What does HackerNews think of iceraven-browser?

Iceraven Browser

Language: Kotlin

This list of Firefox forks was posted not so long ago - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37735443

- librewolf (Desktop) [1]

- Mull (Android) [2]

- Iceraven (Android) [3]

- Mercury (Desktop) [4]

- Pulse Browser (Desktop) [5]

- Waterfox (Desktop) [6]

- Floorp (Desktop) [7] --> This submission

- Pale Moon (Desktop) [8]

- Mullvad Browser (Desktop) [9]

- Tor browser (Desktop - Android) [10]

This list is not inclusive. It probably contains the famous forks.

[1] https://librewolf.net

[2] https://gitlab.com/divested-mobile/mull-fenix

[3] https://github.com/fork-maintainers/iceraven-browser

[4] https://github.com/Alex313031/Mercury

[5] https://pulsebrowser.app

[6] https://www.waterfox.net

[7] https://floorp.app/en

[8] https://www.palemoon.org

[9] https://mullvad.net/en/browser

[10] https://www.torproject.org/download/

For reference, this is not just the only player in town (for Firefox forks). There is the following:

- librewolf (Desktop) [1]

- Mull (Android) [2]

- Iceraven (Android) [3]

- Mercury (Desktop) [4]

- Pulse Browser (Desktop) [5]

- Waterfox (Desktop) [6]

- Floorp (Desktop) [7] --> This submission

- Pale Moon (Desktop) [8]

- Mullvad Browser (Desktop) [9]

- Tor browser (Desktop - Android) [10]

This list is not inclusive. It probably contains the famous forks.

[1] https://librewolf.net

[2] https://gitlab.com/divested-mobile/mull-fenix

[3] https://github.com/fork-maintainers/iceraven-browser

[4] https://github.com/Alex313031/Mercury

[5] https://pulsebrowser.app

[6] https://www.waterfox.net

[7] https://floorp.app/en

[8] https://www.palemoon.org

[9] https://mullvad.net/en/browser

[10] https://www.torproject.org/download/

>Same goes for Firefox Android, which I've thankfully found an old APK for.

Not sure how much this will help you, I don't know which features you're keeping the older version of Firefox Android around for. But have you looked into Iceraven browser?

https://github.com/fork-maintainers/iceraven-browser

Iceraven supports Violentmonkey - https://github.com/fork-maintainers/iceraven-browser

(Iceraven is a fork of Firefox for Android with way more extensions enabled and several other annoyances fixed.)

I just installed it and then added https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/460206-hn-avatars - it works perfectly!

Thanks! Did not know about the Iceraven project [1], which looks like a good replacement for Fenix.

[1]: https://github.com/fork-maintainers/iceraven-browser

Plus one for Iceraven - https://github.com/fork-maintainers/iceraven-browser

And an additional shout out for FF Updater, which can keep Iceraven up to date - https://github.com/Tobi823/ffupdater

https://github.com/fork-maintainers/iceraven-browser

"Note that Iceraven Browser includes some unstable code written by Mozilla, with our own added modifications on top, all shipped with the stable version of GeckoView engine."

I wouldn't use iceraven if security was a priority.

Fennec on the other hand is much closer to FF , quoting their page :

https://f-droid.org/packages/org.mozilla.fennec_fdroid/

"Fennec F-Droid is based on the latest Firefox release (codenamed Fenix).

It has proprietary bits and telemetry removed, but still connects to

various Mozilla and Google services that can track users."

If you use Android, Firefox on Android is also really nice because it can sync with your desktop and also has about a dozen extensions (ublock origin, dark reader, etc.)[1].

And then Iceraven[2] is even better, because it's just Firefox for Android, but with several hundred extensions enabled and a few other annoyances fixed.

(A few years ago all extensions were enabled on Firefox on Android, but a few didn't work so they decided to limit it to a very short list of allowed ones. And then they let that list stagnate for years. Kind of a dick move IMO.)

If you use iOS, then "Firefox" is really just a skin on Safari, so no extensions (this is entirely Apple's fault), but the sync features work, so that's something if you use Windows or Linux.

