I’m not sure I want a fork of a browser that limits what I can see because I’m an adult, but I can see how some people would want that. It’s bad enough that the siloed world we are trying to avoid is trying to decide what we should see for their profit that I don’t want to willingly get filtered like that.
I have had small input output spreadsheets that are handy even on a phone. Most of the backend calculations happen on a different tab so that makes it useable on the tiny screen.
PureBrowser is just Firefox with a few adaptions. I think it would need a lot of rework to make it usable on a mobile. But as I heard the latest Firefox will handle things better.
Anyway, they will ship the phone with GNOME Web / Epiphany. They adapted it for the L5.
Signal is the only absolute deal breaker for me. It must have signal.
If I have to change to an alternative app to achieve something, that’s no problem. But if I have to also get my friends to change?? Not going to happen. That’s why signal is the only absolute must.
What about a gesture component to the keyboard for missing keys like undo and redo? Or a key that press and hold allows the loading of the Alt, Ctrl, and/or Del keys the way a single tap on shift does?
Foobar2000 Mobile (native) playing ones own hi-res files in .FLAC and .WAV at any given bitrate. Foobar2000, being open source already, has a lot of components/plug ins available and commonly used as a bit true and reliable program by audiophiles. With the Wolfson DAC the Librem 5 users deserve a complete audio playback app like this.
BANKING apps
For daily use support for (m.mobile) banking apps is essential especially if Librem 5 is to be accepted by a broader audience.
you could just use mobile site in the browser no?
Highly doubt it, it does not on Windows Edge for mobile devices so I have reasons to assume it won’t work on Librem 5 either. When following the link you’ll see organizations like banks in Europe do not allow for users to access their account information other than provided by dedicated and approved apps in Google Store or Apple Store.
I believe there’s was a good reason for @todd-weaver evaluating web apps for banks from the start https://tracker.pureos.net/w/pureos/web_apps/
Not having easy acces to banking information would be a dealbreaker to many potential customers. It would be a comforting thought having the banking options tested by devs.
The Purism Devs already have too much on their plate, and they frankly need to focus their time and energy on more important things, like polishing libhandy, phosh and phoc and the essential apps (Calls, Chatty, Web, King’s Cross, multimedia player, Calendar, Contacts, etc.).
We, the Librem 5 users, should take responsibility for testing the software and web pages not being developed by Purism.
I think that we should set up a wiki where people can start testing apps, and listing what doesn’t work and testing critical web pages like banking access in order to evaluate how well they work. We are definitely going to need to do this for cellular networks, so that potential Librem 5 buyers can check how well the phone works with their local cellular provider before buying.
What do you all think?
And there’s no way to pick “show desktop site” or the similar? In fact, if you run the “normal” version of Firefox, I don’t see how the bank website can even know that you’re using a mobile device (IP address lookups are not useful here, since a non-negligible number of people use cellular networks for Internet access in fixed locations or via a hotspot).
I would like to see the IceCat webbrowser and Tor browser in the repos.
I totally agree. Purism should concentrate (for now) only on the basis of Librem5 and the rest will come with time.
If Librem 5 wants to be appealing to non tech savvy potential customers and purism will be providing the accompanied store for Librem users, people will expect a watertight solution for mobile banking. I totally agree developers should focus on the priority list. In order to end the discussion whether or not online banking will be working of the bat, I can imagine it is not to much trouble for those having access to a dev kit to collectively log into their own banking account, doing a quick check and report back if they succeeded (+name bank), especially when it comes to European banks due to the very restricting new legislation on that continent. Like willing people like @maximilian is doing in his app testing thread, I presume there are quite a few others with dev kits willing to do a 5 minute test, it would be interesting to see what they will come up with.
Proving easy access to online banking will most definitely reassure potential customers like myself who are into the Purism /Librem philosophy and concept in buying but are still on the fence about pre-ordering one. Current most heard cons in the decision making process like being more ‘expensive’, ‘bulkier’, etc compared to mainstream smartphones providing x number of RAM compared to ‘only 3GB RAM’ arguments will then turn out to be almost non-existent.
Edit 1: Added link to @maximilian 's thread
Edit 2:
For further discussion regarding online banking apps and not hijacking this thread I’d like to take this over to Librem 5 - online banking app and other m.mobile websites
Most of the apps I currently use have functions that can be accomplished through a browser, so I’m not concerned. Bryan Lunduke showed us that we an install programs with apt, so I may do that (especially Aisle Riot)
Having confirmation and tests for European banks in particular (browser URL -> redirected to m.mobile) would still be much appreciated. Not ordering one before an official announcement banking URL’s/apps will work in Europe.
Besides the ‘basics’ that is worked on by developers, banking apps are one of the most used, one would expect these to be considered essential for Librem 5 to be accepted not only by early adopters. Failing to get those working upon delivery will be a miss. Better have it tested now.
Edit: Copied to mobile banking thread to have discussions to be continued there
The apps I am most concerned about are the Samsung Gear and Samsung Health apps for connecting to a smartwatch I got as a gift. Other than that, SMSSecure/Silence support would be nice.
I would like an editor a lot, as I use Google Docs to edit documents on my phone all the time and it would be good to have an alternative.
Also, I almost forgot about browsers. A Firefox/Waterfox client would be very good.