Re: torbrowser

[ng0 <contact.ng0@cryptolab.net>]

On 17-03-06 08:06:52, dian_cecht@zoho.com wrote:
> On Mon, 6 Mar 2017 15:14:59 +0000
> ng0 <contact.ng0@cryptolab.net> wrote:
> > My idea is now to just reconstruct what torproject does, from the git
> > checkout of torbrowser and eventually later fix Guix specific
> > issues and fine tuning (freedom issues etc etc).
> 
> Would it be possible to grab the patches Torbrowser uses against
> Firefox and simply try to apply them to IceCat? I don't know exactly
> what version of FF Icecat and Torbrowser build off of, but if that
> could work it might make life a bit easier.
> 
> Alternativly, maybe applying the icecat patches to Torbrowser might
> work, too.
> 
> 

Not really. Icecat is just too old, and the firefox version torbrowser
is based on is not compatible with the one icecat uses. I would not want
the extra work to backport patches.

So far, I haven't investigated all possible ways, it seems too much work
to cherry-pick what torbrowser does to firefox. as they seem to maintain
all in the repository it could work out to just build from there. Their
release workflow (not automated but well documented) includes pulling in
from firefox, so there has to be firefox code in the repository.
The time and effort to base this on icecat is not worth it... unless
someone wants to start an icecat-torbrowser which *closely* tracks
torbrowser and does not become so unresponsive to bugs/issues like
icecat currently is.
And in both cases, the browser I assemble, and in the not-existing case
of a blend of torbrowser,I want to compare against upstream releases to
see how much we would differ and how much it'll affect fingerprinting
etc.
This difference will go into the description, as it can't be described
as a 1:1 port of torbrowser.