Iceraven-browser: Updates

[reyis4402]

Why have updates stopped? The current fenix version is a bit old. No updates for 7 days
Will new updates continue?

[CharmCityCrab]

@interfect

[CharmCityCrab]

To be fair, interfect did not promise us a constant stream of updates (Pretty much the opposite initially, actually), and it is also entirely possible that he is doing some coding behind the scenes that isn't ready to be included in the browser yet. 7 days of inactivity on GItHub doesn't _necessarily_ indicate 7 days of no activity on the project in general, especially while the project remains just one guy who may sitting there banging away on emacs or something on his computer trying to finish something for the project.

However, for those of us hoping for a long-term Fenix fork that is eventually secure, gets regular updates, and is listed on Google Play and/or F-Droid as a more customizable (among other things) alternative to Mozilla's Fenix, 7 days without updates does look like a bad sign.

Interfect did an incredible amount to positively differentiate IceWeasel from Firefox in only a few hours on his very first day, and was still making changes at least 10 days after that. However, one thing I sort of noticed from the beginning was that the first thing we would need if this was going to be a long-term secure thing was that we needed to get him some more developers. The second thing I kind of keyed in on is that he initially kind of did this as a proof concept- i.e. "It could be done. Look, I just did it. Someone else could do it, too."- as opposed to being announced as a long-term on-going project. That it continued beyond the first day or two was a positive sign in that he may have seen the positive reaction and expanded his aim or was considering doing so.

However, whether interfect is interested in continuing this or not, and I very much hope he is, either way those of interested in IceWeasel or an Iceweasel type fork of Fenix need to find more developers, maybe especially in this early period when upstream Mozilla Fenix is extremely buggy and being flooded with commits that someone should probably be looking at and deciding when and how to merge, and even whether to merge at all (Some of what they want to do conflicts with some of what we want to do, that's why the fork exists).

Either those developers could assist interfect or do their own IceWeasel. I've been busy on Reddit trying to get the attention of the Waterfox guy, the F-Droid guys, and basically anyone who sees like they might be a developer or know a developer who could assist in this project or a project like this. No luck so far that I know of, but maybe some folks are mulling it over. That's one thing I'd recommend everyone do- not necessarily on Reddit, but wherever you go online or off-line that may have developers willing to contribute.

Anyone know if any of the fired Mozilla people would be interested in this? Anyone know anyone of them and want to put out an email? What about something like LineageOS?

Since this is all opensource, it's easy enough to get the developers first and then decide if this is the fork to continue with in this location (If Interfect remains interested) or if there needs to be a new fork that's basically based on the same goals (In the event interfect isn't interested). In fact, frankly, the IceWeasel name and logo are not copyrighted and the code is all open-source, so a fork could actually bring everything over with it if it wanted to. Iceweasel as a name actually has a storied history that goes back to at least 2005 and Debian Linux's dispute with Mozilla over Firefox on desktop. I even read a novel that had a character _named_ Iceweasel (or who renamed herself IceWeasel, in any event), and it was definitely the character doing it as a reference to the Debian/Mozilla dispute and the author doing it as a reference to that dispute, though I'm not sure they ever explicitly said that- those of us knew, well, knew, and it was pretty funny and pretty cool to see.

Anyway, whereever this goes or doesn't go, Interfect has done us a big favor by showing us that it's possible. We've got an issue open a few spots down that maybe would allow him or others a small monetary incentive to keep at it or to start at it. As Steve Balmer would say, though, what we need is "developers, developers, developers".

That's just my take on it, yours may vary.

But I do think that we are potentially missing a golden opportunity here if we delay. The time to move in with a fork with this is while Firefox is rolling out Fenix to stable, and it is. Ideally, we'd have something in Google Play or F-Droid by the time they around to rolling out to the United States. The next few weeks are the sweet spot to get people looking to change browsers. Given too much more time where we're just telling people to download a random apk on a website with an uncertain future, and people may have already settled in with new Chromium-based browsers or learned to live with Firefox Fenix. Having a fork that is right there exactly when people are looking for it would be great in terms of getting an initial push of new users instead of having to build up much more slowly over time.

[interfect]

It's not dead, but I've got some Stuff Going On and I won't be able to make another build for at least another week. I'll go through and add more add-ons to the list when I get a chance, it looks like issues are cropping up for those.

If anyone wants to address open issues with PRs (like a couple to pull in Mozilla's changes in to this repo and android-components) I can definitely bang on the merge button.

[interfect]

I'm especially interested in PRs to rip out the proprietary analytics deps we can't bring to F-Droid, and advice from anyone who has submitted to F-Droid.

[reyis4402]

We expect an update every week :)

[reyis4402]

Good news fenix is coming soon to f-droid store
https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/162

[CharmCityCrab]

@relan Would it be possible for you to submit some of the changes you've made to Fenix for F-Droid removing proprietary components as pull requests for this project (IceWeasel)?

We'd all really appreciate it, and @interfect (IceWeasel's head developer) specifically said that PRs of that nature for IceWeasel are things he'd be especially interested in a couple posts up in this issue.

It sounds like what you're doing and what is being done over here are complementary. Both projects serve different audiences (I'll get into why they are both needed and not duplicative in a reply to another post within this issue thread that I'm going to be typing shortly), but there is likely to be some overlap where both projects will want to do the same thing on certain issues, and as open-source projects that are close forks of the same upstream project, it could save some developer hours to pool resources when that happens.

@interfect has also mentioned that he'd appreciate any advice about F-Droid from anyone who has submitted there, so perhaps that could happen as well.

It would be great if these two projects could establish a good working relationship as sister projects, pooling resources and code where it makes sense, and offering patches to each other's projects. It would help them both. Since neither seem like commercial projects, I don't see the competition as a problem. Some people will be drawn to one, others to the other, and we can use the success of both, combined with upstream, to in theory start making the mobile web friendlier to Gecko-based browsers, and improving the quality of all of the browsers.

