Why Firefox is not a good choice of browser for a KDE/Plasma-based product

[Eli Wapniarski]

Just use the one that "works best"

Eli

On Wednesday 26 March 2014 13:49:13 Kevin Kofler wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I am going to summarize what I wrote yesterday on IRC so everyone can read
> it.
> 
> The discussion of what should be the default browser on the Plasma Product
> has come up yesterday, and I strongly believe that Firefox is NOT the answer
> (but either Konqueror+KWebKitPart or Rekonq is), for the following reasons:
> * We do not control the packaging of Firefox. It is not even open to
> provenpackager! We'd be completely at the mercy of the Firefox
>   maintainers.
> * In particular, the Fedora Firefox package will most likely NOT include the
> KDE integration developed by openSUSE, ever. That means the package will
> integrate extremely poorly into our Plasma setup (e.g., no KDE file
> dialogs).
> * Firefox also has unwanted GNOME dependencies such as
>   (lib)startup-notification.
> * Shipping Firefox means we have to ship a third HTML engine just for
>   Firefox! We already have to ship KHTML and QtWebKit because KDE software
>   requires them. Shipping either Rekonq or Konqueror+KWebKitPart reuses
>   QtWebKit. Shipping Firefox means adding Gecko and thus pointless code
>   duplication and more security updates for users to worry about.
> * Users who absolutely want Firefox can simply install it from the
>   repository. Or they could use one of the other spins, which (last I
>   checked) all included Firefox (either as the one default or next to
>   Midori). Users who do NOT want Firefox forced on them will have no option
>   to choose from anymore if we join the monopoly.
> * I don't buy the argument that there is "no alternative" to Firefox. There
>   are 2 perfectly fine KDE alternatives, both based on QtWebKit. Both Rekonq
> and Konqueror+KWebKitPart just work on almost all websites out there. (And
> even Firefox doesn't work on 100% of the web.) Our plan is to prefer KDE
> applications wherever possible. Here, it is clearly possible. Shipping
> non-KDE applications is acceptable if those are specialized applications
> with no KDE alternative (think, e.g., Blender). A browser is not
> specialized, it's a core part of the desktop. And the KDE alternatives
> exist and work.
> * I also don't share the worries about Rekonq's future. The port to Qt 5 +
>   QtWebKitWidget is proceeding well. A switch to QWebEngine will be done
>   only when QWebEngine will be ready, a sound decision. And if this really
>   should become a problem in the future (i.e. AFTER F21), we can always
>   reevaluate the default browser decision at that point.
> * Firefox does not use kioslaves. As such its URL support is inconsistent
>   with the other applications we will ship. In particular, Firefox does NOT
>   support man:foo and info:foo URLs. IMHO, those are by far the most
>   comfortable way to read man and info pages. It also cannot reuse things
>   like kio_gopher, requiring a separate extension (for Gopher, that would be
> OverbiteFF) instead. In both Rekonq and Konqueror, man:, info: and all the
> other kioslave-handled protocols just work.
> * Firefox also has some "features" that are worrisome for Fedora as a whole:
> - The anti-malware and anti-phishing protection (enabled by default!) sends
> a hash of every URL you visit to Google (yes, Google!).
>   - Firefox Health Report sends some additional data to Mozilla. It is also
>     enabled by default!
>   - Mozilla also intends to show client-side advertisements (i.e. ones that
>     are NOT part of a web page you are visiting) by default. This is both an
> added annoyance (as if the ads on the web weren't bad enough!) and a
> privacy risk. (Speaking of ads on the web, both Konqueror and Rekonq
> support ad blocking out of the box, Firefox doesn't.)
>   And the Firefox trademark and packaging situation are such that we have no
> control over these "features", nor any future ones that get added.
> 
> So please consider these points before voting here:
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Talk:Fedora_Plasma_Product/Integration#Defaul
> t_web_browser (votes please ONLY from Plasma working group members, 4 voting
> members have not voted yet). If you voted for Firefox and these arguments
> convinced you otherwise, it's also not too late to change your mind!
> 
> Let's PLEASE let the Plasma Product be a Plasma product, not yet another
> Firefox product!
> 
>         Kevin Kofler
> 
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