality of your Seamonkey extensions there -- 
and what you can't.  That won't do anything for immediate issues with 
Seamonkey, but it's a pointer of where the future is of what you will or 
will not be able to do with extensions, and how they behave.


On my main working machine, besides my Seamonkey installation, I do 
maintain an installation with a current version Firefox, where I keep 
one profile that is there just to check extensions, both in replicating 
what I currently have with Seamonkey, as wel

Re: Getting back to 2.49.5, but for how long ?

[Somebody or Other]

NFN Smith wrote:


Don Spam's Reckless Son wrote:


I find 2.53.x levels slower than 2.49.x levels, but - as you say - 
compatible with more websites.  My 2.53.5 has an unfortunate tendency 
to lock up one of my processors if I visit certain websites.  The only 
way out is to quit the program, restart and then "Restore Previous 
Session".   Of course I lose my "Private Browsing" session.



I'm having good performance with 2.53.*  In 2.49.x (and several versions 
before that, and I don't remember how far), I had problems, where if I 
leave Seamonkey open overnight, the next morning, there's a lot of 
sluggishness, and where active memory usage is often in excess of a GB. 
Sometimes I was seeing as much as 1.5 GB, and I think I've seen nearly 2 
GB once or twice.


However, with 2.53.* those problems are considerably less.  Leaving 
Seamonkey open overnight, I rarely see too much above a GB, and even 
then, performance degradation is much less.  Before, 2.53, a restart was 
essential.  Since 2.53, a restart isn't a bad idea, but by the same 
token, Seamonkey isn't unusable, either.


For years (I'm up to 2.53.6), I've seen memory usage creep upward as 
long as the program is running, and it often reaches two or three GB, 
sometimes even four, if I watch streaming videos. It doesn't seem to 
matter where I watch them; SM never releases the memory when it's done. 
My cache is set to "let SeaMonkey manage" it, but clearing it doesn't 
release the memory either. Same for "clear private data" -- SM acts as 
if it's forgotten all that stuff, but Windows Task Manager shows the RAM 
still in use and allocated to SM. The only way to free memory is to 
close the program and restart it.


Does that count as a "memory leak" in the traditional sense of the term?
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Re: Getting back to 2.49.5, but for how long ?

[NFN Smith]

Don Spam's Reckless Son wrote:


I find 2.53.x levels slower than 2.49.x levels, but - as you say - 
compatible with more websites.  My 2.53.5 has an unfortunate tendency to 
lock up one of my processors if I visit certain websites.  The only way 
out is to quit the program, restart and then "Restore Previous Session". 
  Of course I lose my "Private Browsing" session.



I'm having good performance with 2.53.*  In 2.49.x (and several versions 
before that, and I don't remember how far), I had problems, where if I 
leave Seamonkey open overnight, the next morning, there's a lot of 
sluggishness, and where active memory usage is often in excess of a GB. 
Sometimes I was seeing as much as 1.5 GB, and I think I've seen nearly 2 
GB once or twice.


However, with 2.53.* those problems are considerably less.  Leaving 
Seamonkey open overnight, I rarely see too much above a GB, and even 
then, performance degradation is much less.  Before, 2.53, a restart was 
essential.  Since 2.53, a restart isn't a bad idea, but by the same 
token, Seamonkey isn't unusable, either.


Smith

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Re: Getting back to 2.49.5, but for how long ?

[NFN Smith]

David E. Ross wrote:

Would it be possible to get a list showing what Webextensions and newly
internal SeaMonkey features are available that are equivalent to the old
xul extensions?  I am still with SeaMonkey 2.49.5 because I have some 28
extensions that I either really like or else truly depend upon.



I don't have a list.

What you could do is to install 2.53 to a separate directory (e.g., 
c:\Program Files\Mozilla\Seamonkey-25.3 and then launch with a separate 
profile (not your main profile).  Then install the extensions you want 
to verify.


Although I do it on a test machine, I do exactly this, with a beta of 
2.53 (2.53.7 right now) as well as an alpha of 2.57 (and I also have the 
latest betas of Firefox and Thunderbird).  Besides having a general idea 
of feature set changes that are coming, one of the useful things with 
having the betas is in tracking what's working or not with extensions.


Personally, I have 25+ extensions installed. Only the first dozen or so 
are ones that I consider to be essential.  The only ones that I've found 
that don't work in 2.53.6 are AdBlock Plus (and I found uBlock Origin to 
be an acceptable substitute), and Duplicate This Tab (which was never 
well supported, anyway).


