Librefox browser.

[Moonraker]

https://www.ghacks.net/2018/12/24/libre ... ancements/

Just wondered what thoughts members have on this firefox spin-off.

[vannilla]

Reading the article, it looks like Pale Moon with less flexibility.
But, admittedly, I can't really review it objectively.

[New Tobin Paradigm]

Reading the article, it looks like Pale Moon with less flexibility

That is really an insult to us today... The only "Pale Moon like" aspect and comparison that can be drawn would be of the state of this project maybe six years ago and even then it isn't even as extensive as Pale Moon was then.

This is just another minor rebuild along the lines of Cyberfox or the GNU inspired rebuilds of Firefox. Not that there is anything wrong with that just isn't really any thing to really write home about in this day and age.

I find it interesting that Martin would devote an article to that and not Interlink or Ambassador... Which hasn't had anything mentioned on gHacks yet.

[Isengrim]

I'm interested to see where it goes, but unless/until it has the level of customizability that Firefox used to have, I have no interest in using it regularly.

[tuxman]

I wonder if OpenBSD will port it.

[Sajadi]

It is even stated that it is no real fork - but just a bit modified Firefox version which seem to strip away some "phone-home-features" - so the equivalent to "Ungoogled Chromium" and similar.

Nothing special at all.

[Al6bus]

Not bad
After the closure of Cyberfox, we didn’t have anything like that fresh. Just a pity that the author did not start with Firefox v53-56.
Another rebuild based on Basilisk (1st try) - Serpent is unfortunately inferior (Australis, not the last revision of E10s in, etc.) and has little promise.

[Isengrim]

Another rebuild based on Basilisk (1st try) - Serpent is unfortunately inferior (Australis, not the last revision of E10s in, etc.) and has little promise.

"Serpent" is just the name for any unofficial Basilisk build. Similar to how "New Moon" is the name for any unofficial Pale Moon build.

[Al6bus]

"Serpent" is just the name for any unofficial Basilisk build. Similar to how "New Moon" is the name for any unofficial Pale Moon build.

My fault, there I meant the "basilisk/moebius browser" based on ff54.0a1 (deprecated by MCP, forked by roytam1).

[vannilla]

That is really an insult to us today... The only "Pale Moon like" aspect and comparison that can be drawn would be of the state of this project maybe six years ago and even then it isn't even as extensive as Pale Moon was then.

Apologies, I didn't meant it like that.
I was referring the fact that all they did was removing some stuff without bringing anything new.
So, in the end, they did part of what you guys did with Pale Moon, but without having the extensibility that Pale Moon has.
I'm not sure if I'm explaining properly, hopefully there won't be any major misunderstanding.

[intika]

Thank you for all your feedback its appreciated this project is very young its main purpose is to have a clean updated mainstream Firefox

That is really an insult to us today... The only "Pale Moon like" aspect and comparison that can be drawn would be of the state of this project maybe six years ago and even then it isn't even as extensive as Pale Moon was then.
This is just another minor rebuild along the lines of Cyberfox or the GNU inspired rebuilds of Firefox. Not that there is anything wrong with that just isn't really any thing to really write home about in this day and age.

True

I'm interested to see where it goes, but unless/until it has the level of customizability that Firefox used to have, I have no interest in using it regularly.

Thanks for the feedback you are not the only one that asked for that... i am thinking of doing a kind a "chrome://flags" integrated in the settings page... what do you think ?

It is even stated that it is no real fork - but just a bit modified Firefox version which seem to strip away some "phone-home-features" - so the equivalent to "Ungoogled Chromium" and similar.
Nothing special at all.

Indeed (the project started by my participation in ungoogled-chromium) but this will become a fork because for legal issues. (while keep sticking to mainstream releases)

not start with Firefox v53-56.
Another rebuild based on Basilisk (1st try) - Serpent is unfortunately inferior (Australis, not the last revision of E10s in, etc.) and has little promise.

For Firefox v53-56 there is Palemoon and Basilisk i don't see the advantage of doing the exact same thing.

[Sampei Nihira]

@ Intika

Hi,
With Pale Moon the setting:

"browser.display.use_document_fonts" set to 0

(ghacks-user.js. [SECTION 1400]: FONTS)

prevents the display of the trash can in the UBO custom lists

Have you checked if you have the same problem?

[coffeebreak]

@ Intika [...]

@Sampei Nihira,
IMO, Questions for Librefox's developer about issues, or potential issues, in that project should properly be directed to Librefox's issue tracker on GitHub.

[Sampei Nihira]

Thank you very much, the developer has stated elsewhere that that setting is off by default and so I wondered ......

[coffeebreak]

It seems you're not listening. :)

Thank you very much, . . . . and so I wondered ......

@Sampei Nihira,
IMO, Questions for Librefox's developer about issues, or potential issues, in that project should properly be directed to Librefox's issue tracker on GitHub.

This thread is not a support board, or "question and answer" board for the developer of a project that isn't Pale Moon.

