Iron 'portable' browser - now at 108.0.5500.0 - 64-bit ONLY (with updater!)

[mikewalsh]

Great job building version 108.xxx, Mike. Not only has the problem I emailed you about under Fossapup64-9.6 evaporated, but for the first time since version 93 Bionicpup64 can run the current Iron. I'm posting from F96 using Iron 108xxx now.

Version 108.xxx accepted the PROFILE from my prior Iron.

Just a FWIW, for anyone that's interested. I reminded myself of this just tonight.

If setting-up a new instance of any Chromium clone, there IS a quicker way to transfer bookmarks than messing about importing & re-arranging them again.

Find a 'clone' that's already set-up with all your bookmarks. Go into the profile->Default. Look for the text file called, simply, "Bookmarks". Copy this over to the profile of your new browser and drop it into the same location within the 'Default' directory. At next run, your bookmarks will all be ready for you.....without needing to mess about in the Bookmarks manager.

You can 'share' this trick between ANY of the clones, and it'll work every time. It's how I got my bookmarks set-up the first time I started using Edge 4 Linux, because M$ insist on calling everything 'Favourites' - a hang-over from Internet Exploder which they can't seem to let go of! - and their import procedure is unnecessarily complicated, compared to any other 'clone'. So it might be an idea to save a copy of this file somewhere, so's you can drop it in any 'clone's' profile as & when needed.

Mike.

[geo_c]

I wish the ungoogled chromium dev did an ungoogled version of iron, because iron has always been the cleanest fastest experience for me. Google is a deal killer for me though.

[keniv]

@mikewalsh
Thanks for the update to Iron Mike. Am posting from it now using FossaPup64 9.5. All seems to be working.

Regards,

Ken.

[mikeslr]

I wish the ungoogled chromium dev did an ungoogled version of iron, because iron has always been the cleanest fastest experience for me. Google is a deal killer for me though.

I haven't explored it recently, but two years ago I compared the default privacy and security settings of Ungoogle-Chromium with those of Iron and they were almost identical. About the same time as I wrote this, viewtopic.php?p=19203#p19203

At that time I used Chris Xiao's guide as a reference. It is still available here, https://web.archive.org/web/20221013104 ... ing-guide/. The guide, itself, discusses hardening firefox. But its concerns and techniques can be 'translated' to the Chromium world.

Examining settings and making adjustments was both time consuming and mentally challenging. I haven't had any reason to think that the German company which publishes Iron is less fastidious today than it was when I devoted the time and effort to examine their product. But you know what they say about assumptions.

On the other hand, a lot of Chris Xiao concerns can easily be addressed under Iron thru installation of extensions; something much easier to do under Iron than Ungoogle-Chromium. To the extent possible, I've installed Chromium's equivalent of the firefox addons Chris mentioned, or 8Geee suggested replying to my post.

The following show the extensions I currently use.

Iron-Addons.png.tar.gz

(114.89 KiB) Downloaded 54 times

Download and remove the false tar.gz of the above Iron-Addons. The png-screenshot's text was otherwise only barely readable. Rather than the recommendation to use duck-duck-go, I've installed Qwant. I've book-marked other search engines. Many of the Addons --such as CSS Exfil Protection-- are self-executing. No need to pin them to the tool-bar.

[xenial]

I wish the ungoogled chromium dev did an ungoogled version of iron, because iron has always been the cleanest fastest experience for me. Google is a deal killer for me though.

What's the difference between them technically.?
I never saw the appeal of iron browser myself as it doesn't offer anything over vanilla chromium.Ungoogled chromium seems a more concerted effort to strip some of the google mechanisms.

I see no significant difference between chromium and srware iron unless i'm missing something.

[geo_c]

I see no significant difference between chromium and srware iron unless i'm missing something.

I never did a bench test. It just feels like it opens instantaneously and runs snappier. Could be my imagination.

[mikeslr]

Thanks to MikeWalsh's continuing efforts to maintain portable-web-browsers, wizard's discovery that when Pulse-Audio is employed to render sound Iron had to be run as-spot, and mow9902's confirmation of wizard's instructions, see this thread, https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 515#p83515 Iron again becomes a fully usable web-browser for Puppys.

As wizard suggested, you can download the Iron deb and rebuild it as an SFS. As I run (or test) many Puppys I prefer portables because (a) they keep cache out of RAM; (b) I can use the same profile across Puppies and (c) it's easy to create and use different profiles for different objectives. The following recipe and attachments will enable you to do the same.

What's lacking: MikeWalsh's easy menu-creator and remover. FWIW, I frequently haven't used them since I prefer running web-browsers with multiple profiles so would have to build 'menu-pets' anyway. If you search, you'll find recipe's for creating menu entries. Both MikeWalsh and I have posted how to create them.

In the absence of a menu-entry, you can start the portable by file-browsing to the attached 'iLAUNCH' script, and/or dragging it to the desktop.