[CharmCityCrab]

Good news fenix is coming soon to f-droid store
mozilla-mobile#162

That is a good news, but, as I understand it, that project is purely to create a clone of the official Firefox with the telemetry removed, without any additional changes, whereas this project wants to not only eliminate telemetry, but also add customize-ability, bring back about:config, have a user option for URL protocol and "www" (where applicable), get "collections" and such out of people's faces, include broader extension support, and make various other changes to upsteam that emphasize giving users more choice and more options than Firefox is willing to.

As posted above, I do see a lot of room for cooperation, though, if the developers on both projects are willing. Where they have the same goals, they could share code, and lift some of the burden on developers on both projects.

Since the projects will both draw in different users for different reasons, it'll increase the overall pool of people using Gecko-based browsers on mobile and be beneficial to the mobile web, as well as the individual users who favor different approaches, if both work together and succeed.

Personally, I have little interest in a browser that _only_ removes telemetry, but I can see why some people would have more interest or that would be exactly what they are looking for. I like the broader scope of Iceweasel's mission. It's that broader scope and the nature of it that appeals to me personally and is why I am here (Yanking telemetry would just be a nice bonus). :)

[relan]

Would it be possible for you to submit some of the changes you've made to Fenix for F-Droid removing proprietary components as pull requests for this project (IceWeasel)?

I have little spare time and focus only on F-Droid. The changes you're talking about are available here: https://gitlab.com/relan/fennecbuild/-/blob/master/fenix-liberate.patch. Feel free to integrate this patch.

If you really want cooperation, work with gilbsgilbs to make proprietary components of Fenix optional _and_ upstream those changes. Everyone will benefit from that.

as I understand it, that project is purely to create a clone of the official Firefox with the telemetry removed, without any additional changes

F-Droid's focus is software freedom. Telemetry would be acceptable if it was implemented using free software.

[Dakkaron]

I'd be interested to work on IceWeasel to increase customizability. I am currently trying to understand the codebase.

[CharmCityCrab]

It's not dead, but I've got some Stuff Going On and I won't be able to make another build for at least another week. I'll go through and add more add-ons to the list when I get a chance, it looks like issues are cropping up for those.

If anyone wants to address open issues with PRs (like a couple to pull in Mozilla's changes in to this repo and android-components) I can definitely bang on the merge button.

I'm a non-coder, but I've filed a couple of pull requests over the last few days. One removes some proprietary telemetry and is a patch from another project. The other is from upstream. They may not be good patches, but you could at least take a look at them and commit them or turn them down. I spent a lot of time on those, because I don't know how this works and had to figure it out with a ton of research and trial and error. They are an attempt to do what you asked for and said you would have time to look at, but haven't. I also have a readme.md that clarifies that this is IceWeasel and not Firefox, which is badly needed. That the front page of this identifies it as Firefox is not the sign of well-run project.

Frankly, @interfect, I get that this isn't your job and even among your non-job stuff, there are other things in your life that may need to take priority sometimes. However, right now I don't feel like this browser is a viable alternative to anything. You're way behind Firefox's commits (125 and counting) and taking a break at precisely the wrong time, without anyone being left with the ability to make commits.

Continuous Integration (CI) and the ability to produce instant APKs are also things I'm told we should probably have on the developer end of things.

There is no Fennec anymore on Mozilla's end. They rolled out Fenix to all remaining regions early this morning. This is the time people are most likely to be looking for alternatives and we're not ready and missing the chance to be one of the alternatives they look at. Frankly, I can't even use this right now personally for security reasons because it is too far behind. It should also be in some sort of an app store by now with some oversight and automatic updates.

I appreciate everything you've done, but it may be time to figure out if you're serious about this, and, if you are, figure out how to really find time to plug away at it, and, if you're not, let people know and archive the project so people can see use the source code and patches for potential future forks, but understand that this isn't actively being developed.

I'm sorry that no one stepped up to help you developer wise. I was all over reddit trying to recruit for you in as many communities as I could think of. It may be that no with the appropriate skills cares enough to make this happen, despite the obvious need and demand for it. You have come the closest by putting this together, which I appreciate, but it isn't really coming together, unfortunately.

I know this may be a little overly blunt, but this fork may be doing more harm than good by being here but not really being worked on and working towards widespread distribution channels and third-party audits.

I feel like I am wasting my time with all of this.

[reyis4402]

Updates are slow and some plugins don't load like rchapta

Hope it is fixed as soon as possible

[interfect]

It turns out I'm ready earlier than expected to make some new builds. I'll try and put one together today.

I'm sorry I haven't kept up with your expectations @CharmCityCrab, but I also can't really say I'll be any quicker to get to things in the future.

I definitely have the resources to keep updating the project, but I'm not fast. If turnaround times on PRs and issues of under a few days are a thing people want, more people are going to have to come on board. If other people want to come on as maintainers, I can throw the repo in a Github organization and populate it, and write some good docs on building.

@reyis4402 bugs with particular add-ons should probably be reported to the add-on devs and/or on https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/android-components, ideally with some description of the particular missing/broken WebExtension API piece, and only if they don't already know that that piece isn't there. Keep in mind that @mozilla-mobile told you not to install anything not on their extension list, so I can't say how happy they'll be to get bug reports about what happened when you did it anyway.

I'm going to close this and go ahead and open an issue to recruit more maintainers. It's not all that hard to merge PRs, merge in upstream, and tag and build releases, and maybe someone who knows how can come along and automate some of it. The downside is of course less security, because then you need to trust all the maintainers.

[interfect]

See #23 for the issue of getting more/more active maintainers.