What is Reddit's opinion of
GNU IceCat?
From 3.5 billion Reddit comments
53 reviews of this app found across Reddit:
> please correct me if I am wrong, but the highest Firefox could get, at the peak of its popularity, was 22% of the market share.
According to Wikipedia, 32% at the end of 2009.
>Google products are pretty much used unanimously, across all culures and continents.
Sounds like Windows and IE during the IE6 days, when Firefox started gaining traction. Yes, it seems bleak out there, but I'll keep using Firefox as long as it makes sense to. I still think it is a better browser, and I don't really trust Google services all that much, even if they are widely used.
>the Free Software Foundation (FSF) does not even list Firefox as a Libre browser anymore.
>While the Firefox source code from the Mozilla project is free software
Lmao isn't icecat a browser for hippies who (rightly?) think that javascript shouldn't be necessary to browse the web? Or is LibreJS actually not cripplingly restrictive?
also u/previous_cod1854 and u/Interesting-Can9653 GNU Icecat is a real browser
Yeah, Waterfox was meant to be a 64 bit fork of FF meant to be faster and run better on 64 bit hardware systems since at the time there was only a 64 bit version on Linux, while everyone else got 32 bit. Tests revealed that it didn't even matter as Waterfox was slower than vanilla FF.
Also one fork I can say I do trust is Icecat. https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/
You are mixing IceWeasel with GNU/IceCat (previously IceWeasel). IceWeasel was a Firefox ESR rebrand by Debian because they couldn't use the Firefox branding, while IceCat (or IceWeasel in early versions) is a privacy-oriented libre web browser by GNU, it comes with HTTPS Everywhere, libreJS, SpyBlock and fingerprinting countermeasures in an all-in-one package. You can find it in FOSS-only distros and Fedora's repos.
GNUzilla is the GNU version of the Mozilla suite, and GNU IceCat is the GNU version of the Firefox browser. Its main advantage is an ethical one: it is entirely free software. While the Firefox source code from the Mozilla project is free software, they distribute and recommend non-free software as plug-ins and addons. Also their trademark license restricts distribution in several ways incompatible with freedom 0. https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/
From the GNUzilla and Icecat page GNUzilla is the GNU version of the Mozilla suite, and GNU IceCat is the GNU version of the Firefox browser. Its main advantage is an ethical one: it is entirely free software. While the Firefox source code from the Mozilla project is free software, they distribute and recommend non-free software as plug-ins and addons. Also their trademark license restricts distribution in several ways incompatible with freedom 0.
Iceaweasel is just the Mozilla branding removed.
Debian Iceweasel has the goal of being Firefox, plus backported fixes, minus the Mozilla trademark. (https://wiki.debian.org/Iceweasel)
IceCat goes/went beyond that and removed anti-features (non-free addons/plugins), and they add security/privacy features by default (https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/).
> There used to be a time when you could turn off Javascript and still have a useful web.
Excellent point! Thank you for this. Anybody who has tried surfing the net with javascript disabled (because, for example, they do not wish to run non-free, prorpietary javascript) will rapidly find how dependent surfing is on this part of browsing.
Try using IceCat to see what it is like. (And also to fight against use of non-free javascript.)
From a Free Software perspective, IceCat is better than an unmodified Firefox. GNU site's clearly states that the main advantage of IceCat is an ethical one: it is entirely [free software](http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html). Though, if you know what you are doing with Firefox, i.e. what you modify from its about:config, you can achieve certain level of privacy or remove/disable things that could undermine privacy. Check for example privacytools' "about:config" tweaks.
All three so far - Chromium, Firefox and Brave send some data to centralized services:
Chromium ofc sends telemetry to Google and you can't turn that off.
Firefox sends telemetry by default to Mozilla Corporation which is taking money from advertising business, ergo supports mass surveillance (if they block too much, they get calls from ad business and have to compromise). Telemetry is enabled by default and when you disable it, Firefox sends telemetry to Mozilla that you disabled it lol
Brave is apparently Google-free version of Chromium, has lots of blocking tech built in that works pretty well (for a beta), however Brave Rewards system is centralized and is possibly a threat factor right now.
