Bonum Certa Men Certa

Fedora 37 and SeaMonkey 2.53.14

Reprinted with permission from Ryan

I upgraded to Fedora 37 several days ago (pre-release).



Overall, that went well. (Post in process on that.)



SeaMonkey got bumped to 2.53.14 and it completely screwed something up to where almost any site I loaded in the browser crashed the browser.



Scrapping my old profile seems to have fixed it.



I’ve brought back my passwords, uBlock-Origin-Legacy, SeaTab-X-2, and Bookmarks, and got middle click paste off and autoscroll on in about:config.



I noticed when I went to install Palefills 1.21, it no longer works. I was looking forward to it because it says it fixes Google Drive.



Without Palefills working, Github and Gitlab broke again due to the shim not being applied, however I was able to fix those two sites by setting dom.webcomponents.customelements.enabled;true and dom.webcomponents.enabled;true in the about:config menu.



I had to get WebComponents on so I could reload the uBlock-Origin-Legacy site and click on the appropriate XPI package.



So far, I’m not seeing a hell of a lot of improvement in the Web platform department, although YouTube (Invidious already worked fine) is working better, and so are some other video sites.



The release notes suggested improvements to the Document Object Model, but if there are any, they must be minor because I haven’t seen a big difference on most sites.



Google refused to let me sign in on their Web site or through OAuth2, which is how they demand you sign in for IMAP now in a Mail client. Both said my browser was insecure, and demanded that I choose from a list of approved browsers.



So I set a fake user agent for Google.com to trick it into thinking I have Firefox 105 by creating a site-specific UA override called general.useragent.override.google.com as a new string in about:config and then setting the string value to Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:105.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/105.0 and then I went back and signed into SeaMonkey Mail using IMAP over OAuth2 and in the browser as well. I guess faking your user agent makes you “secure”.



I hate Google. I’ll probably need to go back and bump Google’s fake UA override for new Firefox versions at some point.



The only thing I saw that was “not secure” was that SeaMonkey still supports TLS 1.0 and 1.1, but you can uncheck them, and should.



For those who wonder, after setting up the fake user agent for Google.com, you can get SeaMonkey Mail to work using these settings.



Incoming Server: imap.gmail.com



Port: 993



User Name: your full gmail address



Connection Security: SSL/TLS



Authentication Method: OAuth2



Outgoing Server: smtp.gmail.com



Port: 465



User Name: your full gmail address



Connection Security: SSL/TLS



Authentication Method: OAuth2



Then you just save everything and go back to SeaMonkey Mail and click get messages, and then an authentication screen should pop up asking you to put in your google login and use your two step verification, then it’ll say Mozilla Thunderbird is trying to access your GMail Account. Tell it that’s fine.



That’s it. It should grab your email. Now you can send yourself a test email to make sure SMTP (outgoing mail) works too. It won’t ask you to authenticate again.



Now I just need to recover my other IMAP mail settings and ChatZilla, and wait for the next disaster update.



I don’t know why I keep this going along. Nostalgia, maybe.



Google (and Microsoft Outlook) switching to OAuth2 and blocking “insecure apps” has nothing to do with Security, of course. It’s about vendor lock-in and the end of normal email clients.



If Microsoft goes down the path of blocking SeaMonkey Mail, I’ll enter a fake UA for their sites too and then log in anyway.



For now, Microsoft’s Outlook IMAP settings are here. (username is always your complete email address).



Make sure to take note that you need to use TLS/SSL for the incoming server, but the outgoing server demands STARTTLS. *sigh*



Also, if your account uses two factor authentication you need to make an app password by going here and clicking on “Security Basics” and then ignoring everything else it says. The app passwords are under Advanced Security Options/Create a New App Password. Then you use that password in your non-2FA applications.



I tried setting up OAuth2 with Microsoft Outlook, however it said only work and school accounts can use that.



Also, remember to set your GMail to use the GMail SMTP server and Outlook Mail to use it’s own, otherwise all your outgoing email will go through SeaMonkey’s default, which is the first one you set up. 🙂



Now, off to set up ChatZilla again…. *sigh*



Get Facebook working again.



Facebook’s “modern” site is completely hosed in SeaMonkey, but you can fix it two ways.



Go to about:config and make a new site-specific user agent for Facebook. New String, and then use string value general.useragent.override.facebook.com from here, there are two choices.



Do you want some old no-JavaScript site that’s not really that easy to use, or do you want a more functional mobile site that it gives if it thinks you use Internet Explorer



Internet Explorer 11 (more functional mobile site with JavaScript) – Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 11.0; Trident/7.0; rv:11.0) like Gecko



Opera 12 (no-JS mobile) – Opera/9.80 (Windows NT 11.0) Presto/2.12.388 Version/12.17



I have no idea what sites will break but I can usually get something to work again by hacking around it.



Google Drive is messed up. I do back some things up there. Fortunately, I can get around this by mounting it as a file system in GNOME Files (Nautilus).



All this has left me wondering… How does bumping a minor browser update manage to eat its own profile?



Regardless, I did get around to spring cleaning my bookmarks file after several years of them accumulating dead links and stuff I don’t care about anymore, and organizing them into folders, then backing it all up again.