Questions to the developer of that project about settings in that project should be taken TO that project.

[Sampei Nihira]

Merry Christmas.......and calms your mind.

[Moonchild]

OK, so, Librefox thinks that the following things are good to enforce for the user:

• Block third-party cookies. Nope, this will break login for some sites, break some payment gateways (forget about online shopping) etc.
• Completely disable the password manager (how does this improve privacy, exactly, by forcing users to type their credentials every time?)
• Completely disables IPv6 support. Ehhh...
• Completely disables all parts of the blocklist, including known broken gfx driver issues. This will expose users to many issues with known graphics driver problems.
• Completely disables integration with the add-ons site. So.. what if you WANT add-ons to improve your privacy?
• Completely disables extension updates - so you'll likely end up using old (and possibly vulnerable) versions of your webextensions...
• Completely disables Windows jumplists, because.... ?
• Completely disables pre-loading of known HSTS domains; this opens the user up to first-time-visit spoofing. HSTS preloading is harmless, blocked because it's supplied by Mozilla?...
• Completely disables OCSP, but enables OCSP stapling (which won't work with disabled OCSP). Conflicting prefs with result that at best a CRL fallback is used, and at worst no checking is performed at all and revoked certs are accepted as secure. Well done Librefox, you broke https authentication checks.
• (Not forced but default) WebGL and layers acceleration is force-enabled. This will break the browser on many more systems because of GFX issues (especially hybrid and mobile chips), especially if blocklist entries aren't checked or used.
• Completely disables webgl2 and forces webgl minimum-capability mode. This pretty much makes webgl useless. No reason to do this, since the (already enforced) fingerprinting protection already mitigates any potential webgl leaks. Fingerprinting protection doesn't enforce minimum capability mode for a reason.
• Disables clipboard events, breaking many sites that use JS to place data on the clipboard (all copy to clipboard buttons will no longer work, shortcuts for the same may stop working, etc.)

All of this is done with lockPref(), meaning the user does not have a choice, even through about:config. If you want to change any of this you manually have to edit the Mozilla.cfg in the browser's installation -- and considering there are plenty of duplicate entries in there you may find it frustrating that it doesn't take unless you hunt down all copies of a setting.
IMHO it's just another example of copy-pasta of insane configurations, and it's not something new or better or different than any of the other similar things I've seen out there. It's not even a rebuild, it's just reconfigured, and questionably so.

[Sajadi]

Security good and nice...

What really would be necessary/what would be a good idea - would be to find a way to bring back customization back into Firefox/this rebuild of Firefox. To give people who moved away from Mozilla out of protest towards Google-Brave, or Google-Vivaldi again a real reason to get away from Google-whatever and stop supporting Google's devious and highly toxic mono-culture browser wise.

Just my personal few cents.

[Al6bus]

also hard block

[Michaell]

OK, so, Librefox thinks that the following things are good to enforce for the user:

I'll comment on some of these but since nobody cares, I'll hide it.

Block third-party cookies.

Agree: standard setting in all my browsers.

Completely disable the password manager

Disagree: I use the builtin pw manager but only for unimportant site like this forum!

Completely disables all parts of the blocklist

Agree: hate nanny-ware, don't need to be looked out for, especially by organizations that themselves have no ethics

Completely disables integration with the add-ons site. So.. what if you WANT add-ons to improve your privacy?

Not sure what this refers to. Do you know the section number or the pref name?

Completely disables extension updates

Disagree, sort of: I agree with not auto updating, but just checking is OK for a current browser ver.

Completely disables OCSP, but enables OCSP stapling

Agree: not needed for every site, a button to toggle is handy if/when desired.

Disables clipboard events, breaking many sites that use JS to place data on the clipboard

Agree: don't need scripts messing with clipboard, that's for me the user.

Some that I reset that you didn't list are:
donottrackheader: I will not allow that; it's like wearing a sign that says don't rob me.
typeaheadfind: No thanks, can be really annoying.
disable_unc_paths: I don't see any need to disable this, but I'm willing to listen.

All of this is done with lockPref(), ... you manually have to edit the Mozilla.cfg

That bothered me too, and already knowing I don't agree with Miss Pants and crew on a lot of the settings, I almost didn't even check it out. I'm finding that editing moz config is no different than editing user.js. It's taking a lot of time the first time because I had been ignoring all the changes since 52 ESR. Already spent many hours and am only less than half way through.

It's not even a rebuild, it's just reconfigured, and questionably so.

Well whatever it is or will be, I have to admit I like it better out of the box than the official one from MozCo. Seems to be quieter (not loading stuff on startup), has better look (icons not drawn with crayons) and has more privacy/security mods I agree with than disagree with. So it may have promise as an alternative to falling back to official Fx, either of which may be better than Chromium.

What I would have really liked is for all you guys making all these forks or custom builds to get together and work on one killer customizable browser that can compete with the big guys, but I know it's a pipedream.