I just don’t care for downstream projects on browsers, with software so critical I want to get the updates in as fast as possible. I know some of those mentioned in OP had issues with that in the past. And not much reason to anyway for me to switch, Firefox works perfectly fine for me, so there’s not much added benefit.
I’ve been using the Firefox mod Zen Browser on Linux Mint. When Firefox released an update in February, my Zen had it the next day. People depending on the “official” Firefox were left waiting over a week, with multiple threads in the forums asking “when is it coming?”
Zen: On one machine, Flatpak. On the other, AppImage through AM.
Firefox: Mint-maintained version from Mint repo (deb).
I can’t remember the exact differences between Firefox upstream and Mint version. But I believe Mint began maintaining their own deb at a time when upstream Ubuntu was only offering Firefox as a snap, which Mint is against, and Mozilla hadn’t yet begun offering their own deb repo.
Understand your point of view but in fact the 2 problems you mentioned are mainly not problems :
1 - Updates? The main downstream browsers received updates the same time as Firefox the same day and sometime the same hour
2 - Benefits? The benefits are mainly under the hood, removing Mozilla telemetry and annoying features (account, pocket…) AND the biggest advantages are the gain in term of privacy due the increase of anti fingerprinting methods
Updates? The main downstream browsers received updates the same time as Firefox the same day and sometime the same hour
I’m not sure if something has changed, but due to changes they’ve made, at least before they couldn’t ship out the updates until they made it so that the updates actually affect their changed codebase. Which understandably causes delays. So there’d always be this delay with something being fixed on Firefox and then being fixed on the downstream projects.
Surely there will be some delay but not that much, for most updates the fixes are transplanted directly to the downstream project making the patches coming very fast, almost as fast as the original project
I’ve just soured on them from when there has been issues. Some security patches took a while because of the changed codebase. Good if that doesn’t happen anymore though.
I’m confused. I’ve already made my decision when I used them before and it doesn’t seem like the main thing (them being just downstream of Firefox) has changed? Like said, I don’t see the benefits being big enough to warrant a switch.
I just don’t care for downstream projects on browsers, with software so critical I want to get the updates in as fast as possible. I know some of those mentioned in OP had issues with that in the past. And not much reason to anyway for me to switch, Firefox works perfectly fine for me, so there’s not much added benefit.
I’ve been using the Firefox mod Zen Browser on Linux Mint. When Firefox released an update in February, my Zen had it the next day. People depending on the “official” Firefox were left waiting over a week, with multiple threads in the forums asking “when is it coming?”
Also when I looked into mods updates for a critical security fix in November, practically all the mods had updated within 24 hours of FF’s update. (Exceptions: Midori and Mercury.) https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?p=2554267&sid=4f140800c5d62939af8e6394514b9aab#p2554267
Did Zen come from flatpak and Firefox from deb?
Zen: On one machine, Flatpak. On the other, AppImage through AM. Firefox: Mint-maintained version from Mint repo (deb).
I can’t remember the exact differences between Firefox upstream and Mint version. But I believe Mint began maintaining their own deb at a time when upstream Ubuntu was only offering Firefox as a snap, which Mint is against, and Mozilla hadn’t yet begun offering their own deb repo.
That’s where the delay comes. Though I guess it does point out that even with just Firefox the differences are small in how quickly you get updates.
Understand your point of view but in fact the 2 problems you mentioned are mainly not problems :
1 - Updates? The main downstream browsers received updates the same time as Firefox the same day and sometime the same hour
2 - Benefits? The benefits are mainly under the hood, removing Mozilla telemetry and annoying features (account, pocket…) AND the biggest advantages are the gain in term of privacy due the increase of anti fingerprinting methods
I’m not sure if something has changed, but due to changes they’ve made, at least before they couldn’t ship out the updates until they made it so that the updates actually affect their changed codebase. Which understandably causes delays. So there’d always be this delay with something being fixed on Firefox and then being fixed on the downstream projects.
Surely there will be some delay but not that much, for most updates the fixes are transplanted directly to the downstream project making the patches coming very fast, almost as fast as the original project
I’ve just soured on them from when there has been issues. Some security patches took a while because of the changed codebase. Good if that doesn’t happen anymore though.
Should retry it and make your own decision
I’m confused. I’ve already made my decision when I used them before and it doesn’t seem like the main thing (them being just downstream of Firefox) has changed? Like said, I don’t see the benefits being big enough to warrant a switch.
If it’s not for me then you are free to stay with stock firefox
Thanks