Question about Firefox

DoodleCo · February 23, 2018, 8:25pm

Hi,

Besides the more clearly-different versions, there’s Firefox, Fennec F-droid, and IceCat. Would anyone be so kind as to explain to me the differences between these? Thanks.

blendergeek · February 23, 2018, 8:51pm

Firefox is the web browser made by Mozilla. It uses Google Play for push notifications and cannot be on F-droid. Fennec F-Droid is a rebuild of the current Firefox without google play services. Icecat is a rebuild of Firefox ESR without any nonfree software.

DoodleCo · February 23, 2018, 9:36pm

Thank you. That explanation makes sense. So Fennec updates shortly after mainstream Firefox releases (56, 57, etc.) come out? I’m admittedly a fan of Firefox Nightly, but I’ve noticed it has a bigger toll on my battery

blendergeek · February 24, 2018, 12:13am

Yep. Fennec will usually update just after a regular firefox. IceCat only has a feature update once year.

easyKL · February 27, 2018, 12:17pm

and Klar is Focus

blendergeek · February 27, 2018, 12:31pm

To clarify, Firefox Focus is not a full Firefox Browser and doesm’t even use the Gecko rendering engine.

prog-amateur · April 23, 2018, 2:31pm

Dear all, thank you for this explanation. Just a question, it is mentioned that Fennec “track and report your activity”. What does it mean exactly, which feature is the problem ?

dapgo · April 23, 2018, 4:25pm

in your question I missed “Waterfox” which also is opensource and based in Firefox.
This fork of Firefox keeps compatibility with old extensions/addins.

easyKL · April 28, 2018, 9:51am

under the Settings you’ll find the Sign in option, pointing to Firefox Accounts
Although not mandatory in order to use the app, it could track your browsing if you use it

prog-amateur · April 29, 2018, 5:31pm

Thank you, that’s what I was looking for. So it seems to not be a big issue if it is only that.

oF2pks · June 28, 2018, 10:45am

Mozilla focus-android is 2x2 flavors Focus/Klar X webview/Gecko :
-Focus uses Adjust analytics : https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/focus-android/search?q=AdjustHelper&unscoped_q=AdjustHelper
-Geko is included web engine (almost 30MB) and is 15% faster (but a bit buggy) with more privacy.

Hope they will update Gecko version 6.2 on F-droid , so we could include prebuilt & signed in hand-made roms (more news on xda)

relan · June 28, 2018, 1:40pm

Hope they will update Gecko version 6.2 on F-droid , so we could include prebuilt & signed in hand-made roms

Could you elaborate? Gecko-based Klar will hardly ever hit F-Droid unless someone is willing to maintain it.

oF2pks · June 29, 2018, 3:06pm

Considering you are the principal maintainer of Fennec/Klar, i don’t want to waste your time; so apparently GeckoView “taskcluster” prebuilts are not following F-Droid Inclusion Policy ?
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mobile/GeckoView
https://tools.taskcluster.net/index/gecko.v2.mozilla-central.latest.mobile/android-api-16-without-google-play-services-opt
And how do you manage Gecko side in Fennec ?

github.com

mozilla-mobile/focus-android/blob/main/app/build.gradle#L262


      
          
          implementation "org.mozilla.components:browser-engine-gecko:${AndroidComponents.VERSION}"
          implementation "org.mozilla.components:browser-domains:${AndroidComponents.VERSION}"
          implementation "org.mozilla.components:browser-errorpages:${AndroidComponents.VERSION}"
          implementation "org.mozilla.components:browser-icons:${AndroidComponents.VERSION}"
          implementation "org.mozilla.components:browser-menu:${AndroidComponents.VERSION}"
          implementation "org.mozilla.components:browser-state:${AndroidComponents.VERSION}"
          implementation "org.mozilla.components:browser-toolbar:${AndroidComponents.VERSION}"
          
          implementation "org.mozilla.components:concept-awesomebar:${AndroidComponents.VERSION}"
          implementation "org.mozilla.components:concept-engine:${AndroidComponents.VERSION}"
          implementation "org.mozilla.components:concept-fetch:${AndroidComponents.VERSION}"
          implementation "org.mozilla.components:concept-menu:${AndroidComponents.VERSION}"
          
          implementation "org.mozilla.components:compose-awesomebar:${AndroidComponents.VERSION}"
          
          implementation "org.mozilla.components:feature-awesomebar:${AndroidComponents.VERSION}"
          implementation "org.mozilla.components:feature-app-links:${AndroidComponents.VERSION}"
          implementation "org.mozilla.components:feature-customtabs:${AndroidComponents.VERSION}"
          implementation "org.mozilla.components:feature-contextmenu:${AndroidComponents.VERSION}"
          implementation "org.mozilla.components:feature-downloads:${AndroidComponents.VERSION}"

It will be sad people from outside Germany, Austria & Switzerland have to go on mirrors to get clean Klar version…

Thanks for helping, I’m really interested about F-Droid mechanics.

relan · June 29, 2018, 3:53pm

apparently GeckoView “taskcluster” prebuilts are not following F-Droid Inclusion Policy ?

Prebuilt libraries are not allowed by the inclusion policy. That’s because there’s no way to verify they’re free software. And given Mozilla’s track record I wouldn’t be surprised if official builds of GeckoView contain proprietary stuff.

And how do you manage Gecko side in Fennec ?

It’s built from scratch. BTW, most of the Fennec maintainence work is done by Manizuca.

oF2pks · July 2, 2018, 5:56pm

So is it possible to catch Geckoview artifacts from Fennec MOZ_OBJDIR an re-use them with Klar (or any other?) to avoid unverified prebuilts from taskcluster maven.
# Write build artifacts to:
mk_add_options MOZ_OBJDIR=./objdir-droid

relan · July 3, 2018, 5:43am

is it possible to catch Geckoview artifacts from Fennec MOZ_OBJDIR an re-use them with Klar

No. All builds are isolated from each other.

oF2pks · July 3, 2018, 12:02pm

Thanks for this instructive details.

Mozilla announced Klar & Focus will move to Geckoview officially on version 7, so at this time, light webview F-Droid edition will be on demand (even if Gecko is a slightly faster…)
Thanks again.

system · September 1, 2018, 12:03pm

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