Am I the only one that is sad that Iceweasel is changing?

[Ardouos]

Firefox has now hit stable.

Iceweasel is now a transitional package.

RIP.

https://packages.debian.org/jessie/iceweasel

https://packages.debian.org/jessie/firefox-esr

[NoNoNo]

Nevermind it.

I always miss Netscape Navigator.

[Roel63]

Will Icedove still exist for a while?

[Ardouos]

Will Icedove still exist for a while?

Yes I presume so, until it is eol. Then Debian will get Thunderbird.

Edit:
Maybe not. https://packages.debian.org/sid/icedove

Edit 2:
Still Icedove, upgraded today receiving version 45.1

https://packages.debian.org/jessie/icedove

[HuangLao]

Nevermind it.

I always miss Netscape Navigator.

It didn't go anywhere.
http://www.seamonkey-project.org/

[rudra]

When after opensuse I finally migrated to debian I was searching for firefox but didn't find it I felt rather at a loss. But now living for about five years with the gentle iceweasel I'm feeling very very sad.

[Eireannach]

When after opensuse I finally migrated to debian I was searching for firefox but didn't find it I felt rather at a loss. But now living for about five years with the gentle iceweasel I'm feeling very very sad.

Ah but don't forget the Iceweasel was the "fox" in a "weasel's" clothing

[bobg]

For what it's worth, I recently tried to download a huge game from GOG (18GB). Iceweasel failed three times in a row at the 5GB mark with no possibility of restarting from the point of failure. Having used Firefox in my Fedora days and being able to continue failed downloads from the point of failure, I installed Firefox and tried again. It failed at the 5GB point but provided a 'resume' option which failed again at the 10GB and subsequently the 15GB points but eventually completed the 18GB download.

As far as I can tell there was a problem with Iceweasel being able resume a failed download. I'm willing to take a little bloat if it makes that kind of difference.

[stevepusser]

For what it's worth, I recently tried to download a huge game from GOG (18GB). Iceweasel failed three times in a row at the 5GB mark with no possibility of restarting from the point of failure. Having used Firefox in my Fedora days and being able to continue failed downloads from the point of failure, I installed Firefox and tried again. It failed at the 5GB point but provided a 'resume' option which failed again at the 10GB and subsequently the 15GB points but eventually completed the 18GB download.

As far as I can tell there was a problem with Iceweasel being able resume a failed download. I'm willing to take a little bloat if it makes that kind of difference.

Or just use one of the many download managers in the repo that allow for resume.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

^ & ^^

Also, it is possible to use the .part file dowloaded by IW/FF with `wget` by simply renaming the file:

Code: Select all

mv file.extension.part file.extension
wget --continue http://site.com/files/file.extension

[aquar]

Have you experienced any bugs in firefox like a flashing part of the screen in the new tab window?

[s2pido]

Do anyone even realize that Iceweasel is based on Firefox ESR not Firefox Stable.

Wow.
They all "know what they know" and ya can't convince 'em otherwise?
To me, what's "sad" is the pervasive ignorance/misunderstanding regarding the extent iceweasel differs from firefox.

Although perhaps only the source package for iceweasel "45-esr" remains downloadable
(perhaps, meaning today I only checked the links provided here: https://packages.debian.org/jessie/iceweasel )
for the record, I had downloaded (and inspected/audited) source packages for iceweasel 38.x, 41.x, 43.x
My point here is that the person I've quoted probably only checked what crossed his apt-updates for debian stable and/or backports...
...so wound up "realizing" (believing, and professing) based on incomplete information.

Shhh, you'll wake the sheeple !

Debian provided downloadable archives, both *.xz and *.orig.xz (upstream) source packages.
Across versions, the debian "patches" to the upstream sourcefiles were easily identifiable (long, descriptive filenames) and easily readable (human-readable, in any text editor).
For each given ff version, (earliest I ever checked was v31) the debian patchset amounted to only 12--30 patchfiles.
Per my review, most of the adjustments were platform-specific bugfixes/workarounds.
Feature-wise, in terms of functionality, remarkably little was changed in/for iceweasel.
Most of the user-perceived "differences" were due to the debian-curated values supplied for various preferences ~~ preferences exposed by upstream code, not custom code

Client-side, so so soooo many hardware and usage permutations exist that it's unreasonable to form a "belief" based on other users' reports.
Set down your beer, install both browserA and browserB, and test 'em both on _your_ system, according to _your_ usage; flesh out any quirks/compatibility specific to the sites _you_ frequent.
If you do this, I expect that PaleMoon will "fall down, go boom" and you'll subsequently uninstall it or will seldom choose to use it.
When I do this... each time I have done this, across versions, firefox and iceweasel have been nearly equally performant.
In doing so, I learned the importance of (significance of) various debian-curated preference values.
By applying those same pref values in firefox, performance (for me, my usage) inevitably became identical.

