Serpent Web Browser

ClippyBeer said:
XP users' choice of web browsers that work properly with modern websites and receive semi-regular updates were very limited - Mostly a few Mozilla forks (New Moon, My Pal, Centaury). There is another little-known Mozilla fork - Serpent. It is an XP fork of Basilisk which is in itself a fork of Firefox. If you are currently using Pale Moon for XP (AKA New Moon) then you are already familiar with Roytam's work - He currently maintains New Moon, Serpent, KM-Goanna and a few others. SNIP
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Hi ClippyBeer,
I was hoping to try out the Serpent Web Browser as suggested by you but am having trouble downloading the installer.
Reading through the thread, there appear to be 2 download links:
https://rtfreesoft.blogspot.com/
https://o.rths.ml/basilisk/basilisk52-g4.6.win32-git-20200815-57e81f0-uxp-d3383327a-xpmod.7z
http://o.rths.ml/basilisk/basilisk55-win32-git-20190511-89eeeb225-xpmod.7z
When I download these approximately 41.5-43.0 MB .7z files and try to open them in 7-Zip, there is a message 'Destination folder already contains processed file - Would you like to replace the existing file?". Clicking yes just gives a newly created empty folder.
What am I doing wrong?
Can you or anyone else give any help on how to get the installer?
Thanks in advance.
 
Ok. Found the problem. My old version of 7-Zip (4.57 32bit) couldn't open it, for whatever reason.
Trying to open it on a Win 7 machine with a later version of 7-Zip (16.02 x64) worked ok.
While I'm here, I currently have Firefox 52.9.0 ESR installed.
Can I install Serpent with Firefox 52.9.0 ESR still installed or will it cause problems and it's best to remove it first?
Thanks in advance.
 
You can leave Firefox installed, both can be used simultaneously. The only issue is when you first run Serpent it will ask you to make it your default browser. You can simply click 'Not now' and uncheck the 'Always perform this check when starting Serpent' box.
 
How do I get updates for Serpent. Does it update the already installed browser or do I have to uninstall the current browser and install the latest one?

BTW when I click on 'Help' in the menu bar >About Serpent>What's New, this web page opens:
https://www.basilisk-browser.org/requirements.shtml
Under 'Requirements' it says that XP is not supported! Anything known about this?
 
Last edited:
Janice said:
How do I get updates for Serpent. Does it update the already installed browser or do I have to uninstall the current browser and install the latest one?
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As far as I know none of Roytam's XP browsers do auto updates, they have to be done manually. You should be able to just extract the new browser files over the old ones.

http://rtfreesoft.blogspot.com/search/label/browser

Janice said:
BTW when I click on 'Help' in the menu bar >About Serpent>What's New, this web page opens:
https://www.basilisk-browser.org/requirements.shtml
Under 'Requirements' it says that XP is not supported! Anything known about this?
Click to expand...
Serpent is actually a fork of Basilisk which doesn't support XP - it appears as though when Roytam compiled Serpent for XP he forgot to remove the references to the Basilisk project homepage (maybe he fixed that in recent versions)
 
ClippyBeer said:
As far as I know none of Roytam's XP browsers do auto updates, they have to be done manually. You should be able to just extract the new browser files over the old ones.
Click to expand...
I need help here. After downloading what do I do to "extract the new browser files over the old ones"?
 
Hi Clippy Beer

BBC has stopped supporting Flash from 2021, fair enough. Serpent still works, it plays all the BBC clips with no problems. However, Firefox and Mypal both refuse to play these BBC clips. When I right click on them, it appears they are HTML clips. For some reason, Firefox and Mypal still think these clips are Flash.

I was wondering whether you have any idea what is going on ? Or can anyone try if they can play these BBC video clips in these three browsers ? Serpent is working fine.

Try the video clip at
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55952108
 
ClippyBeer said:
You can simply remove all references to the OS:

Code: 
Mozilla/5.0 (rv:69.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/69.0

After changing it try it here:

https://www.whatismybrowser.com/detect/what-operating-system-do-i-have

Again, user agent spoofing will be of little use to websites that use browser fingerprinting to identify your browser/OS.

