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

Sat Mar 29 05:42:38 UTC 2014

Please keep things civil.

I agree with Kevin (historical moment... lol). I also think that Konqi should 
be made default browser (as bad as it has become). I also believe that it 
would be a great thing if the packagers from the various distros band together 
and request with (unrelenting pressure - like thats gonna be worth anything) 
from KDE to put adequate resources to restore Konqueror to its former glory 
being the granddaddy to all the webkit browsers out there. I miss boasting 
about the speed and versatility of what was the fastest lightest and most 
versatile browser on the planet until the team started to adapt Safari (Mac 
changes) into Konqueror.

Eli

On Wednesday 26 March 2014 23:57:16 Markus Slopianka wrote:
> Um, is there a reason why QupZilla <http://www.qupzilla.com/> was not
> included or is this just an oversight?
> QupZilla is a Qt-based web browser that currently is better maintained than
> Konqueror and Rekonq together. Konqueror's UI is very cluttered, whereas
> Rekonq's UI is not conforming to KDE standards, eg. no menu bar (not even
> optional), tabs on top (IIRC not configurable), etc.).
> 
> As far as I'm aware, Plasma Active has it's own web browser, so no synergy
> effects between it and the Plasma Active browser are to be expected.
> 
> QupZilla OTOH visually fits quite nicely into the rest of KDE applications
> and it has KWallet support. It also has good extension support, including
> support for user scripts.
> I think in general QupZilla also finds the balance of configurability and
> ease of use that KDE people expect, whereas Konqueror and Rekonq are on
> opposite ends of that spectrum.
> 
> A port to the Chromium-based QtWebEngine of Qt 5 is also already under way.
> The latest version is packaged in Rawhide. In case you use F19 or F20 and
> want to easily check it out, I've packaged it under
> http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/KAMiKAZOW:/Fedora/
> 
> Before I switched to Fedora for hardware compatibility reasons, I was
> conducting my own research on that matter to propose a Qt-based web browser
> to openSUSE.
> I think I went in with an open mind.
> Disclaimer: I contributed German translations to all three projects but I do
> not consider myself an active contributor to either.
> 
> Markus
> 
> 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#Defa
> > ul 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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> 
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