Also, GMail is set up in a way that they’re not going to lock me out of again. They’re doing nasty things to email clients and then apparently, graciously, allowing it to work again in Thunderbird. 😛



I think it’s completely stupid not having an email client in your browser. You open Thunderbird and it’s like opening an entire second copy of Firefox just to get at your mail, and ChatZilla is a rather nice IRC program.



Maybe that’s why I tolerate this. Plus, half the reason I write these posts is so _I_ can remember how I got things working later.

Recent Techrights' Posts

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has Un-cancelled the Best People, Just in Time for the Big 4-0
Mr. Oliva should have been there all along (since 2019)
Most "Modern" Technology Makes You Slower and Dumber
Because proprietary software makes you worse off
"What Comes After Free Software?" Wrongly Insinuates We've Reached the Goal (Prison is Not the Goal)
The oil tycoons use similar tactics against environmentalists, giving them fake "wins"
Making More Work Space
I learned the hard way that less is more in circumstances where more means distraction
MAHA is a Lie, Public Officials Never Valued Citizens' Health (They Still Value Private Businesses, Their Sponsors)
Reject demagogues
New Techrights Turns 2
Today starts the third year of the SSG-based Techrights
What Scares Them the Most is Independent News Sites That They Cannot Control and Censor
Wikileaks was a good example of this
If You Don't Control Your Online Platform, Then Someone Else is Controlling You
be (or become) independent
 
Links 23/09/2025: Japan Limits Uses of Skinnerboxes ('Smartphones') With Toxic "Apps", Fentanylware (TikTok) Tapped by "MAGAts"
Links for the day
Brett Wilson LLP Has Just Been Sued (by Their Own Clients!)
Vladimir and Alla Yanpolsky sued Brett Wilson LLP in BL-2025-001167 at the end of last week
The Complaint About Brett Wilson LLP - Part II - UK SLAPPs for Americans, SLAPPs for Profit
Brett Wilson LLP has a track record of this kind
Mayday: Optus emergency calling crisis
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 23/09/2025: Massive Data Breach, Slop Versus Productivity, and Vista 11 Update Breaks Things Again
Links for the day
Code of Censorship
Extortion is peace
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has a New Press Kit for the Weekend After Next Weekend (40th Anniversary)
miles better than social [sic] media [sic] quips, moderated by narcissists and oil tycoons.
Microsoft Had Two Waves of Mass Layoffs This Month (That We Know of) and It'll Get Worse for Microsoft Soon
Will the axe fall again by month's end?
Gemini Links 23/09/2025: Happy Equinox, Photronic Arts, and Perception Cognition
Links for the day
Lessons We've Learned After 17 Years of American Hosting
GAFAM is "all-in" with the "Trump agenda"
Back to Normal Now, We Plan to Do More In-Depth Series (or Multi-part Stories)
Articles (or series thereof) that contain philosophy are important to us
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 22, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, September 22, 2025
Microsoft Media is Panicking Amid Mass Layoffs Every Month, H-1B Fees, and "Seattle’s Tech Scene in Trouble"
In "late stage Microsoft", copyleft becomes proprietary
The Next Wave of IBM/Red Hat Layoffs Being Discussed Already
Red Hat is sort of disappearing the way Tivoli did
Oracle Started This Year With Slop. Then It Stopped.
Passing fads are like this
Distros That Run on PCs Made 20 Years Ago and Don't Use Systemd
Betas for now
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Has a Policy on Racism and Sexism
In then future we'll show the misogyny and racial slurs
The Complaint About Brett Wilson LLP - Part I - Abusing British Women on Behalf of American Men Who Abuse American Women
Transparency is important to us, so we've decided to make this series
Slopwatch: Google News and the Evident Slopfarm Infestation
This is what people get about Linux when they query Google for Linux
Links 22/09/2025: Murdochs Might Join Fentanylware (TikTok) 'Investors' (Masters), United Kingdom Recognises Palestinian Statehood
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/09/2025: Esperanto Music History and Apps For Android
Links for the day
Links 22/09/2025: More American 'Censorship' (Retaliation for Journalism), Cheeto "Might Be Losing His Race Against Time"
Links for the day
The Blob Slop
Give me more words, give me some text
The 50-Pound Note Experiment and the "War on Cash"
Britain is actually seeing a rebound in cash payments, and it's not a temporary phenomenon
Slopwatch: Blaming the Victims for Microsoft's Failures and Plagiarising Phoronix
That's what Google has been reduced to: slop and slopfarms
Links 22/09/2025: Breaches, Windows TCO, and Arrests
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/09/2025: Rabbit Hole and DeGoogling Fairphone
Links for the day
Links 22/09/2025: Russian War Planes Invade NATO Airspace While Dihydroxyacetone Man Escalates Attack on Free Speech Because of Critics
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, September 21, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, September 21, 2025
Links 21/09/2025: "Hey Hi" (Hype) Under Fire, Fakes Identified; Tesla Burns Family
Links for the day
Google's Software is Malware and Malware in Mobile Devices
Originally posted by Rob Musial
Links 20/09/2025: Hegemony Coming to a Close, Luigi Mangione Ruled Not Terrorist
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/09/2025: "Charlie Kirk Was a Hateful Piece of Shit" and Slop Code Attempted by Microsofter
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, September 20, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, September 20, 2025