Basilisk For Android

[sigsauerp320]

Even though Basilisk is probably not going to have an Android version, I know that some users have been interested in building Pale Moon or Basilisk for Android. I figured anyone interested can join in to help if they want. I have been spending my free time playing around in the GCC compiler trying to get either to work. This is merely an educational topic forum post for myself. My configuration operating system is CentOS 7 since that has seemed to be the most popular for developing besides Ubuntu in the Linux world. I do not use Windows very often because I mostly develop software in Linux. I figured I would give Basilisk a shot in trying to build for it on Android. The source code is here: https://github.com/MoonchildProductions/moebius I may create a separate GitHub account for this for the build errors I am getting. As stated before, I am just documenting my findings to help anyone who may need this information to develop for Android.

Note: Make sure you have the proper build environment to start developing. Please see instructions: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mobile/Fennec/Android/Detailed_build_instructions#Linux"

Basilisk is a different web browser from Pale Moon. From research, this program is an early fork of Firefox from early 2017. The build environment is going to be different for Basilisk as opposed to Pale Moon. I just wanted to clear some confusion for those who think Pale Moon and Basilisk are related.

Trivia: Coincidentally, I found some code in Moebius (the code name for Basilisk) for iOS that powers Apple devices like the iPhone. I am aware that their is no reason for anyone to create a web browser for iOS since the browser would just be a clone of Safari. The reason the code is still in their is because of some code clean up for Basilisk being a fork of Firefox.

Anyone who is interested in the Pale Moon build, here is the link to that current active development forum at the time of this post.
Pale Moon for Android:
https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=17186

For Android Basilisk, here is my Mozconfig: It is very basic because no one has attempted this yet.

Code: Select all

# Build Firefox for Android:
ac_add_options --enable-application=mobile/android
ac_add_options --target=arm-linux-androideabi

# With the following Android SDK and NDK:
ac_add_options --with-android-sdk="/usr/ANDROID_SDK/"
ac_add_options --with-android-ndk="/usr/ANDROID_SDK/ndk-bundle" 

# Write build artifacts to:
mk_add_options MOZ_OBJDIR="$HOME/pmbuild"

You may notice that my NDK says "ndk-bundle." Do not be alarmed; I am using the NDK r15c. If you are developing for the back-end of Basilisk, you do not need to have Android Studio installed and instead can use SDK Manager located here: https://developer.android.com/studio/releases/platform-tools.html
For a 2017 fork, this will allows us to copy the current requirements as posted on the Mozilla Developer's website.

For now, I am running into some compiler errors since the first version of Basilisk has not even come out yet. Also, Basilisk never really had Android in mind because of the lack of developer support so this is a fun little experiment. Hopefully, I may get something working. This is just notes for myself.

[hobbledehoy899]

I'd be willing to be a tester.

[dark_moon]

Sounds good!
Until that, i use Fennec from F-Droid which is a firefox without crap or telemetry