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F-Droid Dropping Firefox

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Re: F-Droid Dropping Firefox

#11

Post by kkmickos »

Sephr wrote: post #8

> Removed: Mediastreaming (requires non-free library: play-services)[1] I understand removing EME and DRM support, but they are removing a feature simply because it only works when a certain closed source library is installed. Is graceful degradation somehow "below" them? That's like banning packages that use .NET (when it was non-free) on NuGet. You can create open source code that supports proprietary libraries wit…

Well, the idea behind F-Droid is "free-of-charge, free and open-source software". If the software doesn't live up to that, I feel their are in their right to remove it.

And honestly if you want the full featured software and don't care about ideals, just download it from Play.

Re: F-Droid Dropping Firefox

#12

Post by pki »

kkmickos wrote: post #10
azinman2 wrote: post #2

Seems petty. Mozilla is one of the most pure open source projects out there in mission, ethos, and product. Addons are user choices, and trying to limit that choice is self defeating in free speech.

Well, some things at Mozilla seem a bit odd. A few weeks ago Nightly ended up having "Pocket" integrated, and rumour said it would replace Mozilla's own open source Sync plus the integrated Reader. Addons will soon no longer be able to be installed unless approved by Mozilla. (Another walled garden. Sigh...)

This is very good, I hate having to constantly remove malware plugins off friends'/family stuff, hijacking new tab, hijacking search providers...

Re: F-Droid Dropping Firefox

#13

Post by black_puppydog »

icebraining wrote: post #7
alrs wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yesterday. http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/21/mozilla-will-soon-launch-sp...

It doesn't actually send any of your data to anywhere; it runs locally in your browser, using history data it already has.

I found that quite interesting actually. Implementing this kind of thing in an open source(!) browser may be the only way to deliver custom ads without violating the user's privacy. That being said I still think it is a horrible idea...

Re: F-Droid Dropping Firefox

#14

Post by pserwylo »

icebraining wrote: post #4

They aren't really dropping Firefox, they are just dropping the official build for a custom one: https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=org.mozilla.fenn... It's no different that Debian with Iceweasel.

Edit: What makes people think Firefox has been removed?

Correct. I've been using Fennec (the custom build) ever since the team managed to get it to build, and have had zero complaints.

As far as I'm aware, that is the last upstream binary in the official F-Droid repository.

Keep in mind, anyone is free to make their own F-Droid repository using the fdroidserver software. The server supports either building apks from source, or adding binary apks (ala Firefox). There is nothing special about the repository at f-droid.org/repo other than it being preconfigured in the client. But hey, if you really wanted, you could build the client yourself with different default repositories, because that is also open source :

Re: F-Droid Dropping Firefox

#15

Post by waterhouse »

icebraining wrote: post #7
alrs wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yesterday. http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/21/mozilla-will-soon-launch-sp...

It doesn't actually send any of your data to anywhere; it runs locally in your browser, using history data it already has.

Just as a little question, are all the ads pre-downloaded, or could someone theoretically observe which ads your browser downloaded and deduce things about your history therefrom?

Re: F-Droid Dropping Firefox

#16

Post by pserwylo »

azinman2 wrote: post #2

Seems petty. Mozilla is one of the most pure open source projects out there in mission, ethos, and product. Addons are user choices, and trying to limit that choice is self defeating in free speech.

> Addons are user choices, and trying to limit that choice is self defeating in free speech.

I believe you are talking about the big red boxes that mention it has "Non Free Addons". This is what is known as an "AntiFeature" in F-Droid [0]. It is not a reason to exclude a project from the main repository. Rather, it is purely a piece of metadata that is shown on the website and in the client to let people know that it is a thing.

The goal is to provide as much information as possible to users, so that they can make educated choices about which software they choose to install on their device.

[0] - https://f-droid.org/manual/html_node/AntiFeatures.html

Re: F-Droid Dropping Firefox

#17

Post by pmontra »

icebraining wrote: post #7
alrs wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yesterday. http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/21/mozilla-will-soon-launch-sp...

It doesn't actually send any of your data to anywhere; it runs locally in your browser, using history data it already has.

The picture in the Techcrunch post is pretty clear. The browser talks with an adserver (step 5). And how could it get ads if it didn't do that, pick them from a static list compiled into the browser binary? Soon out of date and hardly interesting for advertisers.

GETs to the adserver combined with the in-browser selection algorithm leak details on the browsing history of the user (if he's got this ad he could be that kind of person and been there and there). Maybe not the worst of the spywares but about as concerning as any ad in a web page.

Re: F-Droid Dropping Firefox

#18

Post by pserwylo »

I see no evidence that Firefox is being dropped (at this point in time).

- This page doesn't explain that it is being dropped [0,1].

- there is no signals from the F-Droid team that I can see that it is dropping firefox [e.g. on #fdroid at freenode].

- The metadata for the F-Droid build server still includes Firefox [2]

[0] - https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=org.mozilla.fire...

[1] - https://f-droid.org/wiki/page/org.mozilla.firefox

[2] - https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/blob/master/metadata/or...

Re: F-Droid Dropping Firefox

#19

Post by gcb0 »

icebraining wrote: post #4

They aren't really dropping Firefox, they are just dropping the official build for a custom one: https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=org.mozilla.fenn... It's no different that Debian with Iceweasel.

Not so correct.

debian's Iceweasel is a little squabble about the logo not being licensed correctly. they only divert official version to add the -debianXXX when they backport security patches on the stable branch. They never removed anything. apart from branding. They even upstreamed the branding agnostic flags so they don't have to change even that!

FDroid's fork is now a move against binary blobs. And copious tracking. They are taking back firefox (pun intended). From the announce: "It removes the proprietary binaries out of the official builds." [emphasis mine]

There was already discussion on the community when mozilla decided to make the, then optional by effort of contributors, google play api on the android build... just so a really small portion of users could share youtube videos to chrome cast (like anyone uses firefox to watch videos they care so much they want to see on the TV...). Everyone reaching the IRC on how to build without the proprietary google dependency was ignored. But some soldiered on. There was even a PaleMoon build on the play store just for that! (palemoon were mostly to avoid the new australis UI, which breaks lots of OS usability/accessibility features just to copy chrome).

Now, on top of the google play api (which now is not just for chrome cast, but also for tracking. ha! didn't see that coming did you?) they added adobe DRM, which will probably reach android soon.

I sure do hope that incite the rest of the community as it incites me. I've been running fennec build laboriously myself on my phones for a while. And i hope i now have the time to stop that nonsense and contribute to fdroid's effort somehow. Even if just by bitching... err promoting on forums.

Re: F-Droid Dropping Firefox

#20

Post by gcb0 »

azinman2 wrote: post #2

Seems petty. Mozilla is one of the most pure open source projects out there in mission, ethos, and product. Addons are user choices, and trying to limit that choice is self defeating in free speech.

it is not about addons. who said anything about addons?

you still can install ALL the same addons on fennec as you can on official firefox.

can you people, please, stop talking before reading anything official? the very own page for the new build warn about unsafe addons! https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdfilter=firefox&fdid...

now, here is the official list of what is removed [with my comments]:

    Removed: Tests [not sure about that]
    Removed: Crashreporter [tracking]
    Removed: Healthreporter (UI?)
    Removed: Mediastreaming (requires non-free library: play-services) [google's binary blobs]
    Removed: Updater [tracking]
    Removed: EME/DRM [adobe's binary blob]
    Added: MultiLocales [tracking. what is some 100kb of text when you now don't have to tell play store your locale?]
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