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 > > _______________________________________________ > kde mailing list > kde@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/kde > New to KDE4? - get help from http://userbase.kde.org -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. _______________________________________________ kde mailing list kde@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/kde New to KDE4? - get help from http://userbase.kde.org
