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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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QUPZILLA: MY THOUGHTS ON THE BROWSER

Qupzilla, a browser started and maintained by one man, David Rosca(nowrep), is a C++ Qt toolkit based browser for Linux, Mac, and Windows. This browser is very light and fast. It loads in mere seconds on my machine and it is considered low-end. Qupzilla started as a learning project, a project to show David that he could create a stable, usable browser for himself. The browser was first released in 2010 and written in Python, but after a few versions, it was rewritten in C++ to better adhere to web standards and to take advantage of Microsoft C++ compiler. Qupzilla has all the features you’d expect in a modern browser, it has tabs, history, bookmarks, even a built in, on by default, adblocker. The adblocker defaults to only using the Easy List, but more can be added. Qupzilla is at 2.2.2 version number with QT 5.10 of the QtWebEngine, on most systems, mine currently still uses 5.9.3 in Manjaro.

Qupzilla is perfect for notebooks with a feasible amount of memory and weaker cpu and graphics. It also works on older desktops. Unfortunately, in my tests, the memory footprint appears rather high for the browser, but I chalk that up to the web engine mostly. I try to remember that this is a lighter version of a Qt browser that tries to mimick Chromium on the engine in many ways. Be that as it may, the browser itself still adheres to its own code. It is still its own browsing solution and a very good one. Qupzilla integrates nicely with most desktops, it has a few built in themes written by the creator himself, but otherwise, the default looks good here in Manjaro xfce. The Gentoo-based Linux distribution Redcore features Qupzilla as a default browser choice.

Qupzilla used to use Qtwebkit to render pages, during this time it worked well with most sites, however, not all of them. It did have issues with some youtube standards at the time at least during the 1.6 -2.0 series. Now the browser has come of age and nearly all sites work with it. It seems to register as chrome for me, at least on my blogger account stats. I chalk that up to the user agent but also to the engine, it was modeled somewhat after Blink. I mentioned it being modeled after Blink, but remember that his is not a Blink browser, this is a QT based browser and it has no phone-homes to Google whatsoever. It does not steal your data, nor does it send it to some server somewhere in bumscrew Ohio. It is maintained and developed by David and anyone volunteering to help, it is a community project basically.

Qupzilla has a place in all platforms, I mentioned three, but it also runs on alternative operating systems as well. Among these is Haiku. Haiku is a dream OS to me, it’s still an alpha build project, but it is a highly open sourced project. It uses altertantives, I believe an older version of Firefox kinda works in it now, but mostly open sourced alternatives are used. Among them Qupzilla has a place as it was using Qtwebkit, it was one of the webkit based offers. It is even offered as a portable browser in Windows systems.

To get Qupzilla, you can go to the Download page of its home website:
but most Linux based distros have it in their repositories. However, these versions may not always be up to date. To get the most up to date version, you may have to revert to the github page to find other means. The project was renamed to Falkon ahead of the release of version 3.0 which is part of KDE now. Overall, this is a stable, user-friendly and beautiful release. It is a powerfult browser for such a small one. I would recommend this to anyone with weak computers, old computers, slow computers, or otherwise, who are tired of Google dominating the browser market. It’s just as fast as Google if not faster. Keep in mind, there are still some bugs, but these are quickly and steadily becoming a thing of the past for Qupzilla. If you ever need help or feel that you’ve found one of these bugs, just let David know on his github page:

Update: Just a couple of screenshots of the browser's interface in action. 



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