Re: Packaging a free Firefox

[Mike Gerwitz <mtg@gnu.org>]

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On Wed, May 02, 2018 at 23:06:32 -0700, Chris Marusich wrote:
> Clément Lassieur <clement@lassieur.org> writes:
>
>> I find Icecat very buggy, even if I compare it to a home-made Firefox
>> package that inherits Icecat (and thus is very close to Icecat).  For
>> example I can't even pay with my credit card with icecat-52-guix,
>> whereas I can with firefox-home-52-guix.  (It looks like a javascript
>> issue.)  Also, lots of videos don't work, and it's difficult to know
>> whether it's because of technical issues or because of DRM.
>
> This has not been my experience with IceCat.  With two exceptions,
> IceCat has performed just as well as Firefox for me for everything I
> have done, including credit card payments.  I sometimes watch YouTube
> videos using IceCat, but I don't view many other videos, so I can't
> really comment on how well IceCat handles videos.  If it requires DRM,
> of course, it's not going to work in IceCat, which is a good thing.
>
> When I use IceCat over TOR, it doesn't always work.  When I use IceCat
> with extensions (plugins?  add-ons?  I'm not sure what the right
> terminology is here) like NoScript enabled, it doesn't always work.  But
> when I don't use TOR and I disable those add-ons, everything works just
> as well as stock Firefox.  If you're still having trouble after
> disabling those things, can you describe the specifics of what you're
> having trouble with?

I use IceCat personally and FF Dev Edition at work.  Until the recent
move to WebExtensions, I used the same addons.  I use NoScript and Tor
and have no problems.  But I rarely enable JS and never run proprietary
JS, so my exposure may be different.  I do not use LibreJS (because I
don't usually run JS at all in general and it historically did not play
well with NoScript; maybe that has changed).

> The exceptions I have experienced with IceCat:
>
> 1) A website failed for me because IceCat enables Referer spoofing by
> default (network.http.referer.spoofSource in about:config).  I had to
> disable that feature to use that website.

This was a frustrating problem for me for CloudFlare CAPTCHAs---it would
enter an infinte direct loop.  Disabling referer spoofing fixed the
issue.

> 2) It used to be that IceCat would crash frequently for me.  However,
> once I changed my gfx.canvas.azure.backends and
> gfx.content.azure.backends from "cairo" to "skia", this problem stopped
> for me.  I don't know if this is still an issue , since I haven't ever
> switched it back to "cairo".  See here for details:
>
> https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-guix/2016-11/msg00008.html

It will crash for me if I try e.g. Jitsi Meet; I'll have to see if
anything you are describing helps.


Anyway: I too would like a modern version of FF packaged for Guix.  I
know that David Thompson was exploring it at some point but got hung up
on some Rust packaging issues that he didn't have the time to
explore.  I want the modern performance benefits, and I also use the
browser for web development.  IceCat maintenance also effectively falls
on Mark Weaver backporting security patches in Guix; Rubén Rodriguez
(IceCat) maintainer has a lot on his plate and IceCat does not get a lot
of attention.

(If anyone wants to help with IceCat maintenance, he would like the
help; contact us at maintainers@gnu.org.)

-- 
Mike Gerwitz
Free Software Hacker+Activist | GNU Maintainer & Volunteer
GPG: D6E9 B930 028A 6C38 F43B  2388 FEF6 3574 5E6F 6D05
https://mikegerwitz.com

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