this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2024
100 points (96.3% liked)
Linux
48208 readers
721 users here now
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
- No misinformation
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Not true, FF comes with few binary blobs which are removed from Librewolf. Also there are some things disabled entirely at build time, so they are removed from being an option. So it's not just the settings, and it's not plain re-branding. Some distros has gotten it wrong, believing that it's just a matter of settings, but at least on the case of Librewolf and the Tor browser that's not the case.
That hey depend on FF continuous development to exist is true, that doesn't mean they just rebrand.
Tor browser is something else, I don't group it in with stuff like Librewolf.
For librewolf, I just took a look to try and figure out what binary blobs are being talked about. This is the repository I was looking at, I think its the right place: https://codeberg.org/librewolf/source/src/branch/main. There isn't much documentation on the patches besides the file names for the most part, but do you have any idea which of these relates to binary blobs? Or is it in the settings file? Really nothing I see here convinces me that this project is worth anybody's time over regular firefox, it just changes some defaults, disables pocket (they patch it out, but there's already a setting), and changes the branding. I don't disagree with most of their changes, I just don't see the point of maintaining and marketing an entire derivative browser for what could just be a settings hardening guide on a wiki somewhere.
There are several patches under its patches source directory, and there are different sort of packages, one example is the
sedpatch to avoid includingpocketin the build. The DRM widevine is not included either on the build, though it can be installed if you want it installed (probably there's a patch for that somewhere).But I no longer see removing binary blobs being advertised by Librewolf, it's been a while since I don't check on their site...
I guess I don’t see the point of removing pocket from the build since it can be disabled in a standard Firefox build with a single about:config option. That’s what I do.