If, like me, you’ve relied on Fennec as a more tolerable version of Firefox for Android, you may have gotten some bad news in the latest F-droid update cycle.
Fennec has fallen so far behind on updates that serious security patches implemented by Mozilla in Firefox haven’t been applied to the fork, and Fennec is therefore still breachable.
The developer responded two weeks ago that they were “short on time”, and there still isn’t a new, secure version available. This appears to be due to that recurring weak link in open source development: small teams, confronted by real life demands like time and money?
More specifically Google made it difficult to update, if I am not mistaken?
I could be mistaken, but since it’s a Mozilla base code and F-Droid distribution chain, I’m not sure where Google can stick it’s thumb in the pie.
“It’s fine” (or will be), just donate & carry on.
more tolerable version
It doesn’t even get updates. What are you on about? 😂
What do you find not tolerable in standard Firefox and what did this browser do that made it better?
I know firefox is rather memory heavy, but despite that it’s still my go-to browser, both for desktop and mobile.
Upstream Firefox doesn’t comply with FDroid’s rules (thanks to the ‘proprietary bits and telemetry’ Handles mentioned), so is only available from the Play Store or as a loose APK that won’t auto-update.
it’s also available from Mozilla’s repos and can be updated using Obtainium https://download.cdn.mozilla.net/pub/fenix/releases/
Cool.
But I’m not adding another method of updating apps just for the browser. F-Droid is where my non-play store apps live and update from, and I’d like to keep it that way.
I’ve been using Fennec. Any one got advise on what would be the best alternative? And please explain why.
Mull browser is also available on fdroid. It is an even better (secure) alternative to firefox as it uses some of tor architecture, from what I know.
