WebGL is important for very modern websites, such as the Independence Day:
Resurgence site warof1996.com. WebGL should be turned off by default, with
a UI option to turn it on in the desktop version, if a site wants to use it
— the way it currently does with plugins, and if the computer supports it
with all the necessary versions of relevant graphics drivers.
For about:newtab, sponsored ad code should be removed, but the newtab
itself kept, with a doorhanger showing where to switch it off, if need be.
For mobile, I prefer a very clean version, because my phone is rather
underpowered by today's standards. Maybe if WebGL and some other components
could be made optional as installable extensions (like DOM Inspector is in
the desktop version), because some people might want IceCat with WebGL, and
then some others also a variation of Pocket / Hello!/Loop, but not
everything else.
WebGL and many other things can already be turned off with the Privacy
Settings extension.
The feature that I really want to get back, is cookie prompts ("ask for
each cookie"). This feature separated Firefox from most other browsers, but
was removed around Firefox 44 or 45.
-M.
2016-05-05 23:17 GMT+03:00 David Hedlund <pub...@beloved.name>:
> I submitted this post to https://github.com/amq/firefox-debloat/issues/25
>
> On 2015-06-08 15:39, Orchidaceae Phalaenopsis wrote:
>
>> Dear Rubin,
>>
>> Congratulations! I wish you many happy years to come!
>>
>> I have recently seen firefox adding more and more unnecessary and
>> dangerous things so I have decide to work on a version of firefox
>> which deletes them.
>>
>> Then I discovered Icecat which shares a lot of my goals and I was able
>> to benefit from its source code. Thank you very much!
>>
>> Here are the components I propose for deletion and why:
>>
>> * EME/DRM - [freedom] - This is a sandbox intended to run some kind of
>> nasty binary from adobe used to block users from having full control
>> over videos they watch.
>> * NewTab - [freedom/privacy] - The "newtab" has been getting sponsored
>> adverts being put into it. It is a danger to privacy because when the
>> mouse hovers over them a connection is made to the advertisers page.
>> * HealthReport - [privacy] - Turned this off by default. I do not
>> believe something like this that reports statistics about usage should
>> be on by default.
>> * WebGL - [security] - Turned this off by default. The security
>> dangers of having this on are too high.
>> * Pocket - [freedom] - Pocket seems to be some kind of 3rd party
>> "cloud" service. This is a danger to freedom.
>> * Hello!/Loop - [superfluous] - I think you can technically run your
>> own loop server and all the source code is available so this is not a
>> freedom concern but in any case this is not required to browse the
>> web.
>>
>> To delete EME I did an rm -r on all the relevant directories, added
>> ac_add_options --disable-eme to the mozconf and cleaned up any
>> dangling references to the EME stuff. I think it is important that the
>> code itself not be compiled into the program even if it is not used.
>> "dead" code has been used in security vulnerabilities in the past.
>>
>> For NewTab I blanked out the XML inside content/newtab/newTab.xul and
>> deleted the unneeded files.
>>
>> The patch for HealthReport off-by-default is based on icecat, since
>> icecat already does this!
>>
>> To set WebGL off by default I edited modules/libpref/init/all.js.
>>
>> Pocket and Hello! were removed by rm -r'ing the modules and then
>> cleaning up dangling references:
>>
>> rm -r ./browser/components/pocket/
>>
>> rm -rf ./browser/components/loop/
>> rm ./browser/base/content/browser-loop.js
>>
>> --------------
>>
>> I am keen on learning about new candidates for removal. I have heard
>> that firefox will soon search users history and provide adverts based
>> on this - I intend to produce a patch/script to remove that too.
>>
>> I have included some patches and scripts here which I hope may be of
>> use or interested to folks.
>>
>> * https://github.com/orchid-hybrid/cozy-cub/tree/master
>>
>> --
>> http://gnuzilla.gnu.org
>>
>
>
> --
> http://gnuzilla.gnu.org
>
--
http://gnuzilla.gnu.org