[1]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/search/?promoted=re...

[2]: https://github.com/fork-maintainers/iceraven-browser

I switched to Iceraven [0] last year and never looked back. It is a fork of the new Firefox for Android but with a much longer list of extensions and about:config support. I specifically need the latter to route traffic through a local proxy before.

[0]: https://github.com/fork-maintainers/iceraven-browser

Oh and it is written in Kotlin. Maybe I should learn it just to try hacking more features in.

For Android, I don't have a great answer for you. In theory you can install Fennec on F-Droid, version 57, the last version the last version of Firefox built by F-Droid that was based on the Fennec browser engine, but that has security vuln potential, increasingly so since its been a few years since Fennec -> Fenix switch.

For now, because I don't want to be hit by security vulns in the browser itself, I'm holding my nose and doing plain old Firefox mobile, leaving some of the tracking stuff blocked on my Pi-Hole, then letting my wireguard VPN ensure that even when I'm off Wi-Fi, my signal gets routed to my home connection so the Pi-Hole can stop some of the telemetry (but not all! some gets through no doubt).

Why am I holding my nose there? Because my planned next browser, Iceraven [1], is not yet out of alpha and published to F-Droid. I check every 3 months or so, once it is, that's where I'm going, because it's as close as I can get to Firefox Desktop, but runs on Android.

[1] https://github.com/fork-maintainers/iceraven-browser

I use iceraven to get around some of these limitations. Addons that I needed(privacy redirect) work great: https://github.com/fork-maintainers/iceraven-browser.

From the github link : The ability to attempt to install a much longer list of add-ons than Mozilla's Fenix version of Firefox accepts. Currently the browser queries this AMO collection Most of them will not work, because they depend on code that Mozilla is still working on writing in android-components, but you may attempt to install them. If you don't see an add-on you want, you can request it.

That's not true. It's more that Mozilla white lists only very few of the addons for the mobile browser.

The fork Iceraven whitelists/allow all (?) of the addons (not all work fully, so the whitelist has a purpose): https://github.com/fork-maintainers/iceraven-browser

Yep, that's the provided workaround. If you don't want to use Firefox Nightly, these Firefox forks based on the stable channel have access to all of https://addons.mozilla.org through the same steps:

- Mull: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/us.spotco.fennec_dos/

- Fennec F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.mozilla.fennec_fdroid/

- Iceraven: https://github.com/fork-maintainers/iceraven-browser

I'm currently using Iceraven on my Android phone and it's mostly a great experience! It gives access to all sorts of add-ons to block ads, cookies and other internet annoyances, some of which are not yet available on the official FF Android app since Fennec was abandoned.

Even if speed were not 100% that of certain mobile browsers (I have not benchmarked them nor noticed any major differences), having no banners show up make up for it. I have no concerns with telemetry, but the Iceraven folks have cut down on some of the telemetry.

In fact I use Iceraven as my default YouTube mobile app, instead of the official app. With the right add-ons, it makes for a quite nice YT experience!

https://github.com/fork-maintainers/iceraven-browser

yeah right, I use iceraven which has a lot of extensions than firefox, including i dont care about cookies, check it in fdroid...https://github.com/fork-maintainers/iceraven-browser
LibreWolf is a soft-fork in this vein. Notably, it's on Flathub, so it's very easy to install.

=> https://librewolf-community.gitlab.io/

Iceraven is a similar (less mature) project for Android.

=> https://github.com/fork-maintainers/iceraven-browser

It would be nice to have a single umbrella project/brand, which could essentially treat Firefox in the same way Edge and Opera treat Chrome.

I have not tried it but iceraven is a fork of the android version and it tries to allow more addons to be installed https://github.com/fork-maintainers/iceraven-browser
Two weeks ago I've switched to Iceraven, a FF for Android fork, and it's been fantastic so far.

It's compatible with many add-ons missing from FF on Android and has some additional features that were "lost" in the Fenix release.

https://github.com/fork-maintainers/iceraven-browser