r3dfox, modern Firefox for Windows 7!

I missed the notification email for this, so my response is a bit late.

RoWin7 said:

I haven't been here in a while.I've installed r3dfox, but it has no resemblance to my Waterfox, which is very outdated, but still runs XUL. Can I copy over my Waterfox profile?

I assume you mean Waterfox Classic. It might work, but that is such a big gap that I'd rather manually transfer everything over so there's not any weird bugs.

RoWin7 said:

Where do I put my bookmark bar?

I'm not entirely sure what you mean? It just goes below the address bar. It can only be there unless you install a theme of some sort.

RoWin7 said:

How do I get those apps off my homepage? I don't use any of those sites except Youtube, which I access from a bookmark.. My home page should be aldaily.com.

I disable that page on my browsers, but iirc you should be able to right click the site and delete. If not, hovering should show three dots or some sort of indicator in the corner, which from there you can delete it from the page.

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siliconbeaver said:

I am sticking with FF ESR.
tried supermium, r3dfox. The pink version looked weird to me.

You can disable the colors and revert to the stock UI by disabling a few settings. Use r3dfox theme styles, Backgrounds for tabs and other toolbar items, and Use r3dfox colors.

RoWin7 said:

RE: r3d:
I want my homepage to be aldaily.com.
And I don't use Google, but Duckduckgo.
I have 1400 bookmarks in Waterfox, and I copied them into the profile, but they're not showing up
Ditto the passwords aren't coming up.

r3dfox is managing settings exactly the same way that Firefox/Mozilla does, so yours isn't strictly a r3dfox issue. It sounds like you're unfamiliar with how Firefox does things.

re: homepage . . .
Open aldaily.com in a tab, and close all other tabs. Got to Settings->Home, and under "New Windows and Tabs" click "Use Current Page".

re: default search engine . . .
Go to Settings->Search, and under "Default Search Engine" click "Google" and from the drop-down menu select "DuckDuckGo".

re: bookmarks . . .
How did you transfer bookmarks?

1. Easy way is to launch Waterfox, open "Manage Bookmarks", "Import and Backup", and "Backup". That will create a .json file, which you can put on your desktop for easy access. Close Waterfox, launch r3dfox, open "Manage Bookmarks", "Import and Backup", and "Restore". Navigate to the .json file on your desktop, and it will replace all r3dfox bookmarks with those from the Waterfox backup, in exactly the same places and folder structure as you're used to. (Warning: this will replace everything in r3dfox, so if you have anything you want saved that's only in r3dfox, temporarily save those some other way.)

2. Less convenient is to use "Manage Bookmarks", "Import and Backup", "Export Bookmarks to HTML" and on the other browser "Import Bookmarks from HTML". If you transfer bookmarks that way, Mozilla does not replace anything already in r3dfox and buries the imports deeper down the menu structure. Open "Manage Bookmarks" on r3dfox and scan all the subfolders. You should find them somewhere in there, and you'll have to move them to where you want so they're more easily accessible. Again, not recommended, use Method 1.

3. Another way is to create a Mozilla account (very top option in the drop down menu if you click the 3-bar icon in the upper-right corner of the browser). Once created, you have the option of what to sync with the Mozilla cloud -- bookmarks, passwords, history, extensions, et al. Do that in both Waterfox and r3dfox, and both browsers will be automatically synced for you -- and kept in sync as you continue to use multiple browsers in the future.

re: passwords . . .
Syncing a Mozilla account should work for that, too, but other than that I don't know more. Instead, I recommend using a real, dedicated password manager such as Bitwarden Free, and discourage people from storing passwords in the browser.

RoWin7 said:

I used Firefox for many years, [...] and settings were accessed from "Tools" in the Menu bar, not hidden away.

Settings are still accessible from "Tools" in the Menu bar. Have you enabled the Menu Bar in the r3dfox interface? (Right-click the top of the browser window and tick the "Menu Bar" option.)

I need 2 rows for my bookmark folders. Is there an extension for that?
[...]
Where are the extensions for r3d?

Did you have a 2-row extension for your bookmarks toolbar before? If so, the same extension should work for r3dfox.

r3dfox is a Firefox fork, so uses the same extensions as Firefox. Click the 3-bar hamburger menu (or if your Menu Bar is enabled, click "Tools") and select "Add-ons and Themes". From there, click "Extensions" and you'll find a box at the top to search the Firefox library. Or just go to "addons.mozilla.org" yourself.

