My WinXP Firefox browser suddenly got cranky

[John B. Smith]

In WindowXP I run Firefox 52.9.0. I'm getting "Problem Loading page"
"An error occurred during a connection to www.consumercellular.com.
Cannot communicate securely with peer: no common encryption
algorithm(s). Error code: SSL_ERROR_NO_CYPHER_OVERLAP"

When I boot up Win7 its Firefox operates normally.
Anybody have any ideas what's going on?

Firefox Help suggests booting in Safe Mode and gives me that option.
However when I pass thru the Microsoft boot selection that request
gets forgotten. I tried pressing F8 before selecting the boot to XP,
no effect. 2nd question how do I boot in SafeMode?

[Paul]

alt.comp.software.firefox (not available on all servers)
(replacement for mozilla.* canceled domain)

To test a website:

https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=consumercellular.com

To determine the feature set of the browser:

https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/viewMyClient.html

This is an example of a browser armed for mid-sized bears.

Protocols [of my client browser]
TLS 1.3 No <=== web sites using *only* this, are a problem
TLS 1.2 Yes
TLS 1.1 Yes
TLS 1.0 Yes
SSL 3 No
SSL 2 No

Cipher Suites (in order of preference)

TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256 (0xcca8) Forward Secrecy 256
OLD_TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256 (0xcc13) Forward Secrecy 256
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256 (0xc02f) Forward Secrecy 128

If a rat bastard is running a website, they set the https
session crypto choice to TLS 1.3. Which FF 52.9 might not have.

Part of crypto support on Windows, comes from the SChannel.
WinXP would be in bad shape. Win7 should be better but not perfect.

I believe on Linux, the crypto comes with the browser. Why they have
to dabble in SChannel on moribund OSes is a puzzle.

And Windows Safe Mode has nothing to do with it. If something
crashed, maybe that would lead to words to that effect.

The browser has a Safe Mode too, which I believe removes plugin
execution so the browser is "just Mozilla code". As an example
of an extreme case, one of the AV companies did a MITM (man in
the middle) attack on https, providing fake certificates or
something, and that would be an example of an issue that
can only be solved by changing AV version, AV company, or
AV settings. You could do all the Firefox Safe Mode you wanted,
and that AV product would just laugh at your feeble attempts.

*******

What do we normally do.

On Firefox, disable SSL compatibility and use TLS. That's how
the browser above, happened to end up not supporting SSL. By
not advertising SSL, it won't negotiate SSL either. TLS is
more secure. TLS is a later version of SSL, in a sense.

Useful versions of TLS are TLS 1.1 and TLS 1.2 (maybe).

If a website uses TLS 1.3, that's a clever way of saying
"take your old OS and shove it". This might happen on a
site needing extra assurance about the session they are
about to carry out. Maybe a bank would want it, or if
you're paying bills with a credit card or something, to
protect the information in transit.

What you need now is:

1) A browser still under development.
2) Supports WinXP without whining about it.

None of the majors fill that role. There's no Chrome for
WinXP, no Firefox for WinXP, and all browsers derived
from those (like Seamonkey from Firefox), no longer support
WinXP either.

Thus, you are off into crusty country, private browsers
and such, having to pick between genuine projects and
crap. I don't have the background for this. Don't know
enough about them. The last time this came up there
were some I didn't recognize.

http://kmeleonbrowser.org/forum/read.php?12,153863,153863

Date: November 24, 2020 05:36PM

You can download MyPal, New Moon, Basilisk and similar
browsers based on the same Goanna from their respective
MSFN.org board threads.

Date: December 15, 2020 08:29AM

last version of PM [Pale Moon] that supported XP was 26.5

Paul

[Shadow]

On Sat, 07 Aug 2021 15:15:29 -0400, Paul <nos...@needed.invalid>
wrote:

This fork works, and has never been labeled "malicious" in
Virustotal (just the usual false positives)

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

<hxxps://o.rthost.win/palemoon/palemoon-28.10.4a1.win32-git-20210731-61f3c7277-uxp-620374316-xpmod-sse.7z>

Pity it's not portable.
[]'s
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