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Is there a better alternative to Firefox? Of all the browsers it seems like the "least bad" choice (above Chromium, and other proprietary browsers) and I use it, but is there something safer, simpler, and more secure?
> being too complicated to package (thanks to cbindgen and rust dependencies) Can anyone explain what is behind? Is it symptomatic for any programs with those dependency? Especially curious about rust because it seems to be hyped very much lately (I have almost zero rust experience and even less bias about it, just being curious)
I am arguing about this on FreeBSD forums - from an end user perspective. I think the benefits of saving disk space by sharing libraries do not justify the inconveniences we, desktop BSD and Linux users, obtain from being forced to disrupt and upgrade hundreds of installed software packages, just because one single desired upgrade requires to pull its dependencies. The whole ecosystem falls down like a card house - o…
Complex apps can bundle their own dependencies-- that's what the Flatpak and Snap package formats do. You can also run Firefox in a Docker or LXD container with it's dependencies. By sharing the X11 or Wayland socket with the docker, the apps can appear on your main desktop.
I am arguing about this on FreeBSD forums - from an end user perspective. I think the benefits of saving disk space by sharing libraries do not justify the inconveniences we, desktop BSD and Linux users, obtain from being forced to disrupt and upgrade hundreds of installed software packages, just because one single desired upgrade requires to pull its dependencies. The whole ecosystem falls down like a card house - o…
RedHat’s “streams” model will certainly do a much better job of handling this than the other distributions do today. I hope that the need for having multiple parallel versions of a dependency coexist is incorporated into the other distros, because I’ve lost a lot of sanity this past two decades to the assumption that “one installed version should be enough for anybody” on Linux and BSD servers.
> being too complicated to package (thanks to cbindgen and rust dependencies) Can anyone explain what is behind? Is it symptomatic for any programs with those dependency? Especially curious about rust because it seems to be hyped very much lately (I have almost zero rust experience and even less bias about it, just being curious)
Modern packaging has changed the approach to bundle dependencies-- using more disk space and bandwidth but isolating apps from each other and allowing independent upgrade cycles. Flatpak and Snap work like that and the title wave of interest in containers on servers is related, as server containers are also used to isolate dependency stacks.
Flatpak and Snap are Linux-specific, though. If the BSDs had a comparable solution to package GUI apps along with their dependencies, I presume that Firefox would be one of the first apps to get that treatment.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Complex apps can bundle their own dependencies-- that's what the Flatpak and Snap package formats do. You can also run Firefox in a Docker or LXD container with it's dependencies. By sharing the X11 or Wayland socket with the docker, the apps can appear on your main desktop.
none of those solutions apply the BSDs though
I am arguing about this on FreeBSD forums - from an end user perspective. I think the benefits of saving disk space by sharing libraries do not justify the inconveniences we, desktop BSD and Linux users, obtain from being forced to disrupt and upgrade hundreds of installed software packages, just because one single desired upgrade requires to pull its dependencies. The whole ecosystem falls down like a card house - o…
I am arguing about this on FreeBSD forums - from an end user perspective. I think the benefits of saving disk space by sharing libraries do not justify the inconveniences we, desktop BSD and Linux users, obtain from being forced to disrupt and upgrade hundreds of installed software packages, just because one single desired upgrade requires to pull its dependencies. The whole ecosystem falls down like a card house - o…
RedHat’s “streams” model will certainly do a much better job of handling this than the other distributions do today. I hope that the need for having multiple parallel versions of a dependency coexist is incorporated into the other distros, because I’ve lost a lot of sanity this past two decades to the assumption that “one installed version should be enough for anybody” on Linux and BSD servers.
Is there a better alternative to Firefox? Of all the browsers it seems like the "least bad" choice (above Chromium, and other proprietary browsers) and I use it, but is there something safer, simpler, and more secure?
I don't think there is a viable alternative to Firefox unless you accept a simple web experience and use eg w3m
Is there a better alternative to Firefox? Of all the browsers it seems like the "least bad" choice (above Chromium, and other proprietary browsers) and I use it, but is there something safer, simpler, and more secure?
Waterfox (with Web Extensions) or Pale Moon (with XUL/UXP extensions)