If you want maximum privacy without going full Tor with disabled Javascript, I recommend IceCat from GNU Project (GNU project is where we got what makes up majority of GNU/Linux for example):
https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla
It's a Firefox ESR (Extended Support Release) fork without ANY telemetry, with preinstalled privacy oriented addons and preconfigured for security.
It's not pointless; it's a nice and very well usable browser that's just not as rich in special functions as its more popular counterparts. You can browse the web without loss of any modern properties, export or bookmark pages, save web applications, or synchronise your settings. The interface is simple, and the settings are few. It only becomes useless when you need special functions, like add-ons or WebRTC.
It may be good enough of a browser for many people; others will be able to install a more advanced one, such as Icecat or Iridium. Another question is how well can those adapt to small, mobile screens.
If you can't read and verify the integrity of source code and compile it yourself, then you cannot say with certainty that a program is respecting your privacy. Having said that, GNU Icecat might be what you're looking for.
https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/
It looks like they could use some help getting a quantum version off the ground? Holy wow are the quantum versions so much faster (on the same hardware) than Firefox ESR (this is on Debian Jessie FWIW). You can do a lot (but not all) of the same work yourself using:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Firefox/Privacy
&
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-stop-firefox-making-automatic-connections
If you're using a quantum version, you'll need to keep privacy.resistFingerprinting = false until after you have your extensions installed (due to the change in reported browser version).
There are many forks of Firefox out there, you should probably just simply check them out yourself and make your own opinions about them. One that I personally like to use is GNU Icecat. It is pretty close to the Mozilla Firefox and as of now doesn't include Pocket because it's based on ESR versions. I don't think Pocket integration is an issue at all, but yeah, maybe give it a try.
You can easily avoid this by blocking Javascript. The extension NoScript is one of your best tools in protecting your privacy online. You could also run a browser like GNU IceCat which includes this and other privacy enhancing tools by default.
I don't feel like brave is a good browser. I refuse to use it purely due to the fact that it's closed source (I haven't looked into it besides that since open source is a requirement for all my daily drivers). Now with that being said (so you don't think I'm as you describe) I do feel like Firefox should not be trusted given a history of issues (recently found this video, it's a pretty good roundup of issues: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qMALm1VthGY ). Are they open source? Yes, it means we can modify their browser and remove components like widevine, shield, pocket, ect. I'd rather support a foundation that wants the internet to go where I want the internet to go though. Currently I'm working on switching to GNU IceCat (it's a Firefox fork that removes a lot of things I dislike and is supported by the GNU foundation, I just have to wait for it to build: https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/ ). On Android I use fennecdroid from the fdroid repo (and I'm working on switching to full lineageOS, but there's some hangups with work and proprietary 2 factor authentication (I can get a physical key, but management isn't really in for the holidays)) So, as you've said, since it's open source, we can tweak it and that's exactly where I feel people should; supporting the tweakers (drug pun not intended) until Mozilla can get their management in line OR fall apart as a company.
"While the Firefox source code from the Mozilla project is free software, they distribute and recommend nonfree software as plug-ins and addons. Also their trademark license imposes requirements for the distribution of modified versions that make it inconvenient to exercise freedom 3."
If you value your privacy try IceCat, it is a debloated firefox without regular javascript (ofc it breaks a lot of sites).
2 things that I would add. 1 being IceCat as a great browser. It is just Firefox with additional out-of-the-box privacy options and without any of the firefox account cloud features. r/IceCat, https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/.
2 being Whoogle, which proxies your google search through your own server and removes all the tracking, JavaScript, AMP links, etc
It comes with quite a few other tweaks to it too - see the website
I'm not on my laptop at the moment so can't show you the about:icecat page but I remember it being fairly extensive
The most privacy-conscious browser on Android is going to be OrFox (if you want to use Tor) or GNU IceCat. They're both Free Software and offer a lot of the best features from desktop browsers.
