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Re: K-Meleon 1.5a1
Posted by: guenter
Date: October 19, 2007 07:46AM

You can use FileAlyzer from Safer Networks (Spybot S&D is their most known product) to have a look at the imports in favorites.dll: COMCTL32.dll, KERNEL32.dll, USER32.dll, GDI32.dll, ADVAPI32.dll, SHELL32.dll, MSVCRT71.dll and MSVCP71.dll. That is it.

COMCTL32.dll must be updated the old K-Meleon manuals and FAQs say ( maybe transfer the one from one PC to the other or get alternatives from Internet or MS, copy them into K-Meleon folder for tests). COMCTL32.dll is updated by MSIE updates and other software updates and seems to have serveral versions. COMCTL32.dll gives 4 imports that are used by favorites: Imagelist_AddMasked, Imagelist_Destroy, Imagelist_Draw, Imagelist_Create. I think that is the most likely location for the problem.

BTW. The Microsoft Java Virtual Machine dll files have AFAIK nothing to do with K-Meleon unless You visit a lake applets page like mine smiling smiley

Only if the MS JVM is active the other dll mentioned is active.

And MS JVM should not be used in the Internet anymore. MS JVM has security issues and lacks modern features such as PNG support. You only test an applet with the MS version of Java because some IE users still use MS JVM. That was even said in a Java applet user support forum by PPL that use IE. smiling smiley

p. s. For legal reasons MS can not support and maintain MSJVM's code base.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 10/19/2007 10:13AM by guenter.

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Re: K-Meleon 1.5a1
Posted by: Long Time Favorites User
Date: October 19, 2007 12:33PM

Thanks Guenter,
Now I need to ask for a favor. I have never used FileAlyzer. How do I
have a look at the imports in favorites.dll? Thanks

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Re: K-Meleon 1.5a1
Posted by: erica
Date: October 19, 2007 02:03PM

The version of the FireFox was 2.008 Geko1.818 not pre
Fight Sir Dorian and all KM User.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/19/2007 02:06PM by erica.

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Re: K-Meleon 1.5a1
Posted by: guenter
Date: October 19, 2007 02:07PM

The program is integrated into Explporer Menu on my PC, it can be set that way.
Now I just point unto a dll or exe in my file manager and choose "Analyse File with FileAlyzer". There I chose the Tab Import/Export Table.

It would be tedious to compare the different COMCTL32.dll. Mine has 40 exports starting with "Imagelist_". IMHO it is our candidate. The other dll do not export any amount of specialized graphic stuff. I would just get COMCTL32.dll from a system were all works and drop it into K-Meleon's folder - it cannot do worse than not work on which result I would try another. You will find dll on repository sites. This google word gives some intersting links, much usefull and useless stuff. Such as: comctl32.dll is a module that contains common GUI components used by Windows. That differnt versions for different Windows versions exist and that XP style uses another one than classic...
Download links for the versions...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/19/2007 02:08PM by guenter.

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Re: K-Meleon 1.5a1
Posted by: Anonymous User
Date: October 19, 2007 03:21PM

Thanks for the info, Erica.

Day by day your messages are easier to understand, thanks for keep trying enhancing your english.

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Re: K-Meleon 1.5a1
Posted by: kko
Date: October 19, 2007 03:23PM

Quote
Long Time Favorites User
Anyone think it could help if I
remove my Sun Java Virtual Machine and reinstall the microsoft version? I have
downloaded the Microsoft JVM 5.0.3810 from www.oldversion.com as I am hoping
this is the newest. I did replace it out of security concerns. Anyone know if
I can do this instead of reinstalling my whole operating system?

Why have you removed the MS JVM at all? It's a part of the OS. It's no good idea to remove any OS components. All you need to do is installing the Sun JVM and making IE use that when you're asked.

Don't be so quick reinstalling your OS. As long as we don't know what's causing this problem nobody can predict whether a fresh OS install will help at all.

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Re: K-Meleon 1.5a1
Posted by: guenter
Date: October 19, 2007 06:41PM

I quite agree with kko - IMHO it is not sensible to reinstall OS.

Older Windows systems need an update of certain components before they can use certain features of K-Meleon without flaws. Some older K-Meleon had this info in their default start page. If I remember correctly COMCTL32.dll is one of the files that must be updated.

p. s. Since quite some time MS JVM is not anymore installed by default when You install Windows. smiling smiley MS is not allowed to continue development of its own JVM.

It is a JVM. It is only used for compiling java objects in real time; I have never heard of any Java object code that is part of Windows.

