Add IronFox to F-Droid (Mull continued)

[Licaon_Kter]

Mull was always published before Fennec for Divest OS users or anyone that took it from the Divest Repo

but in F-Droid repo, they were published at the same time

[Cue]

@Licaon_Kter

how to do those exactly on non-rooted devices?

Would there be a way to do it via the “remote debugging via USB” feature that is toggled in the settings?

[Licaon_Kter]

I did that once, such a pain to setup…

[Cue]

Can it be used to transfer my bookmarks from Mull to Fennec or Ironfox?

[Licaon_Kter]

you wish

[Cue]

Is there any way better than this? I haven’t rooted my main phone.

GitHub - AntiKippi/ffa-bookmarks: Utility to manage bookmarks in Firefox for Android

[rafnov]

Can’t you just use Mozilla sync? Or export/import if care more about privacy?

[Cue]

There is no export/import as far as I can tell.

I am not going to make yet another online account only to transfer bookmarks.

[jindam.vani]

• we shouldnt call ironfox as true successor of mull
• they are using phoenix preferences IronFox v134.0 · IronFox OSS / IronFox · GitLab
• safe browsing is disabled according to v 134 news, btw, was it in mull?
• perhaps we need to search other fork which doesnt much deviate from mull philosophy or ideals or somebody will need to take responsibility

[Cue]

A comparison of the Phoenix vs Arkenfox & Tor (Mull) preferences would help.

Google Safe Browsing was disabled in Mull.

[rafnov]

Really? Check yourself, please, and CMIIW.

[Cue]

That is only for desktop Firefox. The manage bookmarks, export/import, etc. is not available on Android Firefox. But thank you for looking.

[rafnov]

I very long hestitated to use Mozilla Sync, but finally done it. It did the job for me, but understanding privacy concerns I don’t intend to encourage anyone to this. Just informing.
I have the same bookmarks on few my devices. Even open tabs. I can send a tab with page to device I want to see it better or share it better.

[vdbhb59]

But why? Why not just use a bookmark system of your own? There are many available on FOSS logic.
However, since you have already done it, …

[Cue]

@vdbhb59

Why not just use a bookmark system of your own?

Interesting. I hadn’t considered this. I found floccus bookmark sync | F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository. Are there any other that you recommend?

[vdbhb59]

You can find a lot here: GitHub - FLOSSBoxIN/awesome-selfhosted: A list of Free Software network services and web applications which can be hosted on your own servers

[celenity]

@jindam.vani

inclusion in fdroid repo, absolutely never

No? This has never been our position: Both @itsaky and I have explicitly stated on several occasions that we’re open to inclusion in F-Droid’s repo in the future; it’s simply not currently planned, as it’s something that requires careful consideration.

I genuinely don’t understand how you could read through the GitLab issue (#7, which you yourself linked) and think this is our stance? Is there a reason you’re mischaracterizing our position?

@vdbhb59

FYI, the dev is using cloudflare, lols.

We’re using Cloudflare R2 storage for our F-Droid repo, though we also offer a mirror on GitLab, and will likely offer one on Codeberg as well.

@vdbhb59

Moreover they suggest use firefox sync. Lol, what is the use of a FF fork then? If I have to give over my data to FF ultimtaely, I better use FF instead of others.

A couple things here:

1. The goal of IronFox is not to avoid Mozilla, and that has also never been the goal of Mull & Fennec, or even desktop browsers, such as LibreWolf. The goal of IronFox is to improve the privacy, security, & freedom of Firefox. We do remove various undesired functionality/features related to Mozilla & connections to them as part of that work, but it’s not an explicit goal to avoid them, and we indeed rely on them for certain functionality (as does Fennec, and as did Mull), where it doesn’t compromise privacy/security/user interests.

2. Firefox Sync is entirely optional, E2EE, and you are even able to self-host your own instance… it’s unclear what your concerns are? I simply suggested it as an easy mechanism for transferring data between Firefox installations…

@vdbhb59

The developers concern is illogical to a lot.

These concerns may be illogical to you personally - but that doesn’t mean they aren’t illogical to others, which is evident by the security researchers & other FOSS projects that share these concerns; some of which do indeed still apply today, as highlighted in the GitLab issue.

@optimumpro

I don’t understand the fascination with Mull. Correct me if I am wrong, but hasn’t Mull always been a virtual copy of Fennec with just a few default values changed? And those values could be similarly changed in Fennec in ‘about:config’?

Like @Licaon_Kter stated:

@Licaon_Kter

I’ll add manually 150 changes? F that

While I’m unaware of the exact number off the top of my head; there are indeed quite a large amount of changes to Firefox that Mull/IronFox make… it’s unreasonable to expect users to both take the time and effort to manually apply each one of them individually, and keep up with updates to the configs…

Mull also had the benefit of quicker updates via the DivestOS Repository; whereas Fennec doesn’t ship any APKs, and is only made available by F-Droid’s repo, so it’s delayed due to the build process. You could manually build Fennec yourself before F-Droid builds it, but that shares the same problem as manually configuring prefs in the about:config… it’s quite unreasonable to expect most users to manually build Fennec.