Mozilla has started spying on us, and I don't want a Mozilla account.

That's a valid concern for some people, so they should not use a Mozilla acct. I mentioned it because it is one way to sync your bookmarks and more from an old browser. Of course, one could always create an acct and after syncing everything log out from the Mozilla acct (and optionally delete it), but since there are other ways to move bookmarks there's no need to even create a Mozilla acct in the first place if you don't want.

I switched to Waterfox some years ago, but my version is getting outdated and some sites don't render properly. I open those few sites in Chrome, but the Chrome that's compatible with Win 7 is also getting buggy.

That's precisely the use case for forks like r3dfox (in lieu of Firefox/Waterfox) and Supermium (in lieu of Chrome). The core browsers are still being developed for later Windows versions, so the forks developers are back-porting those to keep them current for Win7 users when the core developers won't.

I had Bitwarden for some years, and it stopped working with Win 7. I had a long correspondence with the Bitwarden team, and they said they can't guarantee it will work on 7 anymore. I tried several other managers years ago, but they were all buggy. I reluctantly switched to PW's in my browser.

The standalone Bitwarden app for Win 7 has indeed been deprecated, but the Bitwarden browser extension still works perfectly fine with Win 7 browsers. I'm sure you can't have any objection to using the browser extension because you're basically doing the same thing by using the browser's password manager.

Bitwarden is preferable to using the browser's pswd mgr because it's cross-browser, it's cross-platform, it's developed by people whose primary business is keeping secrets (versus a browser developer, where the pswd mgr is a tangential activity), and it's kept up to date with the latest pswd methodologies.

It was only around 2 weeks ago that I first heard of r3dfox in another thread in these forums and the interest has remained with me. I only have and use Win7 computers and have been a long time user of Firefox, currently using version 115.20.0 ESR. I do intend to remain with Firefox but would like to create the situation where I could try out and familiarize myself with r3dfox.

I have actually managed to download it onto a USB drive to experiment with it from there but that does not work as it attempts to install into my Hard Drive (C:). What I would like to do is get it to work from the USB drive and it looks like I would need to make the USB drive bootable, which I have never done.

I would appreciate any help in achieving that aim and first of all what would be the ideal size of USB drive to use? I have seen mention of using "Diskpart" as a means of doing it manually and also a program called "Rufus" which might be easier.

Could anyone provide simple instructions on how to use either of those options.

r3dfox, owner is K4sum1.
its install, its run, it settings and its looking like after install, are very similar to FF. except its pink color (it can be adjusted per K4sum1)

you shouldn't see any significant differences. and if you don't like it, it's easy to remove it.

presently, I'm using FF ESR. but as mentioned, it's an option once FF ESR unavailable or no update/support any longer. Otherwise, browser user may have to run VxKex and Chromium patch, which are more technical and more buggy.

It's NOT an OS. no need of "Diskpart" "Rufus" or USB drive.

dblack said:

[...] would like to create the situation where I could try out and familiarize myself with r3dfox.
I have actually managed to download it onto a USB drive to experiment with it from there but that does not work as it attempts to install into my Hard Drive (C:).

For testing purposes, just use the portable version. No install or uninstall required, just unpack it to a folder that you can just throw away later if you tire of it.

The portable versions are provided in .7z format, so download, create a new folder on your desktop and name it whatever you want, then extract the contents of the download to that folder. Open the folder and launch the .exe to start the browser.

(Note you could put that folder on a USB stick if you choose, but since there's no install/uninstall involved I'd just leave it somewhere on your hard drive for faster performance.)

If you decide not to keep it, just toss the folder, no uninstall necessary. If you decide to keep it, you may want to move the folder off your desktop to elsewhere and just leave a shortcut to the .exe on your desktop or Start Menu.

Disclaimer: The 32-bit varieties seem to work just fine but the 64-bit variations of the most recent versions don't launch for me, telling me my Win7 system is missing a DLL of some sort. Since there are alternatives, I didn't bother to sort that out. Just stick with the 32-bit variations, or fall back to v.131, whose 64-bit variation seems to work fine.

Thanks for the responses siliconbeaver and dg1261.
I followed the link provided and although I could not see an obvious link for the portable version I just downloaded the latest 133.0.4.win64. and it is working fine. I did not like the default dark theme or the large tiles with links so prominently displayed but managed to remove them and get my preferred white background displaying.

After adding a few of my normal bookmarks to the top bar it is a pleasure to use and I have placed it's icon next to Firefox on my taskbar.