Category/Uitoolkit/xul

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xul (4)



Ambassador
Ambassador is a fork of the ChatZilla IRC client built upon the Unified XUL Platform. It features a simple, straighforward interface with a number of options for customization and extensibility. It is available as an add-on compatible with other applications built upon UXP, and as a stand-alone package that can be installed and run independently of a browser.
Conkeror
Conkeror is a Mozilla-based browser that brings an emacs-like experience to web browsing. It has a sophisticated keyboard system for running commands and interacting with web page content, modelled after Emacs and Lynx. For easier editing of form fields, it can spawn external editors. It is self-documenting and extensible with JavaScript. Conkeror is fully-customizable and highly-extensible, but is based on Mozilla XULRunner, which Mozilla has stopped supporting development in July 2015. N.B. Not to be confused with Konqueror.
Gnuzilla
Outdated official binary release

Since 2019, IceCat is maintained only as source code. The last IceCat binary release was version 60.7.0, and is no longer supported. Guix and Parabola have up-to-date IceCat binaries. Please ask your distro to package IceCat.
GNU IceCat (originally GNU IceWeasel) is part of GNUzilla (the GNU version of the Mozilla Application Suite). GNU IceCat is based on the the current Firefox Extended Support Release (ESR), with removal of trademarked name, trademarked artwork, and proprietary components, and enhanced privacy settings.

However, IceCat is not a straight fork of Firefox ESR; instead, it is a parallel effort that works closely with and re-bases in synchronization on the latest Firefox ESR as the upstream supplier, with patches merged upstream whenever possible; although it should be noted that additional security updates are customized to IceCat occasionally.

Differences between IceCat and Firefox ESR

Important differences between Mozilla's Firefox and GNU IceCat is that IceCat has a focus on freedom and privacy (see settings.js for details).

  • Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) is not implemented: Whereas Firefox are being created such that they support Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) systems through their implementation of the Encrypted Media Extension (EME), GNU IceCat doesn't include an EME implementation as it opposes efforts to popularize and ease the dissemination of DRM technology.
    • Widevine Content Decryption Module provided by Google Inc. is not installed in about:addons > Plugins
    • The Play DRM-controlled content option (used to download and enable Widevine Content Decryption Module provided by Google Inc.) has been removed from about:preferences > Content
  • "Accept third-party cookies: Never"
  • WebRTC is enabled like in Firefox but prevent leaking the LAN ip. (Test WebRTC)
  • The proprietary web chat IRC client Mibbit has been removed.
  • Telemetry is disabled.
  • DuckDuckGo is the default search engine, which means that you can run "!Bangs" keywords in the location bar to use any search engine.

Philosophy

"We will always make IceCat block non-free JavaScript by default. If you want to permit nonfree software to run, you can easily disable LibreJS." - Richard Stallman

Customized add-ons

  • SpyBlock (Adblock Plus fork) to block privacy trackers.

History

GNU IceCat was formerly known as GNU IceWeasel but changed its name in 2008 to avoid confusion with Debian IceWeasel (who was rebranded back to Firefox in 2017 after Debian was being granted special permission from Mozilla ref).

The GNU IceCat developers dropped support for IceCatMobile on Replicant after version 38.6.0 because these builds are already provided by F-Droid. See Collection:Replicant for more information about IceCatMobile in the F-Droid repository.

GNU IceCat developers dropped support for macOS, and Windows, after version 38.8.0 in 2016: "Note that building binary packages for Windows and macOS currently requires non-free software, so we no longer distribute binary releases for those platforms."

See also

Unified XUL Platform
UXP is a unified application platform for XUL-based applications. It is a hard fork from the Mozilla code repository (mozilla-central) with an ESR-52 fork point. In addition to further development based on the Mozilla upstream code, and selective cherry-picking of directly-applicable patches, it has its own development and holds the base for a maintained platform to be used by XUL applications.


Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the page “GNU Free Documentation License”.

The copyright and license notices on this page only apply to the text on this page. Any software or copyright-licenses or other similar notices described in this text has its own copyright notice and license, which can usually be found in the distribution or license text itself.