Basilisk 2022.11.04 Released!

Basilisk-Dev · Unread post by **Basilisk-Dev** » 2022-11-05, 21:57

Basilisk 2022.11.04 has been released!

See the release notes for more information.

See the downloads page to download the update.

IMPORTANT: The vendor has changed from "moonchild productions" to "basilisk-dev". To transfer your existing profile to the new Basilisk versions moving forward please do the following:
On Windows: Copy %appdata%\Moonchild Productions\Basilisk to %appdata%\Basilisk-Dev\Basilisk
On Linux: Copy $HOME/.moonchild productions/basilisk to $HOME/.basilisk-dev/basilisk

Autoupdates will not work from Moonchild Productions releases to Basilisk Development Team releases due to changes in the compression algorithm used for the autoupdate files. You will need to manually perform an update from a Moonchild Productions version of Basilisk to our version. After this one-time manual update autoupdates will work again.

00Septimus · Unread post by **00Septimus** » 2022-11-19, 13:08

Basilisk 2022.09.28 does not find the update to version 2022.11.04

See screenshot:

Non-translated post:

Troubleshooting Information:

Bilbo47 · Unread post by **Bilbo47** » 2022-11-19, 18:21

Basilisk 2022.09.28 does not find the update to version 2022.11.04

The original post-announcement above says to me, "Auto-update does not apply for this realease; update/install must be done manually."

00Septimus · Unread post by **00Septimus** » 2022-11-20, 13:18

Bilbo47 wrote: ↑
2022-11-19, 18:21
..."Auto-update does not apply for this realease; update/install must be done manually."

Sorry, but that is not quoted

. The original wording

of the announcement of this topic is:

Basilisk-Dev wrote: ↑
2022-11-05, 21:57
...Autoupdates will not work from Moonchild Productions releases to Basilisk Development Team releases ...You will need to manually perform an update from a Moonchild Productions version of Basilisk to our version. After this one-time manual update autoupdates will work again.

(Highlights in the quote are from me)

Maybe I missed something, but Basilisk 2022.09.28 is according to Basilisk 2022.09.28 Released! already a "Basilisk Development Team Release". An automatic update would have to work accordingly

. But for me this is not so important, of course I can make a manual update - I do so very often anyway instead of the automatic update

.

------------------------------
My sentences in german:

freedom4all · Unread post by **freedom4all** » 2022-11-28, 02:18

I noticed that on the features page that there's no mention about respecting privacy, or removal of telemetry or anything.

The only mention of it that I can find is in the 2022.08.06 release notes "Removed most of the last vestiges of the invasive Mozilla Telemetry code from the platform. This potentially improves performance on some systems."

That should certainly be an advertised feature if it is still one of the primary focuses of the browser

Basilisk-Dev · Unread post by **Basilisk-Dev** » 2022-11-28, 13:35

freedom4all wrote: ↑
2022-11-28, 02:18
I noticed that on the features page that there's no mention about respecting privacy, or removal of telemetry or anything.

The only mention of it that I can find is in the 2022.08.06 release notes "Removed most of the last vestiges of the invasive Mozilla Telemetry code from the platform. This potentially improves performance on some systems."

That should certainly be an advertised feature if it is still one of the primary focuses of the browser

I wouldn't say it's a "primary focus" of Basilisk to be a privacy respecting browser, the primary focus of Basilisk is to be as close to Firefox 52 as possible while building on top of the UXP platform. That being said, privacy is something I try to be aware of and have tried to ensure that it is privacy respecting as possible.

The issue with putting a statement on the website saying that the browser is privacy respecting then people will come to me saying stuff like "you claim the browser is private yet you enable autoupdates by default" or "you claim the browser is private yet you enable extension autoupdates by default". I will have to argue the same point over and over again that although autoupdates are enabled the server collects no meaningful identifiable data.

Apparently private in some circles means "no outgoing requests period unless I explicitly made the request". I fundamentally disagree with this because using outdated software by not allowing autoupdates is arguably worse for privacy because you are opening yourself up to potential vulnerabilities.

There are also arguments I view as invalid such as "Enabling OCSP stapling by default is bad for privacy." that would also come up from people.