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Re: K-Meleon 1.5a1
Posted by: ra
Date: October 19, 2007 10:51PM

* The first bookmark or favorite opened after startup is always opened in a new background window, although the browser is configured to open it in the current window. It works like it is supposed to for subsequent items.

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Re: K-Meleon 1.5a1
Posted by: rmn
Date: October 19, 2007 11:06PM

Strange, it doesn't run here. The profile directory is created (I did remove the old profile dir) but then it consumes a lot of CPU and doesn't show anything. If I kill it and start again, it shows the session resume dialog but does the same thing afterwards.

Edit: If I remove the toolbars plugin it runs.

Edit 2: Problem's gone now. No idea why....



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/08/2007 05:53PM by rmn.

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Re: K-Meleon 1.5a1
Posted by: JamesD
Date: October 23, 2007 12:38PM

I have the "as on exit" checked in GUI Appearance At startup Maximized, but KM 1.5a1 always starts in the last non-maximized state even if closed from a maximized state.

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Re: K-Meleon 1.5a1
Posted by: Terry
Date: October 23, 2007 03:01PM

Whereas most software developers put out an alpha version, Dorian's effort is closer to a beta. Personally, I am not a big fan of tabs. Takes up too much viewing space, but I can see that tabs use less resources and they are the wave of the future I suppose.

This is not a gripe but an observation. Clearly, K-Meleon is based on a branch of Seamonkey. For whatever reason, K-Meleon is seen as an "old browser" by some webpages and therefore won't run the ubiquitous Flash components. That's why User Agent selection is there. For example, if one goes to something like the Disney page: http://disney.go.com/index where the whole thing is flash in the K-Meleon default mode, you will be given a message that your browser is too old. I noticed that for 1.5a the User Agent no longer includes Netscape 8.1 as a choice and that Seamonkey has been supstituted. Actually since Seamonkey is also recognized by this page as an "old browser", I wonder if the Netscape choice could be returned. Both the IE and Firefox user agents work with this page, but I don't see any advantage to the Seamonkey user agent when K-Meleon is probably perceived as Seamonkey anyway. Just an observation ... Again, thanks Dorian.

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Re: disney.go.com
Posted by: caktus
Date: October 23, 2007 04:20PM

Re: disney.go.com.

Same here.

Charlie

~~If it ain't broke, why screw it up?~~


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Re: K-Meleon 1.5a1
Posted by: kko
Date: October 23, 2007 06:29PM

Quote
Terry
This is not a gripe but an observation. Clearly, K-Meleon is based on a branch of Seamonkey. For whatever reason, K-Meleon is seen as an "old browser" by some webpages and therefore won't run the ubiquitous Flash components. That's why User Agent selection is there. For example, if one goes to something like the Disney page: http://disney.go.com/index where the whole thing is flash in the K-Meleon default mode, you will be given a message that your browser is too old. I noticed that for 1.5a the User Agent no longer includes Netscape 8.1 as a choice and that Seamonkey has been supstituted. Actually since Seamonkey is also recognized by this page as an "old browser", I wonder if the Netscape choice could be returned. Both the IE and Firefox user agents work with this page, but I don't see any advantage to the Seamonkey user agent when K-Meleon is probably perceived as Seamonkey anyway. Just an observation ... Again, thanks Dorian.

I've removed Netscape for the following reasons:
1) K-Meleon is based on SeaMonkey. But there's no hint at SeaMonkey in our default useragent. Therefore, in regard to compatibility, the original SeaMonkey useragent is the best substitute for the default useragent when a website is rejecting km.
2) The second best choice is Firefox' useragent since it is usually accepted by all web sites.
3) Netscape 8 is outdated. I could not predict that Netscape 9 would be released shortly after. Anyway, I guess, sites that don't recognize Firefox, usually don't recognize Netscape either.

Best send complaints to the webmasters of sites that reject K-Meleon. These guys have to learn that Gecko is a platform and that Firefox is only one browser among a lot of others using this platform and all having the same capabilities.

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Re: K-Meleon 1.5a1
Posted by: ra
Date: October 23, 2007 09:08PM

* Is "Resume" really working with downloads? I had one download that stalled, so I clicked on "Pause", waited a second and clicked "Resume" - but there was no reaction at all, neither on the download nor the connection visible. (Closing the browser and restarting it and starting the download again led to a successful download.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/23/2007 09:09PM by ra.

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Re: K-Meleon 1.5a1
Posted by: JamesD
Date: October 23, 2007 09:14PM

I am confused. I went to the Disney.go.com link and was told I had good software for browsing the site. The message was:
Quote

Good News! Our tests show that you already have the appropriate browser and plug-ins to enjoy the features and fun of the Walt Disney Internet Group family of sites.

