= Firefox = == Certificate Problems == With some sites, particularly sourceforge, from time to time firefox will report certificate problems and refuse to connect. The last time this happened to me was after the machine had crashed and rebooted. Before that it was working fine, no software in the trust/certs area had been updated. In about:config, changing security.pki.distrust_ca_policy to 0 fixed this. == Note for people using package management == Up until firefox-58, the libraries were installed in /usr/lib/firefox-NN.0{,.N}. But with firefox-59 they are now installed in /usr/lib/firefox. This might impact you when you upgrade after 59 (some package managers might gripe about overwriting existing files). == Building with gtk+-3 == (ken: deleted my old comments, gtk3 is now the default and since at least ff44 it has been fine, except that gtk > 3.19 has required a patch to restore scrollbars - the patches have been in the book) == Broken scrollbars with gtk+-3 in BLFS-7.10 == On some machines, the gtk3 scrollbars (thin, slider with curved ends) were replaced by gtk2-style bars with arrows at their end which could be clicked, but '''without''' any button on the slider - it could still be dragged, but there was no visual indication of where you were in the page. This was eventually identified as a ''theme'' problem - e.g. xfce-winter is now inadequate. A workaround is to install gnome-themes-standard and to edit ~/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini to contain {{{ [Settings] gtk-theme-name=Adwaita }}} Any other settings in that file are probably ok. == Profiles == Firefox has a nasty habit of requiring a new profile every few releases. I say this is nasty because logins, current tabs, plugins (even if still supported) and perhaps bookmarks can be lost. In addition, it tends to name the profiles default, then default.default when it creates another. Part of a way around this is to open firefox with 'firefox -P' (before a profile change is needed) and rename the profile you intend to use. When firefox then says that a new profile is needed, cancel and rerun it from a term using 'MOZ_ALLOW_DOWNGRADE=1 firefox -P' : this will allow you to use the existing profile. After that, kill firefox and then you should be able to open it in the normal way and retore what you were browsing. == evince plugin (gtk3 builds) == If you build evince, it creates /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libevbrowserplugin.so That purports to offer support for inter-alia tiff files, ps files, pdfs, comic book - but it will never work. See [​https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1092126 ] : best to remove that plugin. == Which version should I use ? == In general, BLFS tries to always use latest releases. For firefox up to and including 69.0 the latest version has normally been used, except that for certain point versions such as 69.0.2 the change has seemed not relevant (consult the tickets for more details). But in late 2019 mozilla decided to move to a more-frequent release schedule (eventually 4 weeks instead of 6 or 7 weeks). Also, newer versions tend to need newer versions of rust, but this can cause problems with other packages which use rust. In particular, thunderbird releases are based on the firefox esr (extended support releases) code and tend to have code which does not build with the latest of rust. There are only a few packages in BLFS which use rust and the editors aim to ensure that all the versions in the book can be built with the same version of rust. As a result, after firefox-69 the book is moving to the esr versions of firefox which are technically a downgrade ''(see details about profiles above)'', but contain all the relevant security fixes. Based on past experience, some recent security fixes have been for new items which did not exist in the esr version. Therefore, using esr is expected to require slightly fewer updates. '''You should always use the latest release, either the latest esr or the latest mainline version'''. And you should remember to update your ca-certificates when building a new version of firefox. == Dependencies for 68-ESR == Although the book is tested with the latest versions of the dependencies (in the case of 68.2.0-esr these will include rustc-1.37.0 and cbindgen-0.9.1) it should be possible to use older versions of some packages: nss versions >= 3.44.2 should work, but using the latest is considered safer. harfbuzz >= 2.4.0 (if using the patch for system harfbuzz) should work. sqlite >= 3.28.0 should work, but you are recommended to use the latest version. libwebp >= 1.02 should work cbindgen >= 0.8.7 should work And in particular rustc-1.35.0 works and has been tested. == Dependencies for the latest release (these details are for 70.0) == This is an attempt to help people who want to keep using the latest upstream release, and will be updated from time to time. For firefox-70.0, the following need to be at least the specified versions: nss-3.46.1 harfbuzz-2.6.1 (if using the patch, which is in the patches project) sqlite-3.29.0 (latest is preferred) cbindgen-0.9.1 rustc-1.37.0 (1.38.0 works for firefox) == Dependencies for 71.0beta == A place to look at the next-but-one release, ready for when 71.0 is released. Not yet started. [wiki:GraphicalWebBrowsers Up][[br]] [wiki:BlfsNotes Top]