Unread post by **Moonchild** » 2022-11-28, 14:38

Basilisk-Dev wrote: ↑
2022-11-28, 13:35
The issue with putting a statement on the website saying that the browser is privacy respecting then people will come to me saying stuff like

You are absolutely right. You'll run into the people who think "privacy respecting" means "totally stealth and anonymous" which isn't true but would require a lot of effort to constantly have to debate.

freedom4all · Unread post by **freedom4all** » 2022-11-28, 18:05

Fair enough. However, even if you avoid outwardly advertising it as a privacy-respecting browser (and I understand your position on that), I feel that it is still important to mention which parts have been removed (or left in) that "phone home" to mozilla or collect telemetry data. These facts are important for most people who are seeking out alternatives to Firefox proper.

A short list of what has been removed and what has been left in would go a long way in providing transparency to users, without having to broadly paint it as a privacy browser. Additionally, if you leave certain "controversial" features enabled, such as auto-updates.. then adding "if you want to turn this off, change x.y.z in about:config" could help. Easy peasy

Cheers

Unread post by **Moonchild** » 2022-11-28, 19:57

Just a remark:
Checking for updates is normal behaviour and does not (should not!) impact anyone's privacy. Explicitly mentioning it shouldn't be necessary. BTW: it's not difficult to switch off if you don't want it, right from the preferences GUI.

But I'll let Basilisk-dev decide how to present his browser to the public, of course.

freedom4all · Unread post by **freedom4all** » 2022-11-28, 20:23

Yes I know, it was just an example .. I don't frankly care much about auto updates, I can always check release notes and source if I want to.

As you said, he can run his project however he wishes. Just sharing my thoughts as a casual end user. I am sure there are many others like me who find the removal of telemetry to be an important, if not the most important feature of a mainstream browser fork.

Basilisk-Dev · Unread post by **Basilisk-Dev** » 2022-11-29, 14:15

Here's what I'll do, I think the easiest way to move forward here is to add a privacy policy to the Basilisk website. I'll go over the privacy of both the servers that host the Basilisk webpages as well as the privacy of Basilisk itself.

Basilisk-Dev · Unread post by **Basilisk-Dev** » 2022-11-29, 14:17

00Septimus wrote: ↑
2022-11-20, 13:18
Maybe I missed something, but Basilisk 2022.09.28 is according to Basilisk 2022.09.28 Released! already a "Basilisk Development Team Release". An automatic update would have to work accordingly . But for me this is not so important, of course I can make a manual update - I do so very often anyway instead of the automatic update .

I'm going to release a new version of Basilisk in the next week or so to catch up with the current Pale Moon release. When I do I will make sure that autoupdates are working to the new version. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Unread post by **moonbat** » 2022-12-01, 03:27

freedom4all wrote: ↑
2022-11-28, 18:05
I feel that it is still important to mention which parts have been removed (or left in) that "phone home" to mozilla or collect telemetry data.

That presupposes there being a home to phone to

Neither Basilisk nor Pale Moon have a telemetry server to phone home to (let alone reporting to Mozilla, whose infrastructure has no relevance to either), and both browsers are built without the telemetry component of Mozilla. Since the feature requires hooks into various browser components, these have taken longer to remove (they just impede performance and are of no use when the broader telemetry feature doesn't exist) and are mostly gone from the codebase.
Moonchild, please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong or clarify further.

Unread post by **Moonchild** » 2022-12-01, 14:54

moonbat wrote: ↑
2022-12-01, 03:27
Moonchild, please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong or clarify further.

No you got it right.
There are still (unused) vestiges of telemetry code left in our code base because Mozilla records just about everything everywhere... Even if something is still recorded in our code (I doubt it), it doesn't go anywhere.
I'm sure it comes in handy for Mozilla for debugging or maybe some performance charts for management or what not in Firefox, but users shouldn't be shoved into that role with their private data (no matter if they pass it through some anonymizing routine or not) so we've always made sure none of that happens in Pale Moon, and anything else building on UXP should as a result be in the exact same position.

Pale Moon forum

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