Semantic search
- Gnuzilla
- 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with removal of trademarked name, trademarked artwork, and proprietary components, and enhanced privacy settings.⚠ Outdated official binary release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.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
- 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.
- Icecast
- Icecast is a streaming media server which currently supports WebM and Ogg streaming including the Opus, Vorbis and Theora codecs. Also Icecast can handle other streams like MP3/AAC/NSV in legacy mode, but this is not officially supported. It can be used to create an Internet radio station or a privately running jukebox and many things in between. It is very versatile in that new formats can be added relatively easily and supports open standards for communication and interaction. Icecast was first released in 1999 as an alternative to proprietary and patent-encumbered streaming audio technologies of the day, which included both RealAudio and Shoutcast. Later, Icecast 2 brought improved metadata support, compatibility with Shoutcast clients, and more advanced configuration options, which were features that lead to widespread adoption in the internet radio community.
- Ipfs
- pleas add
- Jami
, - GNU Jami (formerly SFLphone, GNU Ring) is a universal and distributed communication platform, implemented as free (libre) software, which respects the freedoms and privacy of users. Aimed at the general public as well as professionals, Jami provides all its users a universal communication tool, autonomous, libre, secure and built on a distributed architecture thus requiring no authority or central server to function. GNU Jami satisfies a high priority software goal of the Free Software Foundation, responding to the challenges of privacy on the Internet. Developed by Savoir-faire Linux, Jami takes advantage of an active development community thanks to the support of young Google Summer of Code developers as well as research partnerships with Polytechnique Montréal and the Université du Québec à Montréal.
- Kid3
- Kid3 lets you easily and automatically tag MP3, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, MPC, MP4/AAC, MP2, Opus, Speex, TrueAudio, WavPack, WMA, WAV and AIFF files (e.g. full albums), while supporting both ID3v1 and ID3v2 tags.
- LBRY Desktop
- An application to browse the decentralized LBRY network. It is developed by LBRY Inc. and is the main program for browsing LBRY.
- Libav
- Libav is a complete, cross-platform solution to decode, encode, record, convert and stream audio and video. This package contains the avplay multimedia player, the avserver streaming server, the avconv audio and video encoder, and the avprobe stream analyzer. They support most existing file formats (AVI, MPEG, OGG, Matroska, ASF...) and encoding formats (MPEG, DivX, MPEG4, AC3, DV...). Additionally, it contains the qt-faststart utility which rearranges Quicktime files to facilitate network streaming. This package also serves as a replacement for the former 'ffmpeg' package.
- Linphone
- Linphone is an Internet phone or Voice Over IP phone (VoIP). It lets you make two-party phone calls using the Internet.
- Lsmedia
- lsmedia works similar to GNU command ls, but with focus on reporting codecs, resolution, fps, data rate and audio frequency
- MediaCrush
- MediaCrush is a media sharing server and Web service. You can upload images, sound and videos in convenient ways. Many free clients are available for it, as well as browser add-ons.
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.