@optimumpro

That’s more like it. So, typing in Fennec ‘about:config’ will get you to that menu and you can change 10-15 default values. Those changes will persist through updates. So, you are basically doing it once.

There are far more than 10-15 values to change… Just take a look at the preferences under patches/preferences in our repo to get an idea. (These are configs used by IronFox, and are similar to that of Arkenfox/Mull, as I will explain shortly below…)

It is also not a one-time thing. As Firefox changes, so do preferences. Others are simply added as a result of new research & discovery, etc… configs like this do have to be maintained.

@Cue

Would there be a way to do it via the “remote debugging via USB” feature that is toggled in the settings?

Yes, and I actually documented the steps to do this here. That being said, it is definitely a pain to set-up, and also unreasonable to expect users to go through the time and effort needed, as well as keeping up with updates to the configs, etc… Assuming Fennec is being used, this also still doesn’t solve the problem of delayed updates unless you manually build it.

@jindam.vani

we shouldnt call ironfox as true successor of mull

Both IronFox & Mull share the same fundamental vision & ideals of improving the privacy, security, & freedom of Firefox on Android, and contain many of the same hardening, patches/build scripts, and other features. IronFox is indeed not a ‘true successor’ to Mull; as it is not developed by Divested Computing Group, so it wouldn’t be fair to claim it or any other fork is… our goal is to simply carry on the spirit of Mull and continue Tavi’s excellent work on the project.

@jindam.vani

safe browsing is disabled according to v 134 news, btw, was it in mull?

Safe Browsing was enabled in Mull, but did not function due to lack of an API key. IronFox added an API key, so it’s fully functional here. Our plan is to make Safe Browsing off by default, and available for users to enable if they decide to. Unfortunately, due to a bug that will be fixed next release, Safe Browsing is partially enabled by default on IronFox, though it is still simple to disable.

@jindam.vani

perhaps we need to search other fork which doesnt much deviate from mull philosophy or ideals or somebody will need to take responsibility

It’s unclear how IronFox deviates from Mull’s philosophy/ideals; IronFox directly holds the same values as Mull.

@Cue

A comparison of the Phoenix vs Arkenfox & Tor (Mull) preferences would help.

See here for a comparison table. (IronFox uses the Phoenix Hardened configs, so the bottom table for Advanced Hardening also applies). It’s a little outdated, though most of it still applies. IronFox does make a few changes from Phoenix as well (Most notably: IronFox disables DNS over HTTPS & disables Safe Browsing by default (at least that’s the goal…)), but this should still give you a nice idea of the broader picture and what to expect.

Generally speaking: Phoenix contains the same hardening as Arkenfox & Mull; while being far more comprehensive & also specifically tailored to Android. Many of the preferences were indeed taken from Arkenfox & Mull, as well as from Tor, & various other places. A lot have also simply been added from my own research & studying of Firefox’s codebase.

@rafnov

I very long hestitated to use Mozilla Sync, but finally done it. It did the job for me, but understanding privacy concerns I don’t intend to encourage anyone to this. Just informing.
I have the same bookmarks on few my devices. Even open tabs. I can send a tab with page to device I want to see it better or share it better.

Glad you got it synced - I’d be interested to hear your privacy concerns with Sync, since as I explained above: It’s E2EE & even possible to self-host. We don’t want any privacy-invasive functionality in Phoenix, so if you do think there’s a genuine concern here, please let us know.

Well, this was a lot to address, hopefully that answers many of the concerns that have been raised here. I’ll be happy to answer any other questions

[linsui]

@celenity

These concerns may be illogical to you personally - but that doesn’t mean they aren’t illogical to others, which is evident by the security researchers & other FOSS projects that share these concerns; some of which do indeed still apply today, as highlighted in the GitLab issue.

Well it’s also evident according to another security researcher related to those GrapheneOS trolls (oh sorry for my harassment!) that Firefox is not very secure. Then isn’t your Firefox fork very suitable for the insecure F-Droid?

[Licaon_Kter]

@linsui

Then isn’t your Firefox fork very suitable for the insecure F-Droid?

Don’t troll too, c’mon…

[jindam.vani]

@linsui

that Firefox is not very secure

• it [ Firefox is not very secure link ] clearly differentiates about privacy and security
• in present or foreseeable future, common man like me choose between security and privacy [ my opinion ]
  • if security, chromium
  • if privacy, firefox
• example, some burglar wants to loot my house [ assuming i have highly valuable possessions ]
  • burglars keep track of physical movements [ chromium ]
  • burglars gather info what kind of security is installed and how to break it at home [ firefox ]
  • now, as house owner i cant choose one option!