Here is a good read on how browser fingerprinting works:

https://pixelprivacy.com/resources/browser-fingerprinting/
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The User Agent dodge seems to no longer work on Firefox Add ons site . I changed my User Agent to Firefox 84.0 but Firefox Add Ons shows 52.9.
 
xphelper said:
Hi Mark662, I have just tested it on Firefox, it has worked for me. I add
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; rv:84.0.2) Firefox/84.0.2
for
general.useragent.override

then tried both links
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/fi....org&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=featured

and
https://www.whatismybrowser.com/detect/what-operating-system-do-i-have

You might want to try again.
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I tried the string you listed. It still shows Firefox 52.9 on the add Firefox ons site and Firefox 84 and Windows 10 on https://www.whatismybrowser.com/. I am using Serpent browser from here http://rtfreesoft.blogspot.com/

Not sure if you are using an old version of Firefox to test it on, but the this thread is for Serpent. Maybe there is something specific on my system.
Mark
 
Yes, my previous test result was from Firefox version 52.90. I thought your previous message meant Firefox.

Just now I tested it on Serpent 2019.10.25 and whatismybrowser does show as Windows 10 but that firefox addon link does complain it as 52.90 (I think it depends on which addon?). I use Serpent, mypal and Firefox frequently. However, I didn't use the firefox addons for Serpent so didn't know about the problem. I use the addons from palemoon or
https://addons.basilisk-browser.org/addon/adblock-latitude/

However, when I visited
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/adblock-plus/
It didn't complain it wasn't Windows 10
Can you try the above link ? If you still have whatismybrowser as 52.90, maybe worth you checking if there is any typo in about:config I mean the useragent.

PS I use Serpent because it's the only one that can play the video clips at the BBC site. I still have no idea why.
 
Adblock Plus using your link shows that it will install, although I didn't as I use uBlock Origin and is a good alternative. Whatismybrowser shows Firefox 84 and Windows 10 as previously stated. It appears that certain Firefox add ons will no longer install. I've got most add ons I need using the Classic Archive on Github https://github.com/JustOff/ca-archive/releases and the Basilisk page as you mention.
 
I've been using Serpent V.2019.12.06 (32 bit) on WinXP (32 bit) for some time now. Every so often I need to "update" the UserAgent setting to allow login to my bank as they make security changes, but this is recently no longer a "fix".

The bank redirects me to a page that states I am currently running FireFox V.87, and the minimum requirement for them is V.84, so I must upgrade my browser. (hmmmm).

So I thought I might try updating Serpent to the latest version that will run on my OS. I just downloaded basilisk-20201125140449.win32.7z, but after extracting the contents I cannot run the basilisk.exe..... (not a valid Win32 application).

Can anyone let me know which file is the most recent, or suggest some other strategy to solve my banking login issue?

Thanks
 
I'm running the portable Serpent version 2019.10.25 (32-bit), and did run into problems with one bank which allows me to login but it keeps spinning if I try to go beyond the home screen. I still use it to view balance. If I have to transfer or pay I have no choice but to use a spare browser Google Chrome Version 49.0.2623.75, not perfect but at least it functions ok.

I also have a Windows10 machine I have as a back up, in case the Chrome suddenly stops working as well. As it's not under our control what the banks do. Though so far I have no problems with it. The banks should have tested functionalities to be backward compatible but they won't. Just have to grin and bear it.

Hope the above info helps.
 
I'm facing the same scenario but with a different OS now. I can boot into Linux Mint and use Firefox V85 to conduct my banking, but then I have to boot back into XP to update my other software regarding the transactions.... a slight pain.
 
Having to use workarounds is a pain indeed. The financial institutions are getting so many frauds every years that they don't know how to stop them, so they keep changing and adding stuff to make things more difficult for the legit customers. Now they rely so heavily on Google apps and mobile phones which make customers even more vulnerable especially the ones who are less tech savvy than the fraudsters. The more convoluted their systems are the more loopholes the fraudsters can exploit. The financial institutions really need to go back to basics. But of course they won't. We just have to work around their antics.

XP Pro SP3 is still by far the best (most practical). The reluctance of institutions making browsers backward compatible is the only pain we have to grin and bear. So far, my workaround is to open Chrome Version 49.0.2623.75 for that particular task and clear cache quit.

I have a spare machine that runs Windows 10 which I only use for testing. It might come in handy in case some day the financial institutions decide to do something worse. The worst case scenario is to use Windows 10 on a dedicated machine to perform that task, I can live with that. In general, Windows10 is better for online entertainment.

Hopefully, someone at this forum can someday discover a better solution.
 
xphelper said:
The financial institutions really need to go back to basics. But of course they won't.
Click to expand...
We don't have to wait for them to--we can do it ourselves. Just say no to online banking in any form, period. Your money is safe because there is no login to steal. And make sure there's no other automated access--telephone etc. Standard debit cards, etc, should be safe since there's already a level of protection with them, but if you want extreme protection, don't even have that.
 
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