Add GNU IceCat to your list of FF/Gecko type browsers. It's the FSF's privacy/security oriented fork of Firefox. It's rumored that Richard Stallman himself has been using this browser in conjunction with Tor. It only works on Linux and Android.
Recomend Gnuzilla/Gnu Icecat
""" GNUzilla is the GNU version of the Mozilla suite, and GNU IceCat is the GNU version of the Firefox browser. Its main advantage is an ethical one: it is entirely free software. While the Firefox source code from the Mozilla project is free software, they distribute and recommend non-free software as plug-ins and addons"""
> GNU IceCat is based on Firefox, but includes some modifications such as not recommending any non-free addons (like Flash) by default
You mean IceCat does not use addons.mozilla.org? afaik the addons list still points to addons.mozilla.org pages. Maybe Mozilla could add a config switch to only return free software results on AMO (bug report)?
Iceweasel recommends flash?
> HTTPSeverywhere
Debian has an HTTPS everywhere package. By default no addons are installed.
> SpyBlock
What does this do/how does it work? https://crypto.stanford.edu/spyblock/spyblock.pdf says
>In particular, we expect to see huge growth in the use of a different type of botnet malware called a Transaction Generator or TG for short [...] TG attacks generate fraudulent transactions from the user’s computer, through malicious browser extensions, after the user has authenticated to the site. A TG quietly sits on the user’s machine and waits for the user to log in to a banking or retail site.
So this is is a safeguard against plugin/addon malware?
> It would be so easy to get Debian to a state where the FSF could endorse it - it's so close already!
Yes!
> never recommends non-free software or firmware [...] Make it an entirely separate project that has its own website, completely seaparate the non-free repository from the Debian project
There needs to be a trustable download source for non-free software/drivers. I'd rather download a signed/packaged firmware from a debian repo than from some random website. even if it's non free. debian-installer does not recommend installing non-free sw, it clearly warns against it during the setup (maybe not enough?)
> better privacy-focused configuration defaults
Yes there is a debian-provided config file at /etc/iceweasel/pref/iceweasel.js, maybe it should get better defaults (bug report)
>eli5 why more software shit is not open source
It already is in a lot of cases. Here's a massive list of free (as in freedom) software I just found.
There's also a lot of open source software that's not "free software", such as Firefox.
the community is pretty split on that opinion as far as I've came across conversations about brave browser. Mostly because of a "recent" backlash, people calling it a botnet. Watch this for more information on that.
There's better browsers out there that are privacy focused like the GNU IceCat with some extensions. The catch is that these "privacy focused" browsers will block/break some if not most clear net websites. So, Brave is pretty much the middle ground for that.
>privacy and no data collection is very important to me
Maybe GNU icecat? That probably has the best privacy settings out of the box, outside of TOR. It's based on furryfox.
Using some common privacy tools really helps out with that. IceCat, uBlock Origin, and NoScript pretty much strip out tracking data.
And using the VPN of your choice will help mitigate linking anything back to you.
Windows is not directly supported.
>Note that building binary packages for Windows and MacOS currently requires nonfree software, so we no longer distribute binary packages for those platforms.
Source: https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/
You can always try out,however, the unofficial build
my version in manjaro is version 60 esr, so not the newest but it honestly seems fine. not sure if it can be upgraded though. just checked gnu and it says its the latest release from 2019 : https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/
He said it's based on their code, but it appears to be identical - actually it seems like they even removed features.
To base something on something else means that you add to that other thing. Not that you just renamed it.
Also the implication for putting a project out there is that you made it. If it is a simple rebrand then you need to say that up front. Look at Icecat for example. They mention Firefox in the first sentence.
The above are all that is listed on the play store, and are therefore off limits to people who do not like the idea of any kind of google integration.
Thankfully F-droid offers a few sparse options:
Firefox Klar
- As outlined above, only offered in a few european countries and has tracking protection on by default.