I have KM 1.5a1 with two updates and my user agent is set to default. Could the problem be some plugin that I have is newer than the plugin being use by Terry and Caktus?

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Re: K-Meleon 1.5a1
Posted by: Terry
Date: October 23, 2007 10:18PM

@JamesD - yes that is the message you get if you use default. Try either IE or the Firefox user agent and you won't get a message; you will have the Flash content fire up immediately.

@kko - Was not trying to offend anyone's choices, but it stands to reason that if you are going to have User Agents to access the widest number of webpages, you would use those that would give you different results. The Netscape user agent allows access to Flash produced code that Seamonkey doesn't. Whether you think Netscape is outdated is not the point - that a lot of webpages still acknowledge Netscape as a "standard" of some sort is relevant. I too wish that those who design web pages purview was greater than IE and FF (and apparently Netscape), but it really isn't likely to happen no matter how much one protests. And, in this case, it is probably Adobe Flash Player that is the culprit in the way it works for FF and not for K-Meleon and Seamonkey.

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Re: K-Meleon 1.5a1
Posted by: kko
Date: October 23, 2007 10:40PM

@Terry: Sorry, maybe it's due to my poor English, but I can't follow your argumentation. smiling smiley
What for do you think you need a Netscape useragent? Should be clear that changing km's useragent does neither change the capabilities of km nor those of the Flash player it's using...

BTW: I've no problem accessing http://disney.go.com/index with km and and our default user agent:

Quote

Software Detect
You do not require any updates at this time.


Recommendations

Good News! Our tests show that you already have the appropriate browser and plug-ins to enjoy the features and fun of the Walt Disney Internet Group family of sites.

Just a note: If you do find that you have problems viewing our home page, you might want to check your browser version and plug-in on your own. If your browser is older than Internet Explorer 5 or Netscape 7, or you do not have the latest version of Flash, you will need to upgrade in order to enjoy our sites.


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Re: K-Meleon 1.5a1
Posted by: JamesD
Date: October 23, 2007 10:51PM

@ Terry

I started up IE and went to disney.go.com but all I got was a dark blue screen. No text, no pictures, and no action. Perhaps my secruity level is set too high in IE.

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Re: K-Meleon 1.5a1
Posted by: Terry
Date: October 23, 2007 11:06PM

@kko - as I related to JamesD - simply change the user agent to FF or IE and you won't get that message; it will bring up the actual content on the site. Pretty dramatic difference wouldn't you say?

My argumentation is rather basic. You include the widest number of user agents to garner the best results. The Netscape user agent works - Seamonkey doesn't. You can go to USA Today (http://www.usatoday.com/) and observe the same phenomemon in relation to Flash - Both default and Seamonkey will not bring up the flash demo at the top of the page whereas IE, FF, and Netscape user agents do. If Seamonkey is not going to add any utility over default, why include it? Just to have it listed? If the Netscape user agent works where default won't, why exclude it? I'm just being pragmatic.

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Re: K-Meleon 1.5a1
Posted by: Terry
Date: October 23, 2007 11:23PM

@JamesD - the Disney site requires the Flash Player. Adobe Flash Player has to be installed twice - one setup for IE and another for Mozilla browsers. If you have Flash Player installed, you should be able to to use IE and see the Disney page. If it is installed for Mozilla (and Opera), you cannot see it using the K-Meleon default User Agent, but change the User Agent to Firefox and it should bring up the Disney page.

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Re: K-Meleon 1.5a1
Posted by: Terry
Date: October 24, 2007 01:20AM

@kko - The message that you get is what is called American double speak. It is saying that you have a wonderful machine that is fully loaded, but if you are getting this message it means you need to upgrade your browser to something more modern. You wouldn't get this message if you went to the page using Firefox as your user agent.

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Re: K-Meleon 1.5a1
Posted by: guenter
Date: October 24, 2007 08:26AM

Quote
kko

Quote

Software Detect
You do not require any updates at this time.


Recommendations

Good News! Our tests show that you already have the appropriate browser and plug-ins to enjoy the features and fun of the Walt Disney Internet Group family of sites.

Just a note: If you do find that you have problems viewing our home page, you might want to check your browser version and plug-in on your own. If your browser is older than Internet Explorer 5 or Netscape 7, or you do not have the latest version of Flash, you will need to upgrade in order to enjoy our sites.

Gecko requirements are 1.2 or better so I did not get the OK screen with 0.6.5 (the page recommended FF instead). http://disney.go.com/index has a quite capable detection so that I was not able to spoof IE 6 but I could use a newer K-Meleon string to get the OK screen.

