Chocolatey support

[Templayer]

First off - thank you so very much for catering to those of us who outright refuse to downgrade from Windows 7!

Second - could I humbly request a Chocolatey support for this browser? I.e. making and publishing packages for that specific package manager. As it is a package manager for Win7 that doesn't seem to want to end Win7 support, unlike almost everything this year, it seems. :)

[Alex313031]

@Templayer I KNOW RIGHT. It is because the end of ESU updates. Same thing happened with XP. Mainstream support ended in 2014, ESU support ended in 2019. Most programs started dropping XP support in 2018/2019 (with the exception of browsers, which ended support in 2016/2017)

I have barely used choclatey, and don't know how to go about making a package and publishing it. If you can give me some guidance or send some links, I can try to work it out.

XP, Win7, and Win10 are the best windows versions. But I prefer 7 because win10 is bloated and spyware, and XP is lacking some modern features and most programs dont run on it anymore. I use linux mostly, but when I want to use windows, I use 7, and only use 10 for some development things and games that specifically require it.

[Templayer]

@Templayer I KNOW RIGHT. It is because the end of ESU updates. Same thing happened with XP. Mainstream support ended in 2014, ESU support ended in 2019. Most programs started dropping XP support in 2018/2019 (with the exception of browsers, which ended support in 2016/2017)

I have barely used choclatey, and don't know how to go about making a package and publishing it. If you can give me some guidance or send some links, I can try to work it out.

XP, Win7, and Win10 are the best windows versions. But I prefer 7 because win10 is bloated and spyware, and XP is lacking some modern features and most programs dont run on it anymore. I use linux mostly, but when I want to use windows, I use 7, and only use 10 for some development things and games that specifically require it.

Thankfully, Windows XP (which I have also on my main gaming rig as a secondary system (natively) for retro gaming; and on my travelling laptop that's ancient, but can play 1080p videos just fine, so if somebody steals it, I won't have to care! :D ) has New Moon / Serpent, MyPal (the new Quantum version is "almost" useable!), K-meleon, Arctic Fox, Centaury, BNavigator and Iceape UXP as the Goanna-based browsers; Cốc Cốc XP, Otter and Kafan Mini as the WebKit/Blink-based ones for accessing modern websites.

I hope you will do for Win7 what these did for WinXP.

Otherwise, I'm using Win7 as my main operating system on my main desktop computer, and Linux Mint on my work laptop (three years! About 150GB of installed applications! :D ) - I'm planning to triple boot Mint for my main later.

(I hope my company doesn't mind, those are just common string modification methods...)

I'm only using Chocolatey, never tried making a package... let me google you something.

Basics are here: https://docs.chocolatey.org/en-us/getting-started

An in-depth tutorial for making a new Chocolatey package is here: https://docs.chocolatey.org/en-us/create/create-packages

Also, be aware that there is a bug for Win7 right now - if a source repository that holds the package (for example for downloading exe files) doesn't allow TLS 1.2, but only TLS 1.3, then it won't be useable on Win7. Chocolatey uses powershell, and powershell uses system encryption libraries. Win7 doesn't have a native TLS 1.3 support, only 1.2. I.e. if you want to make a Win7 package, you shouldn't host its files on a webpage that dropped TLS 1.2 support (like GitHub, it seems!)

[ltguillaume]

Personally, I don't like Chocolatey one bit, because it requires a lot of work from maintainers, causing packages to fall behind, the documentation is confusing and I've seen people mess up the package, causing extra work (giving support) for the original developer.

Scoop.sh should still work fine on Win7, you just need to have PowerShell 5.1 of later installed. It requires so much less maintenance to keep it up-to-date (can be fully automated).

That being said, https://codeberg.org/ltguillaume/thorium-winupdater should be fine on Windows 7 as soon as I get a way to determine which build (AVX2/AVX/SSE3/WIN32) is currently used.

[Templayer]

Personally, I don't like Chocolatey one bit, because it requires a lot of work from maintainers, causing packages to fall behind, the documentation is confusing and I've seen people mess up the package, causing extra work (giving support) for the original developer.

Scoop.sh should still work fine on Win7, you just need to have PowerShell 5.1 of later installed. It requires so much less maintenance to keep it up-to-date (can be fully automated).

That being said, https://codeberg.org/ltguillaume/thorium-winupdater should be fine on Windows 7 as soon as I get a way to determine which build (AVX2/AVX/SSE3/WIN32) is currently used.

The thing is - I am not looking for an auto-updater or something that would keep notifying me when I don't want it to, etc.

