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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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A FEW BIG CHANGES COMING TO PALE MOON AND SOME OF WHAT I HAVE BEEN DOING

Pale Moon has recently released a new version 27.7. In this new version, many big changes have begun to take place in the browser. Mainly security and cosmetic related, however, there are a few important ones I wish to touch on today. As always, the Release Notes page has more information. Pale Moon recently changed how it handles auto-fill information. By default, the previous versions of the browser automatically allowed auto-filling important forms and logins within the browser. Now Pale Moon no longer does this, but it allows the user to change this directly from the interface in preferences under the security tab. Auto-filling is a growing privacy concern within browsers lately. In Firefox and Chromium-based browsers, we are seeing sites stealing information this way. This is a privacy fix.

Pale Moon also made a security feature freshly available in the browser’s back end for users who know what they are doing. This setting allows users to change how Pale Moon handles site visibility. In other words, this effects the sites ability to know when a user is viewing its content directly in the browser. This is a new privacy feature, like canvas poisoning, it too is in the back of the browser and I will probably add a follow up later explaining that more in depth. Other changes include changing the name of restart with extensions disabled to restart in safe-mode just like within Firefox. Pale Moon developers also updated the SQLite library and improved on their web audio API. They added Javascript ES6 unscopables and fixed a few crashes as well. In the security side, they also changed the performance timer settings to better protect against spectre and this was considered a DiD or Defense in Depth security fix, this means that it’s not considered an active attack vector, however, in the future, it will prevent it from becoming one. Removed the option in privacy to ask every time in regards to cookies. Now if a user wishes to have this functionality, they are encouraged to seek out an extension that gives them that ability.

Pale Moon is expecting to make further changes in the future which will remove the ability to automatically install and update legacy extensions. Legacy extensions are those extensions which are no longer supported and are no longer used in Firefox. As much of Pale Moon is distantly based on Firefox, this won’t be an immediate problem, however, it will cause users to have to take an extra step or two to make legacy extensions work in Pale Moon browser. I would recommend users to start looking into Pale Moon’s own extensions seriously. They are increasing gradually in number and they work almost if not more efficiently than Firefox legacy extensions. Overall, this is a major update and users are encouraged to update as soon as it is possible for them to do so. Basilisk is also an up and coming browser under heavy development right now. It is by the same team of developers who work on Pale Moon. It is supposed to be the up and coming Pale Moon replacement or at least the new Pale Moon which will still handle XUL and XPCOM components of the browser. These components are no longer used in Firefox so we will have to see how that goes. It is a good idea to stick with what works right now, but if you happen to have the time and want to help, Basilisk is a free download. Links will be below.

Furthermore, changes have been taking place on my end as well. I have recently updated the zip package copy of my scripts on github and have even been working on consolidating them in to fewer scripts altogether. I hope by the end of the year to have Manjaro scripts to all be one file and to work with both Manjaro and Antergos or other arch-based systems. I also hope to compile the Ubuntu-based scripts together as well. More testing will be needed, much more work ahead as well. Still retraining myself in programming and I do hope to still be working on my own website to host these scripts and more in the future, but for now, I’m troubleshooting network issues at home tonight. We’ve recently hit some cold and icy weather lately and hopefully it’s nothing serious. Anyway, catch you soon!

Some links of interest:




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