You use a web browser just about every day, right? Have you ever (and do you regularly) visit about:config and peek "under the hood"?
If not, tsk tsk... amounts to: STFU, yer gonna eat what yer given and LIKE it. Thank you, sir, may I have another?

Educate yourself regarding "browser settings, and preferences". Several online tutorials/guides exist.
Here, I'll just point to a single example:
experiments.supported
experiments.enabled
What? That's two. I can't count?
(experiments.enabled=false might, in fact, suffice)
Unless you set these prefs 'false', you are agreeing to, opting into, the prospect of serving as a guinea pig (or canary) for The Good of The Many... and possibly to your detriment / frustration.

Wait, see what I did there, in that last sentence? Do you now 'understand' (believe) that "experiments are bad"? For the record, I have never found reason to take issue with any of the (few, to date) experiments which mozilla (per their wiki-published list of experiments) has conducted. Still, erring on the side of caution, in MY browser those prefs damned well better be set false, AND I'll surely recheck periodically. (I'm still pissed about witnessing an update which re-enabled the telemetry-sending "healthreport" anti-feature; I had earlier opted out by setting its pref to false.)

[bw123]

I noticed awhile back on Iceweasel that every new version from the repo adds mozilla back to the exclude list for addon updates. Not sure exactly what the /etc/firefox-esr/firefox-esr.js does, it says it overrides any setting in about:config but I believe it only does this on installation, or first use? Anyway I changed this setting, I don't want automatic crap, or connections going on in the background without permission...that's one reason why I left M$ a long time ago.

Code: Select all

//pref("extensions.update.enabled", true);
pref("extensions.update.enabled", false);


This is interesting too...

how-stop-firefox-automatically-making-connections
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/ho ... onnections

here's a quick hack of the firefox-esr.js for some privacy, and less bandwidth. Most of these seem to work on a new, first run.. I'm on a bandwidth budget here...

Code: Select all

/ This is the Debian specific preferences file for Firefox ESR
// You can make any change in here, it is the purpose of this file.
// You can, with this file and all files present in the
// /etc/firefox-esr directory, override any preference you can see in
// about:config.
//
// Note that lockPref is allowed in these preferences files if you
// don't want users to be able to override some preferences.

// bw added these

pref("app.update.auto", false);

pref("extensions.blocklist.enabled", false);
pref("extensions.getAddons.cache.enabled", false);
pref("extensions.update.autoUpdateDefault", false);
pref("extensions.update.enabled", false);

pref("browser.aboutHomeSnippets.updateUrl", "");
pref("browser.casting.enabled", false);
pref("browser.newtabpage.directory.ping", "");
pref("browser.newtabpage.directory.source", "");
pref("browser.newtabpage.enhanced", false);
pref("browser.search.geoip.url", "");
pref("browser.search.update", false);
pref("browser.selfsupport.url", "");
pref("browser.safebrowsing.malware.reportURL", "");
pref("browser.safebrowsing.updateURL", "");
pref("browser.safebrowsing.enabled", false);
pref("browser.safebrowsing.downloads.remote.enabled", false);
pref("browser.search.suggest.enabled", false);
pref("browser.startup.homepage_override.mstone", "ignore");
pref("browser.urlbar.autocomplete.enabled", false);
pref("browser.urlbar.suggest.bookmark", false);
pref("browser.urlbar.suggest.history", false);
pref("browser.urlbar.suggest.openpage", false);

pref("javascript.enabled", false);

pref("lightweightThemes.update.enabled", false);

pref("media.peerconnection.enabled", false);

pref("network.http.speculative-parallel-limit", 0);
pref("network.dns.disablePrefetch", true);
pref("network.prefetch-next", false);
pref("network.dns.disablePrefetchFromHTTPS", true);

pref("privacy.trackingprotection.pbmode.enabled", false)

pref("security.OCSP.enabled", 0);

pref("toolkit.telemetry.reportingpolicy.firstRun", false);

// end bw

//pref("extensions.update.enabled", true);

// Use LANG environment variable to choose locale
pref("intl.locale.matchOS", true);

// Disable default browser checking.
pref("browser.shell.checkDefaultBrowser", false);

// Avoid openh264 being downloaded.
pref("media.gmp-manager.url.override", "data:text/plain,");

// Disable openh264.
pref("media.gmp-gmpopenh264.enabled", false);

// Default to classic view for about:newtab
sticky_pref("browser.newtabpage.enhanced", false);

// Disable health report upload
pref("datareporting.healthreport.uploadEnabled", false);



[Bulkley]

This is interesting too...

how-stop-firefox-automatically-making-connections
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/ho ... onnections

Great info. Thanks.