My current set-up is that I have Chocolatey run at startup. When logging in after restarting (roughly once per month, that is), I'll check out if there are updates, update, and close.

I won't be able to remember to run something, yet at the same time, I don't want to be constantly nabbed about it, or have it run in the background while I am trying to do other tasks.

But, of course, I cannot force you.

Also, I have VERY BAD experience with LibreWolf's WinUpdater. It breaks constantly. Instead of updating the browser, I kept on having to manually download and update the WinUpdater instead, i.e. it does the exact opposite of what it is supposed to be doing (as it is pretty much incapable of updating itself). Eventually (after a year of using it with LibreWolf), I just removed it and started using LibreWolf from Chocolatey on my Win7, and Winget on my Win10 work laptop (where that is the default browser).

[ltguillaume]

• Totally agree that that period (way back) when stuff kept changing at LibreWolf and WinUpdater didn't work a couple of times was pretty annoying. I always had to find out after the fact. But WinUpdater has been able to update itself if needed for quite some time now, so if the LibreWolf developers change stuff again (and they'll keep on doing that 😉, you know, for progress!) the user won't have to do anything.
• There's a big difference between Thorium and LibreWolf (installed): Thorium's installer doesn't need administrator privileges, so that makes the process a lot easier to begin with.
• If you only update a browser once a month, then you do take a risk with severe security leaks, just hoping you're taking this into account 🙂

[Templayer]

• Totally agree that that period (way back) when stuff kept changing at LibreWolf and WinUpdater didn't work a couple of times was pretty annoying. I always had to find out after the fact. But WinUpdater has been able to update itself if needed for quite some time now, so if the LibreWolf developers change stuff again (and they'll keep on doing that 😉, you know, for progress!) the user won't have to do anything.

  • There's a big difference between Thorium and LibreWolf (installed): Thorium's installer doesn't need administrator privileges, so that makes the process a lot easier to begin with.

Not even a month ago the WinUpdater broke and caused infinite loops. That stole focus every few milliseconds just to return it back. Rendering the system pretty much unusable. That was the point where I decided to get myself rid of it once and for all.

* If you only update a browser once a month, then you do take a risk with severe security leaks, just hoping you're taking this into account 🙂

Because we always have to have the newest version of everything due to security.
You know you are talking to a guy that browses the internet via a non-virtualized instance of Windows XP 32-bit, right?

[ltguillaume]

Not even a month ago the WinUpdater broke and caused infinite loops. That stole focus every few milliseconds just to return it back. Rendering the system pretty much unusable. That was the point where I decided to get myself rid of it once and for all.

Ah, you probably have User Account Control completely disabled then? (ltguillaume/librewolf-winupdater#23)

Yeah that sucked, truly sorry about that. I needed to unelevate in order to add the scheduled task to the active user (and for the LibreWolf installer, which runs everything elevated), but you can't unelevate if you disable User Account Control completely, after which admin users will always run every single application with administrator privileges.

Someone else reported it, though, and we fixed it with a new release within 24 hours.

* If you only update a browser once a month, then you do take a risk with severe security leaks, just hoping you're taking this into account 🙂

Because we always have to have the newest version of everything due to security. You know you are talking to a guy that browses the internet via a non-virtualized instance of Windows XP 32-bit, right?

Point taken.

[Templayer]

Not even a month ago the WinUpdater broke and caused infinite loops. That stole focus every few milliseconds just to return it back. Rendering the system pretty much unusable. That was the point where I decided to get myself rid of it once and for all.

Ah, you probably have User Account Control completely disabled then? (ltguillaume/librewolf-winupdater#23)

Yeah that sucked, truly sorry about that. I needed to unelevate in order to add the scheduled task to the active user (and for the LibreWolf installer, which runs everything elevated), but you can't unelevate if you disable User Account Control completely, after which admin users will always run every single application with administrator privileges.

Someone else reported it, though, and we fixed it with a new release within 24 hours.

Yup. Burned my hands one too many times on WinUpdater. I'm not touching that again.

[Alex313031]

@ltguillaume @Templayer Yeah I looked into it and ran into issues trying to make a chocolatey package. Im sorry but it is probably not something I am going to do.

We're still trying to get the thorium-winupdater working.

[Templayer]

@ltguillaume @Templayer Yeah I looked into it and ran into issues trying to make a chocolatey package. Im sorry but it is probably not something I am going to do.

We're still trying to get the thorium-winupdater working.

