LibreWolf AppImage 64-bit Only: Privacy Hardened Firefox

[mikewalsh]

Now then, gang.

After much head-scratching, here is the new 'portable' version of 64-bit LibreWolf.

Initially, I thought this was going to be a "no-go". The last few LibreWolf AppImages that I've tried have, without fail, told me that they can't mount.....because Puppy's version of fusermount is WAY too old. From this, I take away the fact that these have probably been built by somebody who is running a 'bleeding-edge', rolling-release distro like Arch, which is constantly upgrading to the very newest of everything, all the time. Even Fossapup is nearly a year-and-a-half old now; in rolling-release terms, this is a lifetime!

But, there's 'workarounds' for pretty much everything, IF you put your considering cap on. Accordingly, I've run the AppImage with the

Code: Select all

--appimage-extract

....."-switch", which unzips it. And what you're effectively left with is a ROX-app. Which runs fine.

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I've employed the techniques I've been refining with my recent rash of 'portable' applications. Instead of creating, and using, the profile directly within the portable itself, the profile directory is created inside the portable, and THEN it's sym-linked out to where the application expects to find it. At first run, the sym-linked directory is populated with all the profile stuff, though in reality it's actually writing direct to the portable anyway....

The sym-linked .librewolf profile directory sits in /root (the user's $HOME directory, in Puppy's case). However, LibreWolf still runs-as-spot. Immediately prior to launch, everything that needs it is chowned to spot:spot permissions, EVEN the sym-linked .librewolf directory in /root......which at shutdown, is deleted again.

Suffice it to say, it all runs very sweetly indeed.

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I'm NOT going to be building this on a regular basis. I won't NEED to. You, the user, can easily upgrade this yourself.

• Keep an eye on

  https://gitlab.com/librewolf-community/ ... -/releases

  This is the download location for the AppImages, which appears to be the sole package format these are released in. Download the current version, and extract it to obtain the AppImage itself.

• In the directory where the new AppImage is located, open a terminal (rt-clk->Windows->Terminal here). Run the following command:-

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  ./xxxxxxxxx.AppImage --appimage-extract

  .....where xxxxxxxxx is the name of the AppImage exactly as it is written.

• This will unzip the AppImage, and leave a directory called "squashfs-root". This is basically a ROX-app; clicking on this will actually fire it up. However; what you want to do is to re-name this to the same as the one already inside the portable, so rename it to "LibreWolf64". Then, just swap this with the one in the portable.

• You have now upgraded LibreWolf to the new version, and can continue to use it with your existing profile.

Easy, isn't it?

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The current portable can be found here:-

https://mega.nz/folder/PLIUiBjJ#d-zkYbc7_GFEAAmt7tWUDg

Have fun!

Mike.

[geo_c]

now; in rolling-release terms, this is a lifetime!

But, there's 'workarounds' for pretty much everything, IF you put your considering cap on. Accordingly, I've run the AppImage with the

Code: Select all

--appimage-extract

....."-switch", which unzips it. And what you're effectively left with is a ROX-app. Which runs fine.

-----------------------------------------------------------

• In the directory where the new AppImage is located, open a terminal (rt-clk->Windows->Terminal here). Run the following command:-

  Code: Select all

  ./xxxxxxxxx.AppImage --appimage-extract

  .....where xxxxxxxxx is the name of the AppImage exactly as it is written.

• You have now upgraded LibreWolf to the new version, and can continue to use it with your existing profile.

Mike.

Hmm @mikewalsh I just downloaded the appimage and made it executable. Sure I didn't use my old profile, but it did indeed fire up and I'm using it now after adjusting it to my taste. Are you saying it might just quit working at some point?

@geo_c

[mikewalsh]

@geo_c :-

Very doubtful it'll simply quit working; I've never known any browser to do that.....unless the user makes some major change to his/her system which removes stuff the browser depends on.

No, some people just like to always be using the very newest version of everything, regardless of whether it's actually necessary. Where browsers - or anything internet-facing - are concerned, I try to keep on top of things as much of the time as I can. With many other items, I'm nowhere near as bothered.

The 'net is where most of your "nasties" originate. No sense inviting trouble when it CAN be avoided.

Mike.

[xenial]

I tried this on fossapup64.Not impressed frankly.
Go to a video site and the laptop attempts to take off..Bad reaction to my system i guess.

I would assume most of the privacy achieved here can be done tweaking normal firefox.

Browser for the super-paranoid among us.
There is a fundamental difference between actual malicious spyware and legitimate telemetry.

I never thought i would ever say this but google chrome is the best performer at the moment and google probably has me profiled anyway so if it works bloody leave it alone.

[geo_c]

I tried this on fossapup64.Not impressed frankly.
Go to a video site and the laptop attempts to take off..Bad reaction to my system i guess.

I would assume most of the privacy achieved here can be done tweaking normal firefox.

Browser for the super-paranoid among us.
There is a fundamental difference between actual malicious spyware and legitimate telemetry.