- It's fast, but it's limited (no bookmarks, and terrible tab experience).
Fennec F-Droid
- I believe this is the "Firefox for Android" version, but without any google or play store integrations. It's a bit large and not very snappy, but it does the job of a good browsing experience.
Icecat Mobile
- I also believe this is the "Firefox for Android" version, but it does not use any nonfree software or addons, and comes with a decent amount of protection. This is my favourite browsing experience so far.
Yes, I realize that... IceCat is GNU's version of Firefox. It is based on ESR with a couple privacy focused extensions and tweaks.
From GNUzilla's project page:
> While the Firefox source code from the Mozilla project is free software, they distribute and recommend nonfree software as plug-ins and addons. Also their trademark license imposes requirements for the distribution of modified versions that make it inconvenient to exercise freedom 3.
That's the reason they give. For GNU, that tends to be all the reason they need.
I am posting this from Icecat right now, you need to install Chocolatey first to get the latest version and some newer extensions won't work because it is still in 68.0.
I even imported the ghacks/12bytes user.js to it and its working perfectly fine, I couldn't import extensions though.
So far it has been the "same" as Firefox but with:
>LibreJS: GNU LibreJS aims to address the JavaScript problem described in Richard Stallman's article The JavaScript Trap.
>https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/
Also other things mentioned in the article but that Firefox already have.
If you're on Linux, GNU Icecat. It removes aaall of the proprietary code from Firefox, includes privacy-enhancing addons installed by default (which tend to break websites, so you can easily disable them if needed), and only recommends trustworthy open-source (free) add-ons.
It's based on the ESR version of Firefox however, which does receive security updates frequently but new features can take longer to appear in the ESR version.
DuckDuckGo is as safe as trusting a random server that cannot have the software running on it audited to not store your search history and not do anything malicious. While it is a great service and great starting point for those wanting to Degoogle, I personally don't use it nowadays and use a SearX instance.
> But I guess this boils down to "keep tools that require elevated permissions VERY simple".
Thank you, kind sir, for the due diligence you did! I happen to agree. May I interest you in IceCat, a browser that does not phone home?
> How to update Icecat on debian downloaded from https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/
Download the archive and unpack it. See if it is a binary or source code files or some third possibility. Once you have the archive unpacked, post again and tell us what's inside.
It's true. The last version of Waterfox for Android is 60.1.0!
The only goods forks of Firefox are GNU Icecat and Tor Browser Bundle.
And see IceCat. That's what Firefox could have come up with if Mozilla would take care of users and privacy. Unfortunately, I cannot recommend IceCat because of late security updates, and so, but the project is really a good example of what Mozilla could have done.
Also, even plain Chromium is better than Firefox (yes, you read it right).
As far as I am aware, IceCat is built using this script which pulls the Mozilla source code and patches it. I think this is where the extensions live.
The project page encourages bug reports to be sent to their mailing list.
I would recommend you IceCat, if you care about privacy, because it has some nice privacy extensions enabled out of the box. BTW, it's the web browser used by Richard Stallman.
– LibreJS: blocks non-free JavaScript. – Https-Everywhere: enables HTTPS by default. – SpyBlock: blocks privacy trackers and third-party requests when private browsing mode. – Fingerprint countermeasures: avoid fingerprinting in websites.
>GNUzilla is the GNU version of the Mozilla suite, and GNU IceCat is the GNU version of the Firefox browser. Its main advantage is an ethical one: it is entirely free software. While the Firefox source code from the Mozilla project is free software, they distribute and recommend non-free software as plug-ins and addons. Also their trademark license imposes requirements for the distribution of modified versions that make it inconvenient to exercise freedom 3. Privacy protection features
> - LibreJS: GNU LibreJS aims to address the JavaScript problem described in Richard Stallman's article The JavaScript Trap.
> - Https-Everywhere: Extension that encrypts your communications with many major websites, making your browsing more secure.