Smith

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Re: Getting back to 2.49.5, but for how long ?

[Don Spam's Reckless Son]

Rubens wrote:

NFN Smith wrote on 05/02/2021 17:44:



Does anybody know which future Seamonkey version is planned to 
support WebEx ?


WebEx is planned for 2.57, but isn't imminent, and developer notes 
indicate that there hasn't been any serious work started on 
implementation.


I do have an alpha of 2.57 installed, and in the current status, the 
browser pretty much works, but that's it.  The Mail and News client is 
not working, and there's no support for extensions, whether XUL or 
WebEx, and I don't expect any changes any time soon.


Smith


That is unfortunate.

When testing 2.53.6 it seemed to be faster and compatible with more 
websites.


But I still can wait for 2.57, let's see then.


Rubens




I find 2.53.x levels slower than 2.49.x levels, but - as you say - 
compatible with more websites.  My 2.53.5 has an unfortunate tendency to 
lock up one of my processors if I visit certain websites.  The only way 
out is to quit the program, restart and then "Restore Previous Session". 
 Of course I lose my "Private Browsing" session.


--
spammo ergo sum, viruses courtesy of https://www.nsa.gov/malware/
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Re: Getting back to 2.49.5, but for how long ?

[Ray_Net]

NFN Smith wrote on 05-02-21 17:44:

Rubens wrote:


Today I upgraded to 2.53.6.


Did you back up your profile?  If not, you may have difficulties 
reverting, without data loss.  I forget where it started happening 
(perhaps 2.53.0), but as with Firefox, profiles are now no longer 
backward compatible.




But half of my dear extensions used for years stopped working.


Extensions are becoming increasingly difficult.  Firefox abandoned use 
of XUL-based extensions beginning at Firefox 57 (in favor of Google's 
WebExtensions), and Thunderbird has now done that since 78.0.


To a large degree, most extension developers have also abandoned 
support of the older structure, and all XUL content has been removed 
from addons.mozilla.org.  Many (but not all) Seamonkey extensions can 
still be found at addons.thunderbird.net/seamonkey.


There is also an extensive collection of Firefox, Thunderbird and 
Seamonkey extensions through the Classic Add-Ons Archive at 
https://github.com/JustOff/ca-archive .


As for what may work or not is going to depend on the extension. I've 
found that I can continue to run pretty much everything I want, from 
one of these sources.


It's also worth noting that for several of the most popular 
extensions, the release notes 
https://www.seamonkey-project.org/releases/seamonkey2.53.6/ indicate 
current status, and links for download.  These include uBlock Origin, 
NoScript, Session Manager and Enigmail.  I've also found that PrefBar 
still works, but that the only source for that is from the developer's 
web site, and not any of the sources noted above.


The release notes also indicate that for some extensions, the coding 
may be fine to run in 2.53.6, but that in the underlying .XPI file, 
they may have a max version setting that won't allow for running past 
a certain version.  It's been a long time since I've needed to do it, 
but it is possible to edit a .XPI to set max version to be compatible 
with the version you're running.




Some of them have new WebEx-compatible updates though.

Does anybody know which future Seamonkey version is planned to 
support WebEx ?


WebEx is planned for 2.57, but isn't imminent, and developer notes 
indicate that there hasn't been any serious work started on 
implementation.


I do have an alpha of 2.57 installed, and in the current status, the 
browser pretty much works, but that's it.  The Mail and News client is 
not working, and there's no support for extensions, whether XUL or 
WebEx, and I don't expect any changes any time soon.


Smith

It looks like the end of SeaMonkey .
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Re: Getting back to 2.49.5, but for how long ?

[David E. Ross]

On 2/4/2021 10:52 AM, Rubens wrote:
> 
> Today I upgraded to 2.53.6.
> 
> But half of my dear extensions used for years stopped working.
> 
> Some of them have new WebEx-compatible updates though.
> 
> Does anybody know which future Seamonkey version is planned to support WebEx ?
> 

Would it be possible to get a list showing what Webextensions and newly
internal SeaMonkey features are available that are equivalent to the old
xul extensions?  I am still with SeaMonkey 2.49.5 because I have some 28
extensions that I either really like or else truly depend upon.

-- 

David E. Ross
.

The only reason we have so many laws is that not enough people will do
the right thing.  (© 1997 by David Ross)

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Re: Getting back to 2.49.5, but for how long ?

