Konform Browser and other bits and bobs.
- 4 Posts
- 24 Comments
ken@discuss.tchncs.deto
Linux@lemmy.ml•I Spoke To The Developer Of The Systemd Birth Date PR - YouTube
1·10 days agodeleted by creator
ken@discuss.tchncs.deto
Linux@lemmy.ml•I Spoke To The Developer Of The Systemd Birth Date PR - YouTube
5·10 days agoThe Lemmy community is broadly 50:50 on their support for said calls for the violence.
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There’s astroturfing. Careful with judging community vibes by obviously votes but also comments.
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There is more to “The Lemmy community” than what’s on display on .ml.
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ken@discuss.tchncs.deto
Linux@lemmy.ml•I Spoke To The Developer Of The Systemd Birth Date PR - YouTube
2·10 days agoI also believe nobody here is sending threats.
I wouldn’t be so sure of your tribe. 19 users so far upvoted a comment with among other concerning bits:
if you’re anti this bullshit “law” then you are also pro physically harming poor FOSS “contributors”.
ken@discuss.tchncs.deto
Linux@lemmy.ml•I Spoke To The Developer Of The Systemd Birth Date PR - YouTube
1·10 days agoYou missed this option:
- Ignore the feature and don’t use it.
systemd is quite modular. For example, if you abhor systemd-resolved (not at unreasonable stance) it’s NBD to disable it.
Recently (<1 year?) I frequently see the notion that software is “tainted” by having been touched by Bad. I find this a bit silly. Especially if it’s from a user who’s not even spending time in the codebase.
ken@discuss.tchncs.deto
Privacy@lemmy.ml•Mullvad Browser and Tor Browser have unique-per-computer persistent IDs on fingerprint.com
14·10 days agoAre you keeping at default window size, or resizing? If latter, it is expected. This is a gotcha when using tiling window managers as they often force a window size that may give you off. TB should otherwise start with static fixed window size. Enabling “Letterboxing” feature can help alleviate this somewhat.
On PG: Also been seeing weird vibes and some inexplicable moderation comms and actions when looking closer. Their “recommendations” and “guides” also raise eyebrows. Something is very strange there.
ken@discuss.tchncs.deOPto
Linux@lemmy.ml•Konform Browser 140.8.0-106 - Security- and privacy oriented open source web browser
7·28 days agoCool. But…, could you name those explicitly?
Thanks for checking out! Not in the readme, because it would be a PITA to keep that up to date over time, especially when rewriting for new context each time. They are already covered in release notes and commit log1 for the curious. You can also look under
patches/konin the source git repo.Could you please explain why anyone should consider Konform Browser over it?
Am engineer not a salesperson or influencer. I guess that means at this early stage it’s primarily targeting the audience who are able/willing to make sense of and contextualize the given material themselves, or willing to take a leap of faith. The pros/cons vs other browsers is something I hope to leave to other users to talk about and share around. Would be cool to hear your thoughts, for example! Maybe this is relevant for some, though.
Also, pull requests attempting to improve the documentation are very much welcome. Would be great to get more contributors involved and one doesn’t have to be deeply technical to write good docs.
1: Can click the commit hash for a release under
/releasesand thenxxx commitsto list commits for specific release
ken@discuss.tchncs.deOPto
Linux@lemmy.ml•Konform Browser 140.8.0-106 - Security- and privacy oriented open source web browser
2·28 days agoWhat an atrocious comment choice.
ken@discuss.tchncs.deOPto
Linux@lemmy.ml•Konform Browser 140.8.0-106 - Security- and privacy oriented open source web browser
1·28 days agoUpdate: Readme has been updated to be less out of date and that diff list is now more closely resembling current state of differences. In particular, local full-page translations is supported feature in Konform Browser, unlike the readme previously stated.
ken@discuss.tchncs.deOPto
Linux@lemmy.ml•Konform Browser 140.8.0-106 - Security- and privacy oriented open source web browser
2·28 days agoIt would certainly be nice to be able to pre-download language pair models without selecting to and from and then actually initiating a translation using the model i don’t have yet.
Agreed that would be nice. Closest you get conveniently from inside browser today is to switch temporarily to “Basic Features” preset for model downloads (then maybe restart for good measure) and switch back to “Core Security” preset for actual use.
re: getting uBlock externally, i also see the attraction of that approach but unfortunately Debian’s package was last updated in October (from 1.62 to 1.67) while AMO has a release from January (1.69) :/
I don’t think it will be directly bundled due to the list updates and some users will not want it so it should remain optional. That being said, will already be looking at packaging for NoScript so when that happens I think should be reasonable to do the same with up-to-date uBO.
are there plans to distribute Konform via flathub?