> - SpyBlock: Blocks privacy trackers while in normal browsing mode, and all third party requests when in private browsing mode. Based on Adblock Plus.
> - AboutIceCat: Adds a custom "about:icecat" homepage with links to information about the free software and privacy features in IceCat, and checkboxes to enable and disable the ones more prone to break websites.
> - Fingerprinting countermeasures: Fingerprinting is a series of techniques allowing to uniquely identify a browser based on specific characterisics of that particular instance (like what fonts are available in that machine). Unlike cookies the user cannot opt-out of being tracked this way, so the browser has to avoid giving away that kind of hints.
From their own page :
"Note that building binary packages for Windows and macOS currently requires non-free software, so we no longer distribute binary releases for those platforms."
So, unless you build it yourself, any .exe should be considered suspect or tampered-with.
icecat is a 100% FOSS Firefox fork which is geared more toward privacy, though it does NOT anonymize your traffic (you could of course configure it to use Tor, but then you may as well use Tor Browser).
I'm currently using IceCat, which is based on Firefox ESR.
To check your GPU, run glxinfo | grep "OpenGL renderer" in a command line, and it should display the GPU that is being used.
Richtig, es lässt sich aber wie so oft dem Laien schwer vermitteln, warum Browser XY besser ist.
Ist halt ähnlich wie bei WhatsApp. Jeder schreit Datenschutz und nutzt es trotzdem.
Nutze aus Bequemlichkeit auch nur noch Chrome, weil es sich mit meinem Google Account über alle Geräte synchronisiert. So ab und an probiere ich auch mal wieder Alternativen aus (zuletzt IceCat).
Mozilla Firefox is in good standing with it's community. However, if you want something further away from Mozilla, check out GNU IceCat.
BONUS EXTRAS:
I recommend these Security/Privacy add-ons:
- uMatrix (Script Blocker)
- uBlock Origin (Ad Blocker)
- Privacy Settings (Yeah, that's its name. It's an about:config GUI listing all of FF Security/Privacy options)
- CanvasBlocker (Smudges or Blocks the reading of your Browser Fingerprint)
- HTTPS by default (A simpler alternative to HTTPS Everywhere)
- Policeman (Script Blocker. Ugly as fuck but super fine grained. Patience necessary)
> Their stance on trademarks is incompatible with freedom 3, as you are no longer allowed to distribute the modified version
Again I don't think that's exactly right, but I'm not a lawyer nor a licensing expert of any sort. The official FSF position seems to be that Mozilla's trademark policies are incompatible with freedom 0, rather than freedom 3, given that you are still allowed to distribute the modified source, albeit under a different name, as the GNU project does with IceCat. My understanding is that hindering users who want to run unofficial builds by requiring those to use a different name is what goes against freedom 0.
But yes, either way, Firefox as distributed by Mozilla does not fall under the most rigorous definitions of free software, although derivatives such as IceCat do.
Olha que não é bem assim, o Stallman usa "IceCat via Tor". Não faço a mínima como porque também não estou para mexer no Tor mas o IceCat é interessante por usar LibreJS e pelos seus defaults: https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/
Source: https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html#internetuse
Ever notice that Firefox's plugin finder will happily tell you you need to go grab non-free software? https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/ was the GNU answer to that problem. Along the way, they tackled a couple privacy issues, also. I don't even know if it's still actively developed, but Mozilla is on good terms with the FSF ( https://www.fsf.org/working-together/gang/mozilla ) in any case...
> By not charging, we mean the Mozilla product must be without cost and its distribution (whether by download or other media) may not be subject to a fee, or tied to subscribing to or purchasing a service, or the collection of personal information.
This is directly at odds with the copyright licence!
Banning selling of Firefox on trademark grounds? Crikey, that's dirty.
It's release under a GPL-compatible licence. The GPL was written by the FSF. The FSF are <em>very</em> clear that selling Free software is totally ok.
Starting to see why some of the more wary Linux distros opt for the rebranded Firefox browser IceCat.