I never thought i would ever say this but google chrome is the best performer at the moment and google probably has me profiled anyway so if it works bloody leave it alone.

Interesting about the video. I don't watch movies, or netflix, or any of that stuff, but everything plays quite well for me, like long youtube stuff. I like Libre, but I bounce back and forth between it and ungoogled chromium. Everyone complains about Libre's lack of window position/size memory -- yeah, that's pretty annoying. But, for me, I split a secondary screen and it opens to exactly the width I want, so that works.

I'm still not sure if Libre 'phones home' through Mozilla, because it works with their site. However it seems like maybe it doesn't. I'm sure @mikewalsh knows. Anyway, I like Libre. I use it for everything, a document viewer, a file browser, a web browser, a media player. And it looks good when tweaked.

[xenial]

It may have been just a bad install but i do like the browser and may try again.I downloaded the appimage and just executed..Youtube locked the entire os up so not sure what could be happening there.
For ordinary browsing it appears snappy and consistent.

[geo_c]

It may have been just a bad install but i do like the browser and may try again.I downloaded the appimage and just executed..Youtube locked the entire os up so not sure what could be happening there.
For ordinary browsing it appears snappy and consistent.

I feel like Fossapup has some issues with locking up during high display loads. It happens when multiple graphics applications are active, and for me just occasionally, maybe every couple weeks, sometime a month. I notice it when various browsers (and it doesn't seem to matter which) are active, and especially if running a desktop switcher like JWM desk, or even if using a photo editor, video editor, or zoom meetings. Seems like the wrong combination of graphics calls, and the OS locks. I'm using the latest Libre appimage for a week or so, and it hasn't had any issues.

[Feek]

I would assume most of the privacy achieved here can be done tweaking normal firefox.

Hi,
in Fossapup I use relatively long time normal Firefox (installed from quickpet) with settings recommended by Sun Knudsen:

https://sunknudsen.com/privacy-guides/h ... references

I have two profiles, one of them is strict. It works very well for me although the setup took some time

[xenial]

Been tinkering with this one for the past few days.
On my limited computer.((for the time being))the memory usage seemed rather high for my liking and tends to keep creeping up as you browse further.

i find chrome/chromium browsers have better memory management than gecko based ones.i don't see anything here which i couldn't do myself within standard firefox like implementing prefs etc.

[mikeslr]

Download the AppImage, currently, from https://librewolf.net/installation/linux/
Extract it, for example Right-Click and select UExtract. By default that will create, adjacent to the AppImage, itself, a folder bearing the name of the AppImage version but ending in “.extracted”.

With Rox as file-manager the above described folder is recognized as a ‘rox-app’. If you click it LibreWolf will start (if your OS supports it OOTB). You can Right-Click that folder and from the pop-up menu select Rename. Give it any name you want. I chose Librewolf98 so as to keep track of what version I have. [AFAIK it can not be updated]. You can then move the folder where ever you want.

Under Fossapup64 both the AppImage and the extracted folder ran OOTB, including the ability to play youtube videos with sound. But like (inherited from) firefox, AS-IS, those will store customizations and settings in your ‘Home Folder” and more significantly also write cache files there. Under frugal Puppys, your Home Folder is /root, and "/root is in RAM". As cache from the web can increase in size rapidly, that can impact the responsiveness of your operating system, even resulting in system crash. Further complication arise as the contents of /root will be written to your SaveFile/Folder when you execute a Save and thus be copied back into RAM on boot-up. This is why both fredx181 and MikeWalsh built their portables so that profiles (configurations, bookmarks, and addons) and cache would be written instead to the portable’s own folder.*

I don’t have either fred’s or Mike’s programming skills. So I flinched their work to produce the attached “wolf-pup2” script.

wolf-pup2.gz

(1.52 KiB) Downloaded 43 times

REMOVE the false ‘.gz’ ending and drop it into your folder. Left-Clicking it will start LibreWolf.

Although folders will still be created in /root and /root/.cache they will not be populated. Rather, LibreWolf’s own folder will be used.

The wolf-pup2 script runs LibreWolf as ‘Root’. It is likely that adding ‘run-as-spot’ to its last line will run it as spot. Something like this

exec run-as-spot "${EXEC}" "$@" -profile "$LAUNCHDIR/profile".

As noted the wolf-pup2 script is my hack. It appears to have originated as a modification of the AppRun** script which already was in the AppImage. I have no objection if someone wants to do a more professional job and create an alternative. I also won’t object if MikeWalsh takes it upon himself to publish a script to generate a menu entry to start LibreWolf from wherever the portable folder is located.
Nor will I throw a temper-tantrum if anyone figures out how to update LibreWolf without having to start-from-scratch.

-=-=-=-=-=
* Installation of the addon named "Clear Browsing Data" is still recommended by both firefox and me. And, of course, you can still configure LibreWolf to clear cache etc. on shut-down.

** If you get annoyed by LibreWolf's starting when you click its folder, then AFTER installing the wolf-pup2 script you can delete the AppRun script.

[mikeslr]

Well, it seems that the above posts resulted from my violation