Version 0.7.1 Build 734 Compiled Wed Feb 12 18:21:25 2003 did get the OK almost right away. I only had to install a brand new Flash plugin smiling smiley



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/24/2007 08:30AM by guenter.

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Re: K-Meleon 1.5a1
Posted by: kko
Date: October 24, 2007 09:49AM

Quote
Terry
@kko - as I related to JamesD - simply change the user agent to FF or IE and you won't get that message; it will bring up the actual content on the site. Pretty dramatic difference wouldn't you say?

Yes, indeed. That's cheat! :p


Quote
Terry
My argumentation is rather basic.

Got it, thanks! smiling smiley

My argumentation just went into the opposite direction:

Quote
Terry
You include the widest number of user agents to garner the best results.

My philosophy is to include the fewest number of features to garner the best results. smiling smiley

Quote
Terry
The Netscape user agent works - Seamonkey doesn't.

That may be true for the particular websites you mentioned, but that doesn't proof that it's true for all websites that are sniffing user agents. When a particular site doesn't work with the default user agent, it's not said that it will work with all or even any of the offered substitutes...

Quote
Terry
If Seamonkey is not going to add any utility over default, why include it?

That's a reasonable question. When it doesn't proof to be useful, I've no problem removing it.

Quote
Terry
If the Netscape user agent works where default won't, why exclude it?

My question was: If the Netscape user agent works where Firefox' will, why include it?

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Re: K-Meleon 1.5a1
Posted by: Terry
Date: October 24, 2007 03:08PM

@kko "My philosophy is to include the fewest number of features to garner the best results." You are now playing with semantics. The reason that User Agents are included is as a workaround. guenter claims that he has fixed his browser by putting in a new plug-in. I have the latest plug-in. Unfortunately, for both K-M and Seamonkey, it does not work. I am certain that with a lot of trial and error I could find the one that will work, but since having User Agents gives me the convenience of a workaround, I won't have to bother. That's what I mean by "widest number of user agents to garner the best result". With a couple of clicks to change the user agent, I can continue browsing the page in K-M; whereas if I were using Seamonkey, I would have to stop everything, go out and find a plug-in that would work for Seamonkey (which could take hours or several minutes or no solution at all). That's why people abandon browsers.

kko says, "That may be true for the particular websites you mentioned, but that doesn't proof that it's true for all websites that are sniffing user agents. When a particular site doesn't work with the default user agent, it's not said that it will work with all or even any of the offered substitutes... " With this piece of logic you have a hard time even justifying the reason User Agents are included in the first place. Yes, I have given you two sites where default and Seamonkey don't work. Whether you like it or not, the fact is, that User Agents are included precisely because Webmasters are often short-sighted and are often biased in the way they code a site. Both of these websites are visited frequently; it is not like they are located in some backwater of the net or that it is the first time a webmaster has coded his experimental webpage. User Agents give to K-M a flexibility that it would not otherwise have. I shouldn't have to "prove that it works for all sites" since that has nothing to do with my assertion. Did I ask you to prove that the Seamonkey user agent could let me into a site that default wouldn't?

kko says, "My question was: If the Netscape user agent works where Firefox' will, why include it?" But, why leave something out that works? Here's the reason why you don't - if you were to go to Disney using the IE user agent, then to UsaToday using the smae IE user agent, the flash coding works. But, the minute you go to MSNBC using the same IE agent, the flash coding doesn't work. In this scenario Netscape works for all three. My point is that 2 out of 3 times IE works. It is not unreasonable to conclude that FF may not have any better a track record than 2 out of 3, so why not include a User Agent that might work for that third one? If, on the contrary, FF works in all cases, why not make it the de facto default and exclude all the other user agents and do away with User Agents altogether? At least that is the logic of this assertion.

kko, you are the one whose choices decide what this browser acts like, not me. But, your individual choice becomes the choice of everyone who uses this browser, so I would think that you would listen to feedback, since your choice is that weighty. I don't really care if Netscape 8 is outdated or not. To me that whole debate is a red herring. We are talking about spoofing a site - and a great number of sites look for Netscape. It comes as almost second nature to many webmasters to include that code. I have given you concrete cases, not theory, that show that the inclusion of a particular User Agent has not lost its merit and should not be abandoned for the near future. I would hope that you would consider it on its practical merit not on the theoretical opinion that "Netscape 8 is outdated."

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Re: K-Meleon 1.5a1
Posted by: guenter
Date: October 24, 2007 04:29PM

Terry,

this is a multi national Forum. Nobody can expect that everthing is understood as it was intended to be understood. smiling smiley

I have configured 0.6.5 and 0.7.1 because I use K-Meleon that long.

