Good $TIME_OF_DAY, beehaw folks!
Today I come to share the first announcement of Konform Browser 140.8.0-103 and what’s new since previous update post last week!
If you are new to Konform Browser, it was previously introduced to the lemmies in this post. In one sentence, it’s a web browser for Linux based on Firefox ESR with the primary goals of security, privacy, and user freedom. Hoping to be an example of how these three goals don’t have to be at odds but support each other and work in harmony.
Without more ado, some highlights of the new since last week:
- Exposed UI for “Local AI” features like full-page translations, link previews and configuring local models. These features are all disabled by default but now easier to selectively enable and keeps working locally and offline more gracefully when remote updates are disabled.
- This coincides funnily with the new “AI killswitch” news from FF v148 this week. Konform Browser approaches the “AI/ML” feature-set from the opposite end from upstream: Selective opt-in, progressive enhancement, and graceful degradation, while making sure any external endpoints or keys are user-configurable.
- Check out
about:translations(which is pretty handy and reliable) andabout:inference(where you can now load and test arbitrary models from HuggingFace)! - The “Link Preview” feature is rather janky and considered experimental.
- The “AI chatbot” integration to bigcloudtech is unaffected by these changes and remains disabled under every preset.
- Latest security fixes up to Mozilla Firefox ESR 140.8.0.
- Various privacy improvements
navigator.sendBeacon()now disabled by default (re-enabled by “Just Make It Work” preset)- Ported over several relevant patches from Tor Browser
- Proxy bypass protection enabled to reduce risk of network leaks
- Changes made on
about:welcomenow take effect immediately without requiring browser restart - UI: Disabled various nags and onboarding callouts (no more “Hey please try the new feature” in the middle of your workflow)
For more details check out release notes and (if that’s not detailed enough for you :p) commit log.
If you check it out, would love your feedback on the project in general and, if this isn’t a first, your take on development and recent updates. Fellow devs: Doors wide-open for new (carbon-based) contributors ^^
Konform Browser is now also on Mastodon: https://techhub.social/@konform
Packages available for most Linux distributions.
Nice project. Will you guys provide this as a flatpak at some point?
Not highly prioritized since:
- We’d need someone with a Github account (ie not us) to step up as maintainer for that in order to be on flathub.
- Arguably problematic security tradeoffs for browser (yes flatpak has its own sandboxing but that disables the one of browser)
- Users run into frustrating and confusing edge-cases with not working devices, directories, addon integrations, etc, and not grokking the security model. Flatseal is a bit obscure still.
- Container option exists for advanced users who want containerization
That said, there is a starting point - if anyone feels inclined to pick it up shows up on the forge, would be happy to collaborate towards that. You can also just go ahead and package it up independently from us if you wish (free software and all that).
Are you on some dist existing package repos aren’t covering? Or just a matter of preference?
Thanks for the detailed answer. That is always refreshing to see. I might look into building a flatpak myself one of these days, but I have to look at all the dependencies.
I am an exclusive flatpak user (as much as possible at least) and I’m not very fond of having dependency libraries everywhere on my system, so I will let you know if I get the change to look into flatpak builder for this project.
I am an exclusive flatpak user (as much as possible at least)
In that case I will certainly encourage you to get more comfortable with the flatpackaging side and getting that local build env up for yourself! Having self-hosted repo for self-built packages1 in whatever format you use is one of the most liberating things one can set up IMO. Looking forward to seeing you around on the issue tracker ;)
1: Ideally with sensible lifecycle 🤭
How should I migrate profiles?
I got around to trying this and just copying over from librewolf gave a “You’ve launched an older version…” error.
Do I just wait for librewolf to catch up to 140.8 or is there a way to force it?
Thanks for trying! Hmm, so I haven’t performed such a profile migration myself recently.
Previously, it was enough to just drop the directory over (which I guess is what you did?) but as Konform and LibreWolf are tracking different FF branches, this kind of things is not unexpected. “Touching tips” is a ~yearly happening and next time is currently many months away - such long time to wait!
Now, I am thinking of two options (in any case: separate backup first!):
- Profile Backup / Restore https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-backup under about:preferences
- Use a Sync Server (either Firefox Sync or self-hosted syncserver) and sign in with same account in both to sync over.
If you have a librewolf.overrides.cfg, that should still be possible to just copy into your ~/.konform dir or corresponding system path regardless of rest of profile.
Update:
Backup / restore is windows only
Sync: only synced one plugin and ignored the others. Didn’t sync any layout customizations. Felt kinda gross.
Ahh copying profile over then launching with -allow-downgrade seems to have worked. Nice!
Ah, glad it worked out! Somehow this earlier reply only came in here after posting the same suggestion ;^^
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts and impressions!
Thanks for your help!
First inpression is that video isn’t working. Looking at the console suggests it might be related to cross-domain content? (Im way outta my depth here).
The profile was copied over from librewolf, so is this a hardcoded setting or just something that Im not understanding?
Ah, sorry you’re having issue! Re video playback1:
- Do you have a URL not working for you I can reproduce your issue with (you can DM me if not want to share public)?
- Media Codec installed and available?
about:supportand lookMedia -> Codec Support Information. Are you on Arch perchance? - Tried the “Basic Functionality” preset?
about:welcomeshould show on first launch, can also be reused later. - It’s not likely but still possible that some preference set in your old LW profile interferes. Different result in fresh profile?
- Same result without addons? (“Troubleshoot Mode” under about:support)
- Left-hand side of address bar, there should be a shield and couple of icons. You can click those to temporarily or permanently unlock protections for current site.
- In a fresh profile, you could try “Just Make It Work” preset - does it work there? That will, among other things, enable DRM modules and allow the browser to silently download and execute binaries from Cisco and Google in background, just like vanilla FF. This behavior is disabled under the other presets for security reasons and I don’t recommend it much beyond testing and troubleshooting.
- Sometimes, sites blocking you will yield CORS errors in console. If that’s the case you should also see HTTP responses with
4XXstatus codes under Devtools Network tab. or5XXif legit server error.
1: Should work; I’m streaming 4k fine.
Wow thanks for detailed info!
It was the ffmpeg thing - I only had v8 installed. Librewolf and og firefox must use that.
Thanks for taking the time to troubleshoot.
Backup / restore is windows only
Ah right, I forgot that part - exposing that feature on Linux is a Konform thing.
Actually, there is one more thing you can try which I should have thought of first and might work better:
Do the original approach of copying the profile dir in place, but start Konform Browser with the
--allow-downgradeflag:konform --allow-downgradeAfter it has (hopefully successfully) completed the import, it can then use it like normally when started without the flag afterwards. I just tried it with a recent LibreWolf profile and seems to migrate everything fine.
Thanks for the reply!
Yes, i just copied the entire directory.
I will take a look at backup / restore and report back.