😔

[ltguillaume]

WinUpdater already works in its current form and I can release the version that allows updating all different builds as soon as the thor_ver files get updated 😃

[Templayer]

WinUpdater already works in its current form and I can release the version that allows updating all different builds as soon as the thor_ver files get updated 😃

WinUpdater burned my hands one too many times, I'm afraid. I'd rather update manually than having to use it.

[lethinhrider]

I'm still hoping someone makes a chocolatey repo for thorium windows 7 because that will also help windows 8.1 users update thorium. So I will give some tools if anyone wants to install chocolatey latest version on windows 7:

• A lot of things including the windows 7 update 2018 iso file are listed by the author of Thorium browser here: https://thorium.rocks/win7
• If you need the older iso file for testing, it is also listed by the author of Microsoft Activation Script here: https://massgrave.dev/windows_7_links.html
• NET Framework 4.8: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/microsoft-net-framework-4-8-offline-installer-for-windows-9d23f658-3b97-68ab-d013-aa3c3e7495e0
• PowerShell 3.0: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=34595
• The reg file enables TLS 1.2 for windows 7, which gives chocolatey a stable connection, save the content below as a .reg file and run it:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SecurityProviders\SCHANNEL\Protocols\TLS 1.2\Client]
"DisabledByDefault"=dword:00000000
"Enabled"=dword:00000001

[ltguillaume]

Chocolatey is pretty awful for package maintainers imho. I've been diving into their documentation some time ago and it is or at least was a mess.

I heard yesterday that Thorium is already available on Scoop, why not use that?

That being said, I wish I didn't create WinUpdater for Thorium: with the very real zeroday threats of late, Thorium's lack of updates simply makes it too hard to justify its use imho. I started looking into Thorium for the sole reason of still being able to provide a browser to some people that still allowed Google's syncing, while having a somewhat increased privacy stance and the absence of the other telemetry tools automatically installed by Google. But a lack of proper security updates purely for syncing passwords to their Android device is ridiculous. On modern systems (W10+), I'd much rather prefer them to choose Brave in that case (which could also be set up to sync in a private way). (ltguillaume/thorium-winupdater#5 (comment))

[Templayer]

* A lot of things including the windows 7 update 2018 iso file are listed by the author of Thorium browser here: https://thorium.rocks/win7

Win7 compatibility tables ought to be useful as well.

https://www.reddit.com/r/windows7/comments/17tzd7p/windows_7_compatibility_tables/

[Templayer]

Scoop

Lack of a proper Win7-compatible detailed GUI, unlike Chocolatey.

But if https://github.com/OzakIOne/scoop-gui (or such) ever gets finished, then that indeed might be a proper alternative.

[ltguillaume]

That's personal taste, I don't really know what a GUI would add, but I get your point. The application search on https://scoop.sh is working great and allows you to easily copy and paste the command needed to install an application. Before that, it was a lot more annoying, I agree.

As for easy updating, I just pin a shortcut to the following in people's Start menu:

cmd.exe /k scoop update && scoop update * && scoop cleanup * && scoop cache rm * && pause && exit

[Templayer]

On modern systems (W10+), I'd much rather prefer them to choose Brave in that case

Yeah, I'm using Brave in Linux Mint too. But this repository is about Win7, not Win10.

By the way, I have been browsing the internet under a native WinXP 32-bit for... 21 years now.

Unless the PC is specifically targetted, its security is manageable.

New Moon and Serpent are decent, and the new MyPal is great.

People who rely on the browser and the operating system to handle security for them usually end up reinstalling their operating system constantly.

[Templayer]

That's personal taste, I don't really know what a GUI would add, but I get your point. The application search on https://scoop.sh is working great and allows you to easily copy and paste the command needed to install an application. Before that, it was a lot more annoying, I agree.

As for easy updating, I just pin a shortcut to the following in people's Start menu:

cmd.exe /k scoop update && scoop update * && scoop cleanup * && scoop cache rm * && pause && exit

At work, I'm using Linux Mint with the CinnamonGUI where if there was a terminal-only application, I made a GUI for it myself. I have been doing that for over three years and I have about 150 GB of installed applications there.

If I refuse to use day-to-day applications via a terminal in Linux, then you can guess how willing am I to use day-to-day commandline applications under Windows.

This reminds me - I have things to update!

[lethinhrider]

I heard yesterday that Thorium is already available on Scoop, why not use that?

Bro, this is thorium repository for windows 7 and Scoop doesn't support windows 7.

[lethinhrider]

Btw, Hapnan added the chocolatey repository for thorium windows 10. But he doesn't have a windows 7 machine to test for maintenance, so if anyone can, please ask him how to do it.
Alex313031/Thorium-Win#85 (comment)