GNUzilla and IceCat | Hacker News Reader

GNUzilla and IceCat

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72 pointsrouma741 comments

> Other sites rewrite the host name in links redirecting the user to another site, mainly to "spy" on clicks. When this behavior is detected, IceCat shows a message alerting the user.

Easily one of the most annoying "features" I deal with on a daily basis. I almost wish the a.href property were read-only in the DOM.

In some cases it's not to spy on clicks but to hide data in the URL by obscuring the HTTP referer header, eg. DuckDuckGo does this so sites can't see your search terms.

That's a pretty respectable and legitimate use. It's a shame it can't happen on the browser side, though, by tagging the links with something like rel="noreferer".

Hi, current maintainer here!

That documentation is pretty old, I'll be updating it pretty soon.

Current .deb development packages can be tested from http://devel.trisquel.info/icecat/ The "toutatis" repo should work on Trisquel 6, Debian Stable and Ubuntu Precise, while the "belenos" one should work on Trisquel 7 (beta), Debian Testing and Ubuntu Trusty.

Main changes from the previous version focus on providing better privacy, in particular protecting the user against fingerprinting. The settings have been tweaked to prevent the browser from leaking information through referrers, cookies, useragent and other methods.

The current version comes with this main extensions enabled:

* LibreJS to check for the freedom of the javascript you run * HTTPS-Everywhere redirects you to secure versions of the sites you browse * A customized Adblockplus blocks known privacy trackers, and when in private browsing mode it blocks all third party content. * A custom homepage lists this and other features with links to documentation and the possibility to disable them quickly if needed.

I'll be publishing a more complete list of features through the bug-gnuzilla mailing list soon, along with a beta release. Stay tuned!

> GNUzilla runs its own plugin finder service at gnuzilla.gnu.org. To specify this at runtime, visit the url about:config in your browser, find the pfs.datasource.url attribute, and change the host to gnuzilla.gnu.org. Also change the protocol from https to http, if necessary.

I hope they sign packages...

> I hope they sign packages...

And defend against attacks that trick you into installing a known-vulnerable version of the plugin (which of course has a valid signature, since it was believed to be good at the time of release).

And avoid using error-prone package signature algorithms, like the one Android uses that originates from Java and has had several vulnerabilities.

And don't send any personally-identifiable or private user information to the server when checking for updates.

And... actually, no, just don't distribute software over HTTP, even if signed.

In its current implementation the plugin finder just redirects to the gnash source at ftp.gnu.org (which is signed) or the mozplugger website.

This will be updated to provide a more useful response to the user, in particular it will try to provide a way to install the appropriate package from the repos of the distro the browser is running on.

The note about changing to http comes from the fact that the finder service doesn't work through https://gnuzilla.gnu.org/ but http://gnuzilla.gnu.org/plugins/PluginFinderService.php We would work on this too.

Doesn't IceWeasel already exist? Are there license differences here?

IceWeasel was created to work around trademark restrictions; Mozilla Corporation would not allow to Debian to use the trademarked names as long as Debian was distributing the software with unapproved patches. So, Debian created their own branding in order to comply. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation_software_re... for more details.

Uhm...

> Updated: $Date: 2012/08/22 01:51:19 $

Yeah, this page hasn't been updated in awhile. However, IceCat's maintainer (who is also the Trisquel GNU/Linux maintainer) has builds of IceCat 31 (maybe 32 now, not sure) for Trisquel 7. The source tarball should be officially released sometime soon.

sorry for the confusion, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8284815

http://gnewsense.org/Documentation/3/MiscellaneousGuides/Com...

I compiled IceCat 17 for 32bit gnewsense some months ago. V24 needs dependencies outside what can be provided on gnewsense 3.1 (based on Debian Squeeze). The maintainer compiles the 64bit binaries against fairly recent libraries.

Firefox put out a generic 32bit binary that will work on linuxen of some vintage when unpacked somewhere like ~/home.

I did spend some time scratching my head and reading their mozconfig files to see how they manage to produce one binary that will work on Centos 5.10 up to Debian Sid. Didn't get anywhere.

Anyone got any ideas? Static build? Anyone got a mozconfig or mozbuild method to share?

As a bonus, these tools are also consistently outdated. :/

what does this mean for Debian's icedove? Could it just be replaced by IceCat?

icedove is the unbranded version of thunderbird; you probably meant iceweasel :)

I think Debian's reasons for forking Firefox & Thunderbird is more related to trademarks and licensing issues, while it seems IceCat is more focused on privacy concerns. All in all I'm sure Debian will consider IceCat though.

> All in all I'm sure Debian will consider IceCat though.

Just to clarify, IceCat is around for almost a decade now. Actually, IceCat was called IceWeasel before the Debian project decided to call their own Firefox fork IceWeasel. [1]

So no, I don't believe Debian will consider GNU IceCat.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_IceCat#Origins_of_the_name

Hmm I must've read the announcement too fast because I thought: GNUzilla = web browser = Firefox/Iceweasel Icecat = email client = Thunderbird/Icedove

So ... looking forward for thunderbird/icedove's equivalent from GNU :)

That was originally the plan, but I don't believe that's been true since Loic Duros replaced Giuseppe Scrivano as the maintainer.

This has been around for years; the title is misleading, making it sound like something new.

my mistake, the 'news' is that it's being shipped on Fedora updates-testing repos

http://fedoraos.wordpress.com/2014/09/02/gnu-icecat-browser-...

Will it get security updates in sync with Firefox ESR point releases ? I can't find security updates for IceCat on ftp.gnu.org.

My two cents for mozilla, and im sure they will be sort of offended by this, but the best strategy, one that should be pursuit years ago, is to get the chrome engine, and replace the webkit/blink layer with the mozilla web rendering engine..

That way, they would have the multi-process architecture, they need badly, but with their core, the web layer intact..

The chrome architecture is good enough, that you can replace the webkit layer without mess with other core parts

Dont know why they are procrastinating with servo instead, and doing the same mistakes netscape did years ago, to rewrite the whole engine, while IE was capable to take the lead in the browser wars back than.. the same mistake!!

Theres a good Joel Spolsky article about this (from 2000):

Things You Should Never Do [http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html]

They have multiprocess in the nightlies (https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis), but it is only used in FirefoxOS releases currently.

If you have a nightly desktop build you should see a "New E10s Window" in the menu. This starts up a multiprocess browser window allowing you to test the feature.

Servo is a research project exploring the design space of writing a modern browser from the ground up in a language designed for it. It's not being developed as a Gecko (Firefox internal framework) replacement. So I don't think they are making the mistake of restarting from scratch for their core product. The Servo project is done by a different team and Gecko development continues uninterrupted. No procrastination in that area is going on.

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