The Latest Reason Fedora Users Have Been Questioning Firefox As The Default Browser

[phoronix]

Phoronix: The Latest Reason Fedora Users Have Been Questioning Firefox As The Default Browser

The default browser choice for Fedora Linux has once again come up again with some no longer even wanting Mozilla Firefox within the package repository...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Firefox-Fedora-Unsigned

[GreatEmerald]

I like to keep browsers as vanilla as possible, so in my case this only affects the KWallet5 addon.
Ideally, it would be integrated into kmozillahelper. Otherwise, so far just disable requiring signed extensions and it's fine. If Mozilla disallows that in the future, then it can be discussed.

The idea itself is OK, it certainly should prevent your grandma from installing malware, while not affecting power users.

[Swiftpaw]

Where is the open source browser that is privacy-conscious and comes with anti-ad and other features built-in? Mozilla has been corrupted by advertisement greed.

[maarten]

What about 'verified building'?

- Allow some applications to distribute some signed binary blob.
- Allow only differences in the key signature
- Allow only certain signing algorithms
- Require that we can rebuild that blob bit by bit

That way Firefox is content that users are by default protected against malicious extensions. (Has this become a problem anyway?).
The distributions can verify that the extensions can be built themselves.

An important limitation is that the distributions cannot change the compilation flags or fix certain things.

[SpyroRyder]

Malicious extensions are a bit of a problem. Currently because Firefox just asks if you want to install the extension and leaves the result up to the user, I have had to deal with adware and, in one case, a genuine phising page on the computers of friends and family. Often these are matched with the excuse of "well the page said I should install the extension to get the best experience" and/or YouTube or flash video downloaded extensions.

[curaga]

Where is the open source browser that is privacy-conscious and comes with anti-ad and other features built-in? Mozilla has been corrupted by advertisement greed.

Fifth and Otter

[eydee]

Fork it and remove the stuff they don't need? It's still open source, isn't it?

[Chewi]

Fork it and remove the stuff they don't need? It's still open source, isn't it?

That would basically be Iceweasel. They're not allowed to distribute binaries called Firefox. Only distros like Gentoo can get away with packaging Firefox in such a way that it'll actually be called Firefox after it's built because the end user builds it themselves.

[Danny3]

Even though Firefox is my favorite browser on Windows and Linux, I must say that this was a pretty crappy move from Mozilla
Something that I would expect from Microsoft, not from them

I, the user must control the software, not the software (programmer/developer Mozilla) must control me
If I want to install an unsigned extension it's my business, a warning is enough
What if I developed the extension myself?
I cannot trust myself?
I'm curious why didn't they just put an option in the settings like "Don't install unsigned extensions" turned on by default that can be turned off by us, the power users?
WTF, even google has on Android an option to install software (APKs) from other sources than their app store

Anyway, I will stay with the last version that supports unsigned extensions on Windows at least
On Linux distros with their crappy logic everything is bundled together

[planetguy]

Fork it and remove the stuff they don't need? It's still open source, isn't it?

The code is open-source, but Mozilla owns "Firefox" the branding, and says that you can't use it if your browser isn't identical to Firefox as published by Mozilla. If Fedora wants to patch Firefox (such as to permit unsigned add-ons) they will have to re-brand it. (Debian already rebrands Firefox to Iceweasel for this reason.)