Basilisk for Slackware Users

cwizardone · 11-26-2021, 05:35 AM

One board member's method of building Basilisk,
https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...ml#post6304395

kjhambrick · 12-04-2021, 08:47 AM

Thanks All'y'All !

Basilisk is a treat !

So far no issues with any of the sites I need for work -and-or- for fun.

I have promoted basilisk-bin ( basilisk-bin-2021.03.17-x86_64-2_SBo ) to my default browser on my new Slackware Current Laptop

Browsing the dub-dub-dub is once again a joy

-- kjh

TheIllusionist · 12-16-2021, 04:05 AM

Here a more detailed description and scripts for building the newly updated Basilisk browser (basilisk-2021.12.14) for 32 and probably also 64bit Slackware.
The build folder must contain:

autoconf-2.13.tar.xz
autoconf-2.13-consolidated_fixes-1.patch.gz
basilisk.desktop
basilisk.info
doinst.sh
slack-desc

all to be "lifted" from Khronosschotty's 2019.09.03 SlackBuild / his basilisk.tar.gz.

Also the 2021.12.14 source published on PaleMoon's website must be present:

basilisk-2021.12.14-source.tar.xz

plus the files:

basiliskrepack.sh
basilisk.SlackBuild

from below.

First repacking the source with ./basiliskrepack.sh and then building with ./basilisk.SlackBuild (as SU) should result in a nice and up to date Basilisk for 32bit.

JayByrd · 12-19-2021, 01:17 PM

It looks like Basilisk may be history, according to this post by Moonchild:

Quote:

...As such, I may be retiring Basilisk and stop development on it altogether, or potentially split it off to do something else with it -- I'm not sure yet. If people are genuinely interested in seeing it continue in its current form, I'll consider someone taking it over, too. Contact me in that case.

cwizardone · 12-19-2021, 02:37 PM

Thanks for the information.
Sorry to see it go (if they do decided to close the project).

cwizardone · 12-19-2021, 07:11 PM

Quote:

Implementation notes:
Despite being removed in 29.4.0 and 29.4.2, the long-since deprecated FUEL abstraction functions inside Pale Moon have been restored again after considerable blowback from the community and lack of effort to fix afflicted extensions. It was decided to just restore this indefinitely in the end, since it serves no-one to have users be forced to do without or stay on insecure versions of the browser for something nobody seems to want to address in the extension ecosystem. A more in-depth announcement about a change in direction tying in with this note can be found on the forum.

https://www.palemoon.org/releasenotes.shtml
The emphasis (bold font) is mine.

After reading the above I have installed PaleMoon-29.4.3 and all my favorite extensions are working as they should.

@JayByrd,
Thanks again for the heads up.

FTIO · 12-20-2021, 12:16 AM

Aw, man...Basilisk is a damn fine browser. Really, really fast compared to any others I use/used...at least starting up it's the fastest. I too would surely hate to see it go by the wayside. <sigh>

I guess I'll see if Palemoon works as I want it to. I'm going to have to start digging for new/obscure/unheard of/high privacy browsers again it seems. Meh

cwizardone · 12-20-2021, 11:38 AM

I have removed Pale Moon and re-installed Basilisk as explained here,
https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...ml#post6311151

kjhambrick · 12-21-2021, 03:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JayByrd

It looks like Basilisk may be history, according to this post by Moonchild:

Dang !

After using Basilisk exclusively for 18 days or so, I've decided it is the best browser for my workflow.

I've looked around on the Pale Moon forum, including A change of direction for Pale Moon in 2022 but I don't see where a non-Pale Moon-Developer could express an opinion that might make any difference.

I will hate to see Basilisk go and I'll stick with it as long as it seems secure.

Who knows ?

After Basilisk is abandoned, maybe it will be time to give Pale Moon another try ...

