Re: Packaging a free Firefox

[Katherine Cox-Buday <cox.katherine.e@gmail.com>]

Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org> writes:

> Can you tell me specifically what is wrong with GNU IceCat that makes it
> unsuitable for you?  It has been my primary browser for several years.

I don't think aiming to change a user's motivations is a winning game,
but I can enumerate why I personally wanted to use Firefox. Maybe it
will help make Icecat better.

- Icecat doesn't have any of the new, more performant, pieces Mozilla
  have been integrating into Firefox (quantum, sevro).

- Icecat doesn't have the account synchronization meaning I didn't have
  access to bookmarks, history, synced tabs, etc.

- Icecat very _strangely_ came preinstalled with extensions I didn't
  want (I think I remember an extension for a fast food chain?)

- Icecat cut me off from the normal Firefox extension store. I can't
  remember if I was able to loan extensions I view as crucial for safely
  browsing the web.

- The number of maintainers and the way in which it was (is?) being
  maintained did not inspire confidence. The people maintaining this are
  heros, but I'd rather rely on the boring engineering practices of
  upstream Firefox than heroic efforts.

-- 
Katherine