Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2017 March 9

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March 9

Firefox font issues - blurring

Overnight, Firefox was updated from version 51.something to 52.0, during that update there seems to have been a major change to how fonts are displayed. Previously they were sharp-edged; now they're blurred (I think that it's known as "anti-aliasing"), and it seems, slightly smaller. My eyesight isn't brilliant, and the blurring makes text difficult to read, which is an accessibility issue. It's not a fault with MediaWiki, since all websites are affected - even those that don't specify a font, such as some test pages that I put together with a plain text editor.

I've looked in Tools → Options → Content → Fonts & Colors → Advanced..., but can see nothing where I can restore a non-blurry font (or disable anti-aliasing) - indeed, the Options pages seem to use a blurry font as well.

How can I get Firefox to use sharp fonts throughout? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:38, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

I've just updated and see no difference at all.

The release notes mention no changes in font support or anti-aliasing. See: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/52.0/releasenotes/

They do mention removed support for old plugins using the Netscape Plugin API (NPAPI). Does that give any clue? Jahoe (talk) 13:04, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Are plugins the same as add-ons? The only add-ons that I have are Adblock Plus, and Print Edit.

Looking at the doc that you have linked, it says "When not using Direct2D on Windows, Skia is used for content rendering". Might that be it? I don't know what Direct2D is, nor how to find out if I have it. What is Skia? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:53, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

This might be off-base, but... are you zoomed in? "View", "Zoom", "Reset". Can make fonts look weird, and easy to accidentally. 86.20.193.222 (talk) 01:56, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

First thing I tried was Ctrl+0 with no effect. Then I tried Ctrl++ which added a marker to the URL bar showing "110%", and put some of the text back to how it was before the update, and made some bigger than it had been before the update. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:50, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

Ok, it was worth a shot. 86.20.193.222 (talk) 14:31, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

You might try the Windows Magnifier, as opposed to the Firefox version. In Windows 7 it's in Control Panel + Ease of Access + Ease of Access Center + Make the computer easier to see. Check the Turn on Magnifier box and click OK. It only magnifies in 100% steps, so 100%, 200%, 300%, etc., but this is less likely to cause problems than say a 110% magnification. Also, in the Full Screen view (only available in 64 bit Windows) it does bump scrolling, where you see a part of the screen at a time, but move the mouse to see the rest. I find this helps me with my poor eyesight without creating the issue of a small field of view that I get from using browser magnification. StuRat (talk) 21:02, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Replacement of the same PNG->SVG in multiple articles

Disclosure: I have asked the question at Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Tasks#Replacement_of_the_same_PNG-.3ESVG_in_multiple_articles before, but not gotten an answer.

Dear Computing Helpdesk. I create SVG replacements for PNG images, as requested in Commons:Top_200_logo_images_that_should_use_vector_graphics. Of course I start with those most valuable, as judged by number of wikipedia articles that use them. Once I have uploaded the SVG to Commons and tagged it as being an svg replacement for the png in question, the wikitext in those articles still needs to be updated. Is there a way to automate or semi-automate the replacement of thes image in the articles' wikitext? The images I deal with are very common logos, used in 100s of articles spread over multiple wikipedias, in the case of icons sometimes several 1000s of articles. Doing this by hand is insane. Can you please help me? Thank you very much. --Lommes (talk) 14:25, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

@Lommes: This isn't really a RD/C question; it sounds very much like a job for WP:BOTREQ. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:01, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Thank you. I just asked it there.--Lommes (talk) 20:13, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

ROM/"Recovery" flashing question

I want to check my understanding of Android ROMs and flashing. If I flash a Sony Experia ROM onto a Samsung Galaxy S5 phone would that be a "soft brick" that is easily fixable by flashing a more appropriate ROM using the custom recovery? Is the only way to hard brick a phone by borking the recovery itself or maybe whatever part of the software does the booting until it can hand over to the installed Android ROM? --129.215.47.59 (talk) 15:37, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Some electronic devices, particularly old PCs and laptops, actually allow you to "update" all of the flask ROM -- including the part that tells the device how to do updates. Most modern devices have a small section of untouchable memory that allows it to boot into some sort of recovery mode. This feature is designed into the flash memory and cannot be bricked.

It looks like the Galaxy S5 is one of the devices which cannot be completely bricked. Do a web search on [ Galaxy S5 Recover Mode ] for several tutorials explaning how. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:58, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

Trace and Delete help

While using “VeraCrypt v1.19” software I noticed one of my HDD consisted hidden 128MB that is untraceable with “Computer Management” window’s “Storage” list option’s “Device Management” option. How do I trace and delete? 43.245.122.245 (talk) 17:04, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

First of all: be careful, it's easy to cause data loss when fumbling with partitions. I don't know of any useful partition management utility running under Windows. I would suggest to run Linux from a live USB stick or live CD, and analyze and manage the HDD with GParted. Any live Linux containing GParted would do the job. Jahoe (talk) 18:36, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Oh, there's even a GParted Live bootable image. Didn't try it myself (yet!), but it may be just what you need. See: http://gparted.org/download.php Jahoe (talk) 18:58, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

• DON'T DELETE IT. Recovery partitions are usually clearly marked, but I have seen unpartitioned sectors used for this, or by unusual BIOS/UEFI configurations. That being said, I've found that Macrium Reflect is pretty good at this sort of thing. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 19:18, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

I agree, don't delete it unless you know exactly why it's there and what you're doing. It's a trivial amount of space if you're thinking you want to recover the space for other use. Even if it's only a 500 GB disk, that partition is 1/4000th of the disk. CodeTalker (talk) 21:50, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

I strongly suspect this is the Microsoft Reserved Partition. As the article indicates, this isn't actually vital in general, but is used in some cases so it's best to keep it and it is a standard part of a GPT disk partioned by Windows (bootable or not) since I think GPT support was added. If you open diskpart in Windows (just type diskpart into the Start menu or a terminal e.g. Command Prompt or Powershell, and approve admin access), select the disk (select disk 0 or whatever) then list partitions (list partition) it should show the MSR and confirm it's reserved. If you are unsure of which disk to select, you can use list disk and work it out. BTW, IIRC you can delete it with Diskpart but I strongly don't recommend it and this won't zero it anyway. If you are worried about confidentiality you could zero it without deletion (well you could delete it and recreate it but this seems unnecessarily complicated), it isn't really intended for long term storage so anything which relies on it for that for important functions is dumb anyway. There's a fair chance it's already all zero. However the far better solution is whole or nearly whole disk encryption which covers the MSR. Remember that even if you delete it, if you just leave it as empty space it's still possible tools will store data there anyway. Also when you don't really know what you're doing, I question the usefulness of worrying too much about the slight chance something you don't want people to see is stored in the MSR compared to the much more likely other things. Nil Einne (talk) 09:26, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

I second all of the excellent advice above, with one minor addition. If you have serious adversaries (as in you work for the CIA or Wikileaks or you are Edward Snowden) even the slightest risk from leaving some small part of your disk unencrypted may be an unacceptable risk. The problem is that if you have that sort of adversary you may already have a hardware keylogger installed, so nuking that small partition will do nothing to increase your security. You need to buy a new computer from some random retail outlet, nuke Windows, and install a Security-focused operating system that is itself encrypted with VeraCrypt. For the rest of us, follow the advice given above. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:40, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

I just want to say that I truly hope (and strongly suspect) that folks who work for Wikileaks or the CIA, or are Edward Snowden aren't getting their IT security tips from the WP reference desk. It might get you some really good advice, but that little word "might" can turn out to be a real doozy... ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:54, 13 March 2017 (UTC)