Thanks for the head's up JayByrd

-- kjh

p.s. Thanks to khronosschoty for the basilisk-bin.SlackBuild.

basilisk-bin runs very well on my Slackware 64 Current + Multilib System, even after updating his basilisk-bin.SlackBuild for the most up-to-date basilisk-latest.linux64.tar.xz blob ( VERSION="52.9" ; BUILD="2021.12.14" )

TheIllusionist · 01-10-2022, 12:23 PM

kgha and JayBird in november discussed JustOff's polyfill.xpi extension mitigating Basilisk's poor handling of GitHub.
Installing the extension into Basilisk directly from GitHub did not succeed on the Basilisk build from source on my system erroring "not compatible with Basilisk 52.9.0".
Circumventing problems with .xpi extensions may from and then, as many know, be possible if editing the content in the extension by renaming it to .zip, unzipping and editing e.g the install.rdf file before zipping and renaming in reverse, and afterwards installing the modified .xpi using "install add-on from file" from the "extensions" drop down list.

In the polyfill.xpi case replace the line in install.rdf:

<em:minVersion>52.9.2021.11.06</em:minVersion>

with

<em:minVersion>52.9.0</em:minVersion>

Probably this problem with JustOff's extension only apply to home-compiled Basilisk's / the date of build, i dunno!

khronosschoty · 01-10-2022, 06:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheIllusionist

kgha and JayBird in november discussed JustOff's polyfill.xpi extension mitigating Basilisk's poor handling of GitHub.
Installing the extension into Basilisk directly from GitHub did not succeed on the Basilisk build from source on my system erroring "not compatible with Basilisk 52.9.0".
Circumventing problems with .xpi extensions may from and then, as many know, be possible if editing the content in the extension by renaming it to .zip, unzipping and editing e.g the install.rdf file before zipping and renaming in reverse, and afterwards installing the modified .xpi using "install add-on from file" from the "extensions" drop down list.

In the polyfill.xpi case replace the line in install.rdf:

<em:minVersion>52.9.2021.11.06</em:minVersion>

with

<em:minVersion>52.9.0</em:minVersion>

Probably this problem with JustOff's extension only apply to home-compiled Basilisk's / the date of build, i dunno!

or you could change it to something like <em:minVersion>52.9.*</em:minVersion>

cwizardone · 01-29-2022, 01:11 PM

The End.
The release notes explain it.

Quote:

v2022.01.27 Published 2022-01-27
This is a security update.
Important: This is the final public release of Basilisk from the original developer. As such, it comes without an internal updater and will not check for future updates to the application.
To remain updated and secure, it is recommended at this point that you look for a different web browser like Pale Moon to continue browsing in a safe and secure manner.
Be mindful of hacks: There are currently no people eligible to continue Basilisk as a product under the Basilisk name. If you see any future updates claiming/pretending to be official Basilisk or an official continuation, they are most likely scams and should not be trusted with your browsing.

Improved application library loading security. DiD
Fixed an issue in JavaScript serialization. DiD
Fixed a potential out-of-bounds issue in IndexedDB. DiD
Fixed a potential issue in widget data handling code. DiD
Fixed potentially exploitable crashes in handling truncated/corrupt media files or streams.
Fixed an issue in the DOM FileReader code.
Updated NSS to 3.52.3 to address a security issue.
Updated the installer to fix a rights elevation issue.
Fixed the following security issues: CVE-2022-22736, CVE-2022-22741, CVE-2021-4140, CVE-2022-22746, CVE-2022-22744 and CVE-2022-22747.

https://www.basilisk-browser.org/releasenotes.shtml

kgha · 01-29-2022, 01:20 PM

A pity.
Apparently Mr. Moonchild has offered to leave Basilisk to some other to maintain (for a fee), but he's a bit particular about who might be deserving such an honour, see
https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=27722

FTIO · 01-29-2022, 02:39 PM

I'm pretty bummed about it. It's fast, it's private, it's non-intrusive, it's all the good stuff. <sigh>...I guess after a while I'll have to flip a coin or draw from a hat whether to use PaleMoon, Firefox, or Konqueror (back in the KDE 3 days I *loved* Konqueror for my web browser, then it got so bloated during KDE 4 that I hated it. Hopefully in Plasma it'll kick ass again).

kgha · 01-30-2022, 12:18 PM

Hmmm... latest (and last) basilisk version won't render github pages properly anymore, dropped compatibility with the polyfill extension mentioned here: https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...6/#post6301150