Keep in mind that running-as-spot the files you download will be located in .../spot/Downloads. You may want to book-mark that folder to facilitate moving downloaded files elsewhere. Also remember that running-as-spot, files you want to upload will first have to be moved/copied to the /spot folder.

Recipe:

1. Create an appropriately named folder. Mine is named Iron-portable64-spot.
2. Download the iron64.deb, currently available from here, https://www.srware.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=62774
3. Extract the 'deb'. In the extraction folder will be found a folder named /usr/share/iron. Move/Copy just the iron folder into the folder you created, e.g. Iron-portable64-spot.
4. Copy the following iLAUNCH.gz script into the same folder.

iLAUNCH.gz

Remove the 'false' .gz

(460 Bytes) Downloaded 44 times

5. Remove the false '.gz'

That's it. Left-clicking the iLAUNCH script should start Iron.

[mikewalsh]

@mikeslr :-

I replied to this in the F96-CE thread, Mike:-

viewtopic.php?p=84750#p84750

The re-built Iron-portable now lets you choose what 'mode' to run it in at every launch.......either 'root', or 'spot'. The only snag is that if you're going to regularly swap back & forth between the two, downloaded items just go straight into the appropriate user directory...../root, or /spot. Of course, if you're going to stick with running it as 'spot', you can adjust the Downloads $PATH in the settings so it goes into /spot/Downloads instead.

It does permit you to have working audio, however, which I believe was the object of the excercise. You can't automate the Downloads location in the wrapper script, unfortunately, because there's no "--switch" in the admittedly extensive list that lets you do this. It's taken as a 'given' that stuff will go into whichever 'user' directory you're running as...

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The re-built package will be found at the usual location in post #1. Normal usage instructions apply, and the Updater still functions as intended; it's not affected by the afore-mentioned 'chowning' malarkey!

Hope this helps some of you! Posting from it now, running as user 'spot' under F96-CE_2......and watching Star Trek DS9 on NetFlix.

(Shut the browser down, run the Updater script in the portable directory, and you'l soon be on v110, the latest from the SRWare team). I'm going to perform a bit more re-jigging, and add a Menu entry for the updater, too.....just to make things a bit easier, like.

Mike.

[mikewalsh]

Okay.

A bit more re-jigging performed. The updater script now has its own Menu entry, too, so.....no need to dive into the file-system to run the updater mechanism. This brings it into line with Chrome-portable and Zoom-portable, the other two portables I was able to create updater mechanisms for.

Available from the usual links.

Enjoy!

Mike.

[mikeslr]

Mike, when someone accesses your last 64-bit builds on mega.nz, they'll see two offerings: (1) one dated 3/21/23 and packaged as a tar.xz; and (2) one dated 3/31/23 and packaged as a tar.gz. On March 20th, you reported modifying the LAUNCH script, viewtopic.php?p=84750#p84750 and I assume that's the build which your mega.nz folder shows as tar.xz dated 3/21/23. But (a) unless I screwed up my downloads, that change wasn't carried into the 3/31 build and (b) unless someone is familiar with the history of builds (s)he won't know the difference and will likely download newer the 3/31 build. [The post about the 3/21 change was not on this thread].

I'm going to re-download the 3/31 build and before reporting further.

Done. Made certain it was the 3/31 build. AS-IS, it doesn't run as spot and does not generate sound under pulse-audio. The attached alternate launch script --named spot-LAUNCH-- solves that. Basically it was flinched from your 3/21 build. The only change is that your 3/21 build had a folder named iron while in the 3/31 build it was named iron64. The script (rather than the folder) was adjusted.

spot-LAUNCH.gz

REMOVE false .gz ending

(462 Bytes) Downloaded 45 times

Remove the false '.gz' and drop into the portable folder.
Sorry, what worked under slimjet doesn't under Iron. Changing the desktop Exec= argument to read "run-as-spot iron" prevented the app from running at all. Consequently, your MenuAdd script can't be used. And figuring out how to provide alternatives (spot and root) in one LAUNCH script was 'above my paygrade'. If I had to, I'd create a menu entry which had as Exec argument "/FULL-PATH-TO/spot-LAUNCH".
Alternatively, the attached spot-LAUNCH script could be renamed LAUNCH, replacing the included version. But then Iron could not be run as Root.

[mikewalsh]

@mikeslr :-

Ta for the "heads-up", Mike. I've removed the offending "extra" build; the sole remaining build is the current one.......which has had the user-choice treatment for running as either root OR spot, and is the one last posted about, here:-

viewtopic.php?p=84753#p84753

With 3 nearly full cloud accounts - a total of around 43-44 GB of packages as things stand! - you can hardly blame me for occasionally making the odd "house-keeping" boo-boo!

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No need to modify any scripts, my friend. Hit 'LAUNCH' in this one, and choose your 'run-mode'.......'root' OR 'spot'. It'll fire-up in the chosen mode, a fact which can be corroborated by going to

Code: Select all

chrome://sandbox

.....and checking sandbox status. 'Spot' will say you're 'adequately' sandboxed (shows as mostly green).....'root' will say you're NOT (and shows as all-red).

T'other Mike.