Firefox for librem5

Hardware Librem 5
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I would love Firefox as well. I am using built-in password manager with master password and encrypted db. I am heavily using Firefox sync on self-hosted content server. And for sure I am browsing with ublock and umatrix.

So missing Firefox is a big disadvantage for me :frowning:

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Brave Browser = chromium = google = thanks but no thanks

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Brave Browser = open source = prove your claim instead of just inferring there is a problem.

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“based on the Chromium web browser and its Blink engine”

chromium = google

i do not trust on google and i don’t like it because that’s a kind of company who monopolize web and standards, and make money making his services over this, destroying competition, just look at android, its open source, but every release they bind the great user experience to their closed system as the gapps ecosystem do, i do not want to help them to have this power, i want to use and support different strategy and companies, because peoples freedom are more important there is no freedom if there is no choice and with choice you also have more chance to have a good privacy and respect from technology you use
avoid google stuff, facebook, whatsapp is important also from this prospective, helping people who are close to us to know this will help to avoid the corporatocrazy we are going on

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What I meant by open source is that you can review the code base and see for yourself if there is a security, privacy, or freedom concern.

I’m there with you on Google, but chromium has enabled many options. (Vivaldi, the Iron Browser, etc.)

If Mozilla could seperate politics from their business I’d be more supportive. Outside of that their technology appears to be inferior in how it renders pages, web compatibility, etc.

I just have no personal reason to back that.

I also can’t stand how Google continues to force the gsuite on people. Can’t wait for the librem 5. We need it bad.

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can’t wait for the librem5 too
i understand someone coud not like mozilla politics and or buiseness, in my opinion firefox is the best available browser for privacy and freedom, not perfect of course, but the best available, that’s why i really hope someone from purism or comunity could do something about it for the librem5

when you write “but chromium has enabled many options. (Vivaldi, the Iron Browser, etc.)” that’s true, but not true on my point of view, because that’s what google does, make you think it, but at the end, these browsers are just a different front end for their technology so use brave, vivaldi or every chromium based browser just make google more stronger on web standards.
just think about drm on browser, chromiumish browsers a really high share and firefox is low, big corps and organizations, like holliwood netflix amazon ie wanna protect their content, and this is legit, but to do that they used a closed drm services, because internet belong to google, i can’t say if firefox had 70% share we could had a different politics about closed drm technology, but i think could be a good chance, firefox was one of the latest browser to adopt drm content, and thanks to god we can disable it
google and big corps do not care about this stuff, they could make all the open software they want, because they know if is it free as a free beer they can use it as a malware to spread their technology to became a standard and then take the control

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Fair point. Google determining what web and internet standards should be is not a good thing.

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A lot of sensible points there… some reality check in the web world:

  • Mozilla is almost exclusively interested in pushing the Firefox brand. Building a whole new browser for the Librem5 that would carry this brand is a large effort. Given how understaffed the engineering is at Mozilla (especially on the mobile side since they killed FirefoxOS) I don’t see that happening as an official product. But nothing prevents someone else to build a Gecko based browser - just don’t expect much upstream support.
  • Performance of Gecko and Blink are very comparable. Both have strengths and weaknesses, but I would say they are now closer to each other than ever.
  • Yes, Google has too big a say in the evolution of the web, and they use their market share not just with Chrome but also with key services (Maps, Youtube, Search) to that end. It’s a real issue with no easy answer, because no one will “break up” Google. Ideally Blink would be managed by an independent entity like Mozilla but that won’t happen anytime soon.
  • Mozilla is kept alive by their Google money, and Webkit is always kept just behind being competitive with native toolkits by Apple. Servo is facing the fact that re-implementing a full web stack is a huge effort that will take years. So moving as fast as Blink/Chrome is super hard when you try to compete on the same basis.

Brave is a very interesting project because their chromium fork has all the privacy invasive bits removed, and they added strong protections against tracking, fingerprinting etc. So using their core with a mobile frontend could make sense too!

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Google also contributes a lot to the Linux kernel. Are you switching to BSD? :slight_smile:

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I think something else people need to remeber is the phone is Wayland only. Firefox does have a Wayland backend which you can test with the nightly builds in the unofficial flatpak repo but it’s not a very good experience yet. Until they get Wayland working well on the desktop doing all the other work required to make it work well on a 5" screen just isn’t going to happen.

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Contribute is different to own a project.
Linux do not belong to google, chromium as android does.

Wayland firefox issue is not really a good news, but if mozilla want push firefox everywhere i think they could push on librem5.
Soon or later Wayland will be a default option for every distros
They already have a mobile UI they should just adapt it.

Is not easy and need some manpower but i think this community or purism should try to be in touch with them, probably they just say no, but an official trial should be made

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Sure, but Blink (the underlying web runtime used by chromium) has contributors outside Google, eg. Intel, Samsung, LG, Sony, Igalia because many people embed it in other producs.

A Java one, not one implemented in XUL/HTML like the desktop browser. It’s not simple to “just adapt it”.

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Thanks for the info.

I think now the only way to make it happen is to ask mozilla if they are interested to make his browser available to the only privacy minded smartphone on earth, but i don’t know how to be in touch with them, i hope someone from purism or from community can do it

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There are plenty of channels to reach out to Mozilla… From their official twitter accounts, to their discourse instance at https://discourse.mozilla.org/

But again, I’m not sure why this need to be an official, Mozilla vetted product. Something from the community would be just as fine.

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Because i see no one doing it neither planning, and mozilla should do it as is mission is to make a better internet

I ask to everyone to write to mozilla asking to make firefox for our phone maybe more voices will be listened

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Hello all, I was discussing with a developer from Epiphany (now called “GNOME Web”) and he say that they are really interested into featuring WebExtensions. However, implementing WebExtensions is a requested made since 3 years (I think they really need technical help, by the way if we have some technical-skilled developers here, Purism team included, please feel free, thank you so much) so I hope the production of Librem 5 will boost a bit this feature.

I am sure Epiphany can be a really good Web Browser, because no 3rd party influence like for Chromium (Google) or Firefox (sponsoring, and all those opt-in options to disable sometimes in about:config).

If they succeed to add this feature, GNOME Web can be a simple responsive design browser, FOSS, with just browsing and compatible with WebExtensions… finally exactly what I need !

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Just as a reminder, Firefox was tested in [qemu], see: (Ask me any app - I will show it) https://libre.video/videos/watch/a07577a9-0cf4-4fd3-a3af-b33ae65eba3b

For my “two cents”, I’d like to have it working too. If not fully (even in some “mini mode”) in phone mode, then at least in desktop mode (like I’d like to have most programs). As seen on the video, it’s not good but not bad either - there is hope. And lets not forget Tor-browser. I’d want options, not just one browser or engine.

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Firefox was fixed today on Byzantium, like bad artifacts… it run smooth, fast now after updating the systems.

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I heard yesterday it started putting ads in the address bar for suggestions.

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