PureOS repo of Gnome Web (Epiphany) update forthcoming?

[Moon3]

@FranklyFlawless

@Dlonk

Where can I make a pull request so that the Web button on my phone cant get virus(es) from literally any page with an intentionally malformed title?

@Moon3 mentioned the GitLab repository just above your post:

Librem5 / debs / Epiphany · GitLab

it is a waste of time.

Guido Gunther already reported one of those issues nearly two years ago CVE-2022-29536 (#39) · Issues · Librem5 / debs / Epiphany · GitLab.

[FranklyFlawless]

It needs a merge request highlighting the code changes linked to the issue for @guido.gunther to review and approve it.

[Moon3]

What makes you think he can or will review and approve changes ?

[FranklyFlawless]

A developer’s bottleneck is time, so contributors can make issues easier to solve for them if code changes are summarized in a readable and presentable manner.

[Moon3]

This still doesn’t answer my question, What makes you think he can or will review and approve those contributions ?

[FranklyFlawless]

That is the only answer I am able to produce with my limited time and space. If you have further personal questions for me to process, forward them to my Introduction/AMA thread and I will eventually get back to you:

Personal Introduction and Interests/AMA

Hello Purism community, I am Frank. I have been lurking the Purism community forums since late 2018 when I first learned about the Librem 5. I have read thousands of forum threads/posts starting from then, and additionally consumed nearly every blog article from before 2018 until April 2023, right when @Kyle_Rankin left Purism. During this “unprecedented” period, I acquired myself a Librem 14 with PureBoot Bundle Anti-Interdiction, as well as a Librem 5 USA with Anti-Interdiction Service, using…

[ecs]

Thanks for all the input. I was aware that I could download the more-updated Flatpak version, and may still do that, but have some follow-on questions:

• Would it make sense at that point to uninstall the native PureOS distro, or would it just keep coming back with each system update?
• What potentially would I be giving up by doing this? Are there any known integrations in the PureOS version that work particularly well with PureOS?

I would also ask why they don’t just update the PureOS distro, but catching up with news from the last year, it looks like they’ve been pretty hollowed out as a company, I’m guessing it’s a net bandwidth issue, like FF states.

[FranklyFlawless]

@ecs

Would it make sense at that point to uninstall the native PureOS distro, or would it just keep coming back with each system update? What potentially would I be giving up by doing this?

No, you risk operating system instability if you attempt to remove Epiphany, among other tightly integrated system packages.

@ecs

Are there any known integrations in the PureOS version that work particularly well with PureOS?

Not that I know of yet, but @francois-techene addressed developing Epiphany in their roadmap for 2023:

Librem 5 Product Report and Roadmap for 2023 – Purism

Relevant quote:

@francois-techene

Due to the popularity of Firefox vs. GNOME Web, we have decided to feature Firefox as our default web browser for the desktop and the mobile platform.
However, our development team will continue to contribute to improving GNOME Web until it can be widely adopted by our customers. We believe that in the longer term, GNOME Web, which is built on GTK, will feature a better integrated experience within the system over Firefox.

Currently there is no roadmap for 2024.

[Moon3]

i am just curious, why are you using pureos @ecs ?

[riabenko]

@ecs

• Would it make sense at that point to uninstall the native PureOS distro, or would it just keep coming back with each system update?
• What potentially would I be giving up by doing this? Are there any known integrations in the PureOS version that work particularly well with PureOS?

I found that apt discourages from unintalling epiphany-browser because librem5-gnome depends on it. I also still need it to add and manage web apps because the flatpak version does not have such an option.

The Purism version has the “swipe right to go back” gesture disabled. But I find it usable either way.

[ecs]

Thanks again everyone. It is good to know that the Flatpak version doesn’t have web apps. Problems with web apps is the main reason I was interested in an update to begin with, so I doubt I’ll bother with the Flatpak version, I have other browsers. Learning about the vulnerability, however gives me pause, because I mostly use web apps to compartmentalize my interaction with commercial websites.

[ecs]

More broadly, why isn’t there more interest in developing web app features for other noncommercial browsers (ie., not Chrome, Safari or Edge)? Does it interfere with the browsers’ business models in some way? Or is it just that businesses/sites that would lose money if people compartmentalize their personal data are making it technically difficult to implement?

[ecs]

I am using PureOS because it’s what came on my Librem 13 v4, and it generally works pretty well. I can execute things in command line, but don’t know a lot about it, so I tend to stay in the GUI space most of the time. If not PureOS, it would probably be Ubuntu.

I really like the web apps feature of the PureOS version of Epiphany. Is there anyone else adding web app features to their browsers out there?

[amarok]

@ecs

why isn’t there more interest in developing web app features for other noncommercial browsers (ie., not Chrome, Safari or Edge)?

There is at least an extension that apparently adds the ability to Firefox and Firefox forks such as LibreWolf.

[Moon3]

My suggestion to you then is to use another linux distro because pureos is a terrible distro.

[ecs]

Will you set that up for me?

[Moon3]

There are many videos that can teach you how to install any linux distro.

[galilley]

I was able to update Epiphany up to 43 (bookworm) by rebuilding a lot of related stuff (mentioned here), but it is still not enough for some sites. At the same time I’ve got the problem with hardware acceleration our gpu driver does not support GLES3 which is required for the new GTK… However, it works in case I force GLES version but a segfault should be expected anytime.

[riabenko]

I was desperate enough to go against the good advice of not mixing PureOS and Debian repositories and installed the newer versions of xdg-desktop-portal, xdg-desktop-portal-gtk, and flatpak from bullseye-backports. Installing the newer portal fixed another issue for me and enabled the installation and management of web applications in the flatpak version of GNOME Web. I removed my older web applications in the local version of Epiphany and added them anew with the flatpak version. There must be some side effects but I noticed only the good ones so far.

[galilley]

It is really strange dependencies… Could you confirm that only the packages have to be installed from bullseye to make WabApps work? In this case I will try to rebuild them in the native environment to nave no issues with foreign repository.

I’ve also tried to install Epiphany from snap (after update the last one), but it not started by some problem with net module… I think it is due to some missing config options in the kernel.