[Rubens via support-seamonkey]

NFN Smith wrote on 05/02/2021 17:44:



Does anybody know which future Seamonkey version is planned to support WebEx ?


WebEx is planned for 2.57, but isn't imminent, and developer notes indicate 
that there hasn't been any serious work started on implementation.

I do have an alpha of 2.57 installed, and in the current status, the browser 
pretty much works, but that's it.  The Mail and News client is not working, and 
there's no support for extensions, whether XUL or WebEx, and I don't expect any 
changes any time soon.

Smith


That is unfortunate.

When testing 2.53.6 it seemed to be faster and compatible with more websites.

But I still can wait for 2.57, let's see then.


Rubens


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Re: Getting back to 2.49.5, but for how long ?

[Rubens via support-seamonkey]

NFN Smith wrote on 05/02/2021 17:44:

Rubens wrote:


Today I upgraded to 2.53.6.


Did you back up your profile?  If not, you may have difficulties reverting, 
without data loss.  I forget where it started happening (perhaps 2.53.0), but 
as with Firefox, profiles are now no longer backward compatible.


Yes, of course. I am back to 2.49.5 and fully working again.


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Re: Getting back to 2.49.5, but for how long ?

[NFN Smith]

Rubens wrote:


Today I upgraded to 2.53.6.


Did you back up your profile?  If not, you may have difficulties 
reverting, without data loss.  I forget where it started happening 
(perhaps 2.53.0), but as with Firefox, profiles are now no longer 
backward compatible.




But half of my dear extensions used for years stopped working.


Extensions are becoming increasingly difficult.  Firefox abandoned use 
of XUL-based extensions beginning at Firefox 57 (in favor of Google's 
WebExtensions), and Thunderbird has now done that since 78.0.


To a large degree, most extension developers have also abandoned support 
of the older structure, and all XUL content has been removed from 
addons.mozilla.org.  Many (but not all) Seamonkey extensions can still 
be found at addons.thunderbird.net/seamonkey.


There is also an extensive collection of Firefox, Thunderbird and 
Seamonkey extensions through the Classic Add-Ons Archive at 
https://github.com/JustOff/ca-archive .


As for what may work or not is going to depend on the extension.  I've 
found that I can continue to run pretty much everything I want, from one 
of these sources.


It's also worth noting that for several of the most popular extensions, 
the release notes 
https://www.seamonkey-project.org/releases/seamonkey2.53.6/ indicate 
current status, and links for download.  These include uBlock Origin, 
NoScript, Session Manager and Enigmail.  I've also found that PrefBar 
still works, but that the only source for that is from the developer's 
web site, and not any of the sources noted above.


The release notes also indicate that for some extensions, the coding may 
be fine to run in 2.53.6, but that in the underlying .XPI file, they may 
have a max version setting that won't allow for running past a certain 
version.  It's been a long time since I've needed to do it, but it is 
possible to edit a .XPI to set max version to be compatible with the 
version you're running.




Some of them have new WebEx-compatible updates though.

Does anybody know which future Seamonkey version is planned to support 
WebEx ?


WebEx is planned for 2.57, but isn't imminent, and developer notes 
indicate that there hasn't been any serious work started on implementation.


I do have an alpha of 2.57 installed, and in the current status, the 
browser pretty much works, but that's it.  The Mail and News client is 
not working, and there's no support for extensions, whether XUL or 
WebEx, and I don't expect any changes any time soon.


Smith
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Re: Getting back to 2.49.5, but for how long ?

[Daniel]

Rubens wrote on 5/2/21 5:52 am:


Today I upgraded to 2.53.6.

But half of my dear extensions used for years stopped working.

Some of them have new WebEx-compatible updates though.

Does anybody know which future Seamonkey version is planned to support 
WebEx ?


Did I read here-about in the last couple of days that our hard working 
Devs hope to have WebEx support in SM 2.57 i.e. the next major release 
 when it gets released!!

--
Daniel

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:60.0) Gecko/20100101 
SeaMonkey/2.53.5.1 Build identifier: 20201115194905


User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:60.0) Gecko/20100101 
SeaMonkey/2.53.6 Build identifier: 20210118013008

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Getting back to 2.49.5, but for how long ?

[Rubens via support-seamonkey]

Today I upgraded to 2.53.6.

But half of my dear extensions used for years stopped working.

Some of them have new WebEx-compatible updates though.

Does anybody know which future Seamonkey version is planned to support WebEx ?
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