Talk:LibreWolf
Nonfree
As far as I know, Librewolf is a light fork of Firefox with some config files changed. Its developers do not aim to deblob the project like GNU IceCat does. I think this entry should be deleted (or create a redirect to IceCat, like Firefox. Panos Alevropoulos (talk) 11:42, 23 September 2022 (EDT)
FSD Criterias
Is Firefox still nonfree nowadays?
To me it looks like Firefox is 100% free software according to Debian Buster copyright review of Firefox.
If we assume that Firefox is 100% free software, that raises another question: what are the exact criteria for inclusion in the Free software directory?
Only sticking to 100% free software doesn't work because it's required but not sufficient. The Free System Distribution Guidelines address this issue for instance. Else you could have 100% free software whose only purpose is to install a specific nonfree software, and that's clearly not what we want.
GNUtoo (talk) 23:55, 20 October 2022 (EDT)
Comparison
I've made a quick comparison between Firefox, Icecat and Librewolf on criterias that can be potentially used to exclude software from the free software directory. So far the only issue found is that Librewolf most likely points to a nonfree addon repository. This needs to be verified though.
| Feature | Firefox | Icecat from Gnuzilla | Librewolf |
|---|---|---|---|
| 100% free software | Most likely (1) | Yes: it's included as-is in FSDG distributions, so it should be OK | Based on Firefox, no nonfree software added(2) |
| DRM disabled | No(3) | Yes(4) | Yes(3) |
| Telemetry is disabled. | No(5) | Yes(4) | Yes(5) |
| Points to nonfree addons repository | Most likely | No | Yes(6) |
(1)According to [Debian Buster copyright file], it should be 100% free software.
(2)The Librewolf feature page tells that it is "Completely open source and community driven." so if Firefox is 100% free software, Librewolf is unlikely to have added nonfree software. Though it still needs to be checked because they might have a different notion of 100% free software than us (we also need to have at least 1 way to build it without nonfree dependencies for instance).
(3)Mentioned in the Librewolf feature page as "Disable DRM, as it is a limitation to user freedom.". So that also means that Firefox has DRM.
(4)Mentioned in Gnuzilla
(5)Librewolf mentions in the Librewolf feature page that "Completely disable telemetry, including crash report, normandy, studies and personalized recommendations.". So that also means that Firefox has telemetry.
(5) In Settings (about:preferences) -> Extensions & Themes (about:addons), on the top-right there is a search bar with on the left "Find more add-ons" and the search bar has inside in grey "Search addons.mozilla.org" and if we search there it does the research on addons.mozilla.org and opens the resulting page. And addons.mozilla.org has nonfree addons as far as I know.
Update: Added more details about Librewolf addons.
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