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Blocklist-Update.sh

Blocklist-Update.sh is a script that I wrote to manage blocklists from bluetack etc to be used in conjunction with Transmission torrent downloader in Linux/MacOS. The script can be taylored to work with Qbittorrent as well, but the placement of the blocklists means you'd have to redirect the blocklist to go somewhere locally manageable as Transmission uses its own blocklist directory in .config. I believe there are about 10 lists there now. It works well for my needs. It can be ran weekly using crontab in standard user profile.  To download:  blocklist-update.sh To download the others:  Github
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HOW FIREFOX IS BECOMING GOOGLE AND WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT.

Firefox, a browser loved by developers as well as noobs. A popular browser that took us away from the destructive, decline that was Internet Explorer 6. The extension king. Many use Firefox for day to day browsing from all walks of life. It’s served a valuable purpose. One could say it’s not finished serving a purpose either. It shows us what the future will be. One small problem with where Firefox is going though is it’s becoming less private. Recently adding Google Analytics to the Add-ons page, adding ads to the new tab page, and there are already a few questionable additions in the road ahead as well.Another issue, depending upon your needs and hardware, is the bloat of the new U.I. and the increasing crashing. Firefox is going through a metamorphosis right now. Many new technologies are emerging from Mozilla.

Rust is a new technology that is being developed and sponsored by Mozilla to aid in making their flagship browsing engine smoother on memory footprint and it is touted by Mozilla as being “Memory safe.” In other words, it’s supposed to prevent attackers or bugs in the code from taking advantage of your system’s memory usage while running Firefox. Quantum is the next up and coming feature to be heading towards Firefox users in the future. Quantum is the plan for the new rendering engine behind the browser. It is supposed to allow for more compliance with modern web standards and will theoretically rework the aging gecko engine that is in use today. It will work in tandem with various other browser components to allow for safe GPU offloading within the browser.

Servo is a parallel engine for multitasking and can even take HTML and use it as a GUI. This would allow Servo to be used in a stand-a-lone browser project in the future. Servo uses Rust as its language and is said to be a collaborative effort between both Mozilla and Samsung. Servo roughly started circa 2012-13. So all of this seems like a huge leap forward for the tech company, but like with any software, while it is in progress, bugs do arise. What can one do to alleviate the headache of privacy issues and bugs for the foreseeable future? Enter Pale Moon. Pale Moon is a fast, lightweight, code efficient browser based partially on older Mozilla code. Pale Moon has begun using its very own rendering engine that allows for more compliance and easier porting of some of the security fixes found in other browsers such as Firefox. What Pale Moon does differently, the developers fix many issues using their own code. They don’t have to wait around for Mozilla every time something needs fixing.

The browser’s development cycle is also much better than Mozilla’s with some versions being released within about a month compared to Mozilla’s 6 weeks(not counting minor bug fixes). Pale Moon is stable, fast, reliable and it has been around for several years now. It is usable on both Linux and Windows with Mac under development. Pale Moon uses the older style GUI circa Firefox 24. The lead developer of Pale Moon has even been quoted saying, “You know you’re doing something right when most of your time is spent fixing problems in Mozilla code.” Pale Moon is evolving as well, however, it has a long way to go before the new browser replacement could be used. While Firefox is continuing to serve as a reminder of where we used to be and a guide for where we should be going, Firefox still has a lot of work ahead in the near future and so using Pale Moon for more mission critical tasks seems to be a good place to start right now. You can download the browser at:


Some further reading:




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