Officially can’t/won’t due to Github being both unreasonable and a supply-chain risk. Anyone is free to do so independently, however. If done in responsible and reasonable way (don’t introduce breaking patches or leave users hanging weeks without security updates plz) could be supportive of such initiative whether done indepently or via Konform Codeberg.
ken@discuss.tchncs.deOPto
Linux@lemmy.ml•Konform Browser 140.8.0-106 - Security- and privacy oriented open source web browser
8·28 days agoOh, thanks for bringing that up - that’s out of date and no longer true so I guess the readme does need an update1. While you are correct, the offline translations feature wouldn’t actually work when blocking its access to RemoteSettings server. There was also a bug (still present in LW) which prevented locally cached results from being used. As Konform Browser does have a strict policy of not initiating connections to “trusted” servers on its own by default and without explicit user consent, it made more sense to remove it than leaving UI for a completely broken feature until it could be done properly.
Since that was written:
- Bugs fixed in Konform so translations do work fully offline now
- An about:welcome “onboarding” screen was introduced where user has 4 presets to choose from. 3 of them (all but
Purely Private 🔒️) allow translations feature and 2 (✳️Basic Functionalityand🦊Just Make It Work) makes it default and enable the automatic downloads of models from Mozilla server like in FF. about:translationsunhidden and can be used for direct translations of direct input
So in reality I would say offline local translations actually work better in Konform than in FF and other forks.
In the future hoping to improve this further by redistributing the models as packages for separate installation on system. Then you can use them without needing the browser itself to download anything at all. Similarly to how it’s already done for spelling dictionaries and uBlock Origin.
1: EDIT: Readme has been updated to be less out of date more closely resembling current state of differences.
ken@discuss.tchncs.deOPto
Linux@lemmy.ml•Konform Browser 140.8.0-106 - Security- and privacy oriented open source web browser
6·29 days agoCare to comment on the actual content of post or the topic of the project rather than aesthetics of the thumbnail icon? It’s a web browser, not a lifestyle brand, and this isn’t c/logodesign 🙄
ken@discuss.tchncs.deOPto
Linux@lemmy.ml•Konform Browser 140.8.0-106 - Security- and privacy oriented open source web browser
6·28 days agoWhile that section in readme is not entirely up to date, combining that with release notes should hopefully give decent idea. Let me know if you have remaining questions after returning from those! You could also try it out and see for yourself.
ken@discuss.tchncs.deOPto
Linux@lemmy.ml•Konform Browser 140.8.0-106 - Security- and privacy oriented open source web browser
5·29 days agoSome day, someone is going to have to explain this one…
There is actually a third visual reference in the logo that may be a bit less obvious.
LibreWolf, on the other hand, works by spoofing a different fingerprint every session.
Is that true? I think it’s not that much of a fundamental difference in strategy as you say. While LW (like MB) does randomization of e.g. WebGL and Canvas fingerprints, in general other fingerprintables are also kept static. From my perspective it’s more a difference in degrees than direction. Have you checked how your font fingerprint persist?
I believe both Mullvad Browser and LibreWolf come with uBlockOrigin pre-installed
Not exactly. LW comes without the addon but is configured to download and install uBlock Origin from
addons.mozilla.orgthe very first thing it does. This is in contrast with Mullvad Browser (which does bundle the addon) and Konform Browser (which will load locally installed system uBO from known path if installed from distribution package manager).If you’re looking for something to use with actual accounts (like banking), use hardened Firefox (with arkenfox) or a hardened chromium browser.
Konform Browser is intended to support that use-case and also worthy for consideration. Would be curious to hear if you agree or how you think it falls short!
LibreWolf doesn’t work to give you a non-unique fingerprint. Use Mullvad Browser for that (without changing anything other than the safety level).
Konform Browser also provides stronger protection against fingerprinting compared to vanilla FF or LW. Similarly (and in no small part thanks) to Tor Browser and Mullvad Browser.
Identification via enumeration and rendering differences of fonts is a major factor that’s often overlooked. Those three browsers bundle and enforce the same fonts and fontconfig to make that less reliable as fingerprinting method.
I prefer my devices without any malware at all but you do you I guess.
you’re data is safe with small hackers
wat
Yes let’s make sure everyone’s on the exact same provider. What could possibly go wrong. “Just use X” bandwagonning is shortsighted and lazy.
Or factory reset and then don’t install SmartTube. Fool me once?
ken@discuss.tchncs.deOPto
Privacy@lemmy.ml•dialhome-study/browser-network-insights: they have played us for absolute fools
1·2 months agoWould be cool to hear how it goes if you do!

I would guess they were probably thinking more about your Zen Browser reference1, and your comment on Mullvad Browser. Both are misinfo and I would agree it’s good to do a little DD on your own before posting hearsay. Even with the disclaimers it’s contributing to spreading and giving credibility to those claims.
1: Perhaps the least inspiring major FF fork from a privacy perspective… https://codeberg.org/dialhome-study/browser-network-insights