If only… What does fox say?

I’m so glad you want to try!

The problem with both that and Flathub is that I can’t seem to pass Githubs signup CAPTCHA whatever I tried (and yes I tried other browsers too lol). Besides, having my old account there arbitrarily blocked on phone number verification in the past, not feeling super keen on having users rely on them for updates, even putting aside whatever I feel about Microsofts and GitHubs role in the ecosystem in general…

However, if anyone would be up for the literal push-part of pushing it up and wouldn’t mind collaborating a bit in the process, would be happy to make that happen together (or use your privilege if you’re motivated; it’s free software yo, just heed the license ;)). There is an Issue thread for coordinating if this is you.

I don’t think it should be too involved as the source repo and source tarballs are built in pretty much the same way as LW, which already has a derivation in nixpkgs. Didn’t look closer at that derivation but hopefully shouldn’t be much more than copying pkgs/applications/networking/browsers/librewolf and replacing some strings.

There is a longer discussion to be had about both what RFP does, how effective it is, and the relative impact on entropy of this particular feature.

For now I will just say that this: Providing configuration for this serves the projects goal of user control and freedom. It should be up to the user to make that call. Us as developer shouldn’t unilaterally decide on behalf of everyone. We can’t think of everything and we don’t always know best. Of course we can still provide guidance and put what we believe is sensible as defaults. I find it odd to criticize empowering users in this way, in particular considering the status quo.

Were it up to me, everyone should have Letterboxing on by default, probably with similar reasoning. I don’t see why you wouldn’t use it. Everyone enabling it would make us all (ever so little) less fingerprintable. Arguably more meaningful impact than dark/light-theme. And less of an accessibility issue. Even so, we still leave this configurable in the same way as the dynamic theming.

You can also see this way of thinking reflected in allowing loading of your own add-ons from file and allowing userChrome customization. Probably niche power-user features with risks involved and sharp edges exposed but we are developers and maintainers of software, not your sysadmins¹ or caretakers².

If you fundamentally disagree, well, not all software has to be for everyone. Probably there is already something else (like Tor Browser) that serves your needs and aligns with your philosophy better?

¹: …xcept… you want us to be your sysadmin? 👉👈 Call me when you close that seed round bb 😘

²: Nope.

Konform Browser is more recent Firefox (actually LibreWolf) fork which goes even further in debloating, removing “AI” functionality and disabling remote connections. It’s based on Firefox ESR (like GNUZilla IceCat).

fedi thread

If you have concerns about the telemetry and browser metadata privacy parts of AI integrations, I think Konform, IceCat, Waterfox and Mullvad Browser are a lot more relevant than Zen…