Haven’t heard about any distros removing Firefox from the repos.
It’s possible that some distros may go an IceWeasel by default route, but I see that as unlikely.
this post was submitted on 06 Mar 2025
-50 points (17.1% liked)
Linux
51313 readers
623 users here now
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
- No misinformation
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
Debian literally used a de-Mozilla'ed fork called Icewesel for like a decade. It's fine. I never noticed any differences.
Huh?
Can't you just download it yourself if that's the case?
If anything, a fork would take its place. If something like that would happen. It doesn't even need much change, only the name and branding, and the user agreement. While doing so some defaults would change too probably, as a sideeffect. To be honest, I hope this happens.
Plenty of distros do package closed source software that does who knows what. i wouldn't worry about it for now. if you are on a distro that takes a hardline stance on privacy, it was probably gone a while ago, but i don't actually know any such distros right now.
i haven't really read the change the firefox foundation has made
Or you can watch a helpful video. https://youtu.be/-8bTquKjzos
Basically, the internet is overreacting again, but it's partly because Mozilla is shit at communicating. They should know better and understand that we're all experiencing rapid enshittification. Corporations aren't trustworthy. You can't just remove mention of "not selling your data" and just expect average people to parse the laws and your ToS and your Privacy Policy and connect all the pieces.
I would contradict you. The internet is not overreacting, Mozilla and parts of its community try to downplay the issue at hand.
Because they won't read. They look at the change of the ToS only and think that they understand what has changed.
I don't particularly care which browser people use; I just want people to be able to make an informed decision, thus I provided evidence that the internet is overreacting. Where's yours?
Firefox is licenced under a copyleft license. Mozilla can't stop distros packaging it even if they wanted to.
They'd need to replace the branding, but that's not a big deal.
I highly doubt it. Even if they did though, if they just replace it with a firefox fork it could work pretty much as a drop-in replacement.
Firefox has effectively become spyware, and so, yes, it should be replaced. There are several forks that work well. I'm using Floorp (stupid name, but really nice with some improvements over vanilla Firefox). Zen is another one gaining in popularity. Try them out! Don't let Mozilla walk away with your data.
Look up ffupdate on GitHub. The latest vanilla Firefox on any Linux with just 1 command (after it's been configured)
yeah install firefox from a site I never heard before instead of the distro's repos that I already trust.