I installed the new version of IceCat.
I know nothing about IceCat, and had only briefly tried it once about 2 years ago in another distro.
I looks like it will not allow me to log into Google. I use Google extensively.
I think that it forces you ( out of the box ) to watch YouTube videos on ViewTube.
CNN was all garbled mess, unusable.
I assume IceCat is for those that like to go to the seedy places on the web, so I "tested" that, and the page I went to would not play videos.
So, that was the extent of my 2020 IceCat experience. It just felt like something pre-NetScape from 1995.
I will revisit it again someday.
I have the new Firefox 75 ( in Rawhide ), and so I am enjoying the latest wayland improvements. I can only guess that IceCat will be this good in about 5 years. Right ?
Feel free to correct me, as I really do not know what the heck I am talking about.
David Locklear
On Fri, 2020-04-10 at 12:50 -0500, David wrote:
I looks like it will not allow me to log into Google. I use Google extensively.
I think that it forces you ( out of the box ) to watch YouTube videos on ViewTube.
CNN was all garbled mess, unusable.
I assume IceCat is for those that like to go to the seedy places on the web, so I "tested" that, and the page I went to would not play videos.
I don't think so. It's more about making it freeware, and increasing privacy (curtailing sites that track and database you - which is mostly done through advertising), and it's renamed since Firefox guards their name for use only under their terms.
It's no surprise that tracking- and advertising-oriented websites will fail. And if you're actually logging into Google, there's virtually no point in trying to privitise your activity with it.
https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_IceCat
If your goal is simply to cut down the annoyance of adverts flashing in your face, loudly interrupting what you're doing, and making your CPU do extra work that you don't want it doing, then there are probably better ways to manage that. There's a few ad- and script-blocking plugins that put the kybosh on most of the major annoyances without making most websites unusable.
These are the only Firefox addons that I bother with:
AdBlocker for YouTube. I'm still trialling this one.
NoScript Security Suite. You can allow scripting, bit by bit, until a site begins to work. Most script-laden sites will run a variety of scripts, one for their adverts, one for their menus, one for their graphics animations, another for other features, etc. And you can allow or deny them individually, temporarily or permanently. After a while, you begin recognise that certain scripts are used everywhere, and may be essential to getting some fancy sites to work, but less essential on other sites. You recognise that some scripts are widely used but you never see them making any difference to your browsing experience, so you don't bother allowing them. And you may recognise some scripts are a common source of annoyance, so you ban them.
Though, I have to say that I don't always install them. Firefox has got a bit better with its in-built content-blocking featues.
Type this into the address bar, and read your options: about:preferences#privacy
And I usually tweak cookie setting so they're always dumped at the end of each session. For the few sites that I will regularly use, and I want to logon or keep my customisations, I'll allow them to set cookies in the browser's preferences. That usually puts the kybosh on most of the tracking that annoys you (like adverts for the same things that keep following you around).
Yes, some will advocate that if we're using a website, that we should allow it to fund itself. But if sites weren't so damn annoying, or unethical, about it, we wouldn't be doing this.
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David -
Tim