[Dev] [RFC] Deprecate Parabola Iceweasel in favor of Triquel Abrowser

[Luke]

On 04/22/2017 03:31 PM, jc_gargma wrote:
>> Also, how would this affect the
>> `iceweasel-hardened' package? I'm pretty sure that it'll be easily
>> transferable, but I have little knowledge of Abrowser.
> At it's core, the hardened package is three components:
> 1) Two extra prefs.js files are added to the
> /usr/lib/iceweasel/browser/defaults/preferences folder.
> 2) firejail with a few non-default profile parameters
> 3) A loader script that cats the contents of the invalidly named prefs.js into 
> the second prefs.js on run and blanks it on close so that users can easily 
> fallback to non-restricted parameters if required.
>
> All three are easily modified to another Firefox fork since they are so 
> similar. Replace every usage of iceweasel with icecat or abrowser and it's 
> pretty much done. A few preferences might not be valid, since mainline 
> adds/removes/tweaks preferences nearly every release compared to ESR, but in 
> large they are almost identical and the browser ignores preferences it doesn't 
> support.
>
> Personally, I ended up just placing the prefs.js manually and editing the 
> /etc/firejail/icecat.local with the extra parameters to avoid how the package 
> creates the prefs.js with 777 permissions.
>
>
> -jc
>

Yes, as you mentioned it can easily be adapted to support any Firefox
version or fork.
The 777 permissions were unfortunately required for the bash script to
delete itself on shutdown and restore non-hardened settings. (I spent a
considerable amount of time  fiddling with it to find the best solution
that didn't require user interaction)

If there's a better way patches are always welcome! Please continue to
comment everything, since it helps users understand what it does. :)

In regards to aBrowser, it is lagging behind a good distance. I think
GNU Icecat (ESR) is more up-to-date than aBrowser.

There's also a coming issue in Firefox 57 which will break a large
number of addons. So far we haven't run into it, but it's expect in
November.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/software/old-firefox-add-ons-will-stop-working-in-firefox-57-end-of-2017/