Recommendation: Backup browser list - to avoid Chromium and to avoid official Firefox support

[Likestofish]

@Likestofish

As mentioned above, it's about 2 years I've last checked IceCat last time. (Since I'm mostly on Windows I lost interest for IceCat anyway.)

IMHO, actual build should be at 102.13.0. Ideally it should not lag excessively behind Firefox releases.

As for the connections you mention, I'm afraid that you get something wrong. Those connections seem to be generated definitively by sites you visit.

The only site visited was Mozilla Add-ons, and that was after the first refresh while on the settings pages, which connected to these:

ssl.gstatic.com - both http/2 and http/3 as well as on DNS and socket, both TCP and UDP (these appear to have been connections to Google Safebrowsing, and perhaps something else as well)

mail.google.com - http/2 as well as on DNS and socket, just TCP

ocsp.pki.goog - http<=1.1 (of course, checking the vailidity of security certs, etc.)

After visiting Mozilla Add-ons, these connections appeared in about:networking:

xxx.googletagmanager.com (replaced www with xxx to prevent linking)

xxx.google.analystics.com ("")

cdn-statically.io

cdn.jsdelivr.net

No other site was visited.

It's unfortunate that yes, the IceCat build was a few point releases out of date, although I imagine some other repo may have up to date builds.

[gepus]

After visiting Mozilla Add-ons, these connections appeared in about:networking:

xxx.googletagmanager.com (replaced www with xxx to prevent linking)

xxx.google.analystics.com ("")

cdn-statically.io

cdn.jsdelivr.net

Sorry, but I have to repeat myself. You get it utterly wrong.
Those are addresses the site you visit instructs the browser to connect.
Visit the same site with whatever else (none-Firefox based) browser and see what appears in about:networking.

BTW, in order to clear up connections the browser does on its own, you'll need a decent network sniffer and basic knowledge about how the Internet works and about how to use a sniffer.

[andyprough]

Abrowser is an Icecat build that's applied to the latest version of Firefox (not ESR) and you can get .deb packages from the Trisquel repo here: http://archive.trisquel.info/trisquel/p ... x/?C=M;O=D

I installed it and then turned off all the chatty stuff in settings, like all of Firefox's built in tracking protection, the "breached password" alerts, the "block dangerous and deceptive content", and the DNS over HTTPS and so forth. Then I cleared all cookies and cleared all history and restarted the browser, and at that point I got zero network connections to anything. So far after about 30 minutes there's still no connections.

I believe Icecat will be similar.

[Likestofish]

After visiting Mozilla Add-ons, these connections appeared in about:networking:

xxx.googletagmanager.com (replaced www with xxx to prevent linking)

xxx.google.analystics.com ("")

cdn-statically.io

cdn.jsdelivr.net

Sorry, but I have to repeat myself. You get it utterly wrong.
Those are addresses the site you visit instructs the browser to connect.
Visit the same site with whatever else (none-Firefox based) browser and see what appears in about:networking.

BTW, in order to clear up connections the browser does on its own, you'll need a decent network sniffer and basic knowledge about how the Internet works and about how to use a sniffer.

I will repeat, the only site that was visited when those connections were made and observed upon about:networking were the settings/preferences pages themselves - in a single tab, and about:networking - in a separate tab, albeit with a refresh of about:networking after the preferences in settings had been changed. Prior to that. no other pages or sites were visited, not even the addons and extensions page. And the connections made in the quote above were what appeared after visiting the Mozilla add-ons site. Perhaps I am misunderstanding something here, but I doubt it. OpenSnitch finds even less than what about:networking did.

Pale Moon and Basilisk have none of those in about:networking, even after a refresh, though they do have some background connections, of course.

I will invite anyone who cares to try this themselves by repeating the same steps with IceCat, about:networking and OpenSnitch or the equivalent. I've replicated this sufficiently to satisfy my own inquiries.

[andyprough]

I just tried Icecat 102.11 ESR in a GNUinOS live usb session. By default it's making a connection to detectportal.firefox.com, which is used by Firefox to detect captive portals on public wifi networks. After a few minutes I got one network connection to gnuzilla.gnu.org, and one to r3.o.lencr.org, which is an OCSP certificate site hosted at Let'sEncrypt.org.

I turned off the chatty stuff from the settings menu like all the built-in tracking protection and the breached password alerts, disabled OCSP certificate resolution, and I disabled all the default extensions.
Then I cleared history and cookies and restarted the browser. After that I don't get any network connections at all.

[gepus]

I will repeat, the only site that was visited when those connections were made and observed upon about:networking ...

about:networking is the wrong approach! It's like trying to cut a roast with a fork.
(Furthermore about:networking is experimental in Pale Moon and most likely in Basilisk as well.)

[Night Wing]

MX 23 "Libretto" Xfce was officially released earlier this morning. I've already used Balena Etcher to install the iso onto one of my thumb drives.

https://etcher.balena.io/

Will be installing MX 23 on two SSD's later this afternoon after lunch.

But on this desktop computer still running MX Linux 21.3 (Wildflower) Xfce suing a 32" external monitor, I've just put the Mercury browser (115.1.0esr) on it and also put the Bibata Amber colored cursor for experimentation purposes. The amber colored cursor looks nice. Size is set at 26 pixels. Speaking just for myself with my poor eyesight, it beats white and black colored cursors.

Anyhow, the Mercury browser is basically close to the Waterfox browser in looks, feel and the settings are almost the same. There are little differences, but nothing that puts me off of it. I put the Firefox extension Light Green Tile for the theme and it looks good. The only thing I don't care for at the moment is the logo for this browser.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... reen-tile/

Got my bookmarks up, did the Settings for the browser, did my "about:config" settings too. Speaking as a non-technical computer user, I like the Mercury browser. I do like it better than Firefox at the moment. I will play around with it some more to see if anything detrimental pops up.

And it can render Hotmail properly. Librewolf could not render Hotmail properly and this is why I got rid of Librewolf.

BTW, I'm using this Mercury browser to type this post with.

In about two hours time, I am going to format this drive and a second drive and install MX 23 (Libretto) Xfce on it which will be my afternoon projects.

[andyprough]

Off-topic:

It's like trying to cut a roast with a fork.

That's called pulled pork or pulled beef. Very popular and very tasty! Based on that comparison, I believe that what you are saying is, "always use about:networking".

[gepus]

Off-topic:
Actually I had roast beef in mind.
The comparison was referring to the use of a wrong tool - like using a fork instead of a knife to carve something.

[Vultural]

IceCat has been my preferred backup for a few years.
The latest, 102.6.0 ESR, has not been updated, and I don't know if Muslayev is still developing it.
This was the last version I could find for Win 64.