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.
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.
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 🤭
I totally agree. I’ve already prepared a partial yaml for flatpak builder, but dependencies are a bit if a pain atm. I will work through those and build this for myself (it’s also a good opportunity to learn more about flatpak builder).
Thanks for the encouragement.
I totally agree. I’ve already prepared a partial yaml for flatpak builder, but dependencies are a bit if a pain atm. I will work through those and build this for myself (it’s also a good opportunity to learn more about flatpak builder).
Thanks for the encouragement.
Edit: I’ve successfully built the flatpak and it works. I will upload it to my repo for self usage and update it with your new releases . After all this work, I will make it my daily.
Edit2: coveryourtracks.eff.org reports strong protection, but fingerprint is unique, which is a common thing among most browsers. That’s good,as it’s on par with librewolf.