I can zip my plugins directory and post it via Rapidshare or send it by mail.
I just had to copy the plugins over from a newer K-Meleon when 0.7 failed at the first try. You can try with them. Flash was notorios for failing on installs. It was a FAQ how to get them going. It might be that again. That is You have installed it and its not working. It is one of the plugins that must be in the plugins directory. At least when You have a problem with a certain plugin You place it right there / in my case to I:\K-Meleonde-DE\plugins\NPSWF32.dll.

You can add extra browser strings via about:config - or easier add them with a editor to ./defaults/pref/I10n.js into section privacy.

pref("kmeleon.privacy.useragent5.name", "Netscape 9.0");
pref("kmeleon.privacy.useragent5.string", "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.8pre) Gecko/20071015 Firefox/2.0.0.7 Navigator/9.0");

It is much extra work to adapt browser strings to national versions...
And it is a small thing for any user to spoof the versions that he needs.
Netscape 8.1 is IMHO outdated for practical purposes e.g. Yahoo Beta Mail.


It is not a fault of browser makers that too many webdesigners do browser sniffing instead of feature sniffing.

K-Meleon and some other browsers are seen as "old", "obsolete", "unsupported" or "wrong" by pages whose programmers have not found the page Gecko is Gecko yet - plus by pages that have programmers that use obsolete browser sniffing scripts that try to sniff for browser type instead of features sad smiley or at least sniff for Gecko version, which would make a little sence after all smiling smiley

Some of these scripts might be even so old that they want the word Netscape smiling smiley

But that is definitely not the browser makers fault smiling smiley

p. s. The Gecko based browser family supports the same W3C web standards but some web programmers pages do not smiling smiley

Last not Least

Our respect for them and that they can make choices how they want the browser which they develop is the only payment our devs receive. K-Meleon is flexibel, just change it, this is the place where You can find out how smiling smiley



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/24/2007 04:31PM by guenter.

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Re: K-Meleon 1.5a1
Posted by: kko
Date: October 24, 2007 05:03PM

@guenter: Set the Firefox user agent and go to Disney. Compare it with what you've seen before. That's what Terry meant and that's not a plugin issue.

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Re: K-Meleon 1.5a1
Posted by: kko
Date: October 24, 2007 05:03PM

@Terry: Don't spill out the baby with the bath water.

The usefulness of km's user agent switcher was never in question. In question is only the necessity to include a Netscape user agent by default.

MSNBC and USATODAY work with the default user agent, Disney doesn't (correctly). With a Firefox or Netscape user agent all three pages work correctly.

I haven't asked you to proof anything. I simply asked what for you need a Netscape user agent when the Firefox user agent does the same. Can't you simply use the Firefox user agent instead of Netscape's?

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Re: K-Meleon 1.5a1
Posted by: Terry
Date: October 24, 2007 08:02PM

@kko - Of corurse I can, kko. I didn't mean to distract you from your good work. I just like to have options.

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Re: K-Meleon 1.5a1
Posted by: trinitus
Date: October 24, 2007 08:02PM

i agree with Terrys opinion to "include the widest number of user agents to garner the best results" and also don't see a reason to remove and/or change features/settings that proved to be useful over the years.

"kko, you are the one whose choices decide what this browser acts like, not me. But, your individual choice becomes the choice of everyone who uses this browser, so I would think that you would listen to feedback, since your choice is that
weighty."

Thats correct Terry. Fortunately we are usually able to restore k-meleon to it's former condition ourselfs. it is annoying to have to do that again and again, especially where the changes doesn't seem reasonable though, but I'm afraid one has to get used to it or just avoid these so called improvements.

@Terry:
I would recommend to don't even bother trying to discuss something and save your powers for things that are more useful. threads like this one http://kmeleonbrowser.org/forum/read.php?1,70704,70793 might get you an extended idea why.

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Re: K-Meleon 1.5a1
Posted by: kko
Date: October 24, 2007 09:45PM

Quote
Terry
@kko - Of corurse I can, kko. I didn't mean to distract you from your good work. I just like to have options.

I understand that, Terry. It's only that to some users, km is offering far too many options - they feel confused. To others, km doesn't offer many enough options. We have to find a compromise somewhere in between, which is also practicable for those who finally maintain all this stuff...

As far as user agent strings are concerned, the system is open. You can add as many and whatever user agents you like. All you need to do is to append a new pair of name/string preferences to the existing list of kmeleon.privacy.useragent<number>.[name|string] preferences in about:config. There are no limitations except that the numbers have to be subsequent.

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