this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2024
354 points (97.8% liked)

Technology

59708 readers
2383 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
L3s@lemmy.world
L3s@fry.gs
L4s@fry.gs
L4s@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world
354
The Fennec Android browser is currently behind on Firefox security updates, deemed unsafe by F-droid (leminal.space)
submitted 1 month ago by halm@leminal.space to c/technology@lemmy.world
54 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

If, like me, you've relied on Fennec as a more tolerable version of Firefox for Android, you may have gotten some bad news in the latest F-droid update cycle.

Fennec has fallen so far behind on updates that serious security patches implemented by Mozilla in Firefox haven't been applied to the fork, and Fennec is therefore still breachable.

The developer responded two weeks ago that they were "short on time", and there still isn't a new, secure version available. This appears to be due to that recurring weak link in open source development: small teams, confronted by real life demands like time and money?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] AnyOldName3@lemmy.world 41 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Upstream Firefox doesn't comply with FDroid's rules (thanks to the 'proprietary bits and telemetry' Handles mentioned), so is only available from the Play Store or as a loose APK that won't auto-update.

[–] noodlejetski@lemm.ee 22 points 1 month ago (1 children)

it's also available from Mozilla's repos and can be updated using Obtainium https://download.cdn.mozilla.net/pub/fenix/releases/

[–] doctortran@lemm.ee 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Cool.

But I'm not adding another method of updating apps just for the browser. F-Droid is where my non-play store apps live and update from, and I'd like to keep it that way.

[–] EddyBot@discuss.tchncs.de 12 points 1 month ago

I use Obtainium (available in F-Droid) alongside F-Droid since both have auto-updates
this is still tolerable to the old days of updating manually

biggest upside is I can update Tubular/Newpipe faster via Obtainium while F-Droids build system takes days

[–] deegeese@sopuli.xyz 5 points 1 month ago

This reads like “they only sell hamburgers at the grocery store, and they don’t sell veggie burgers at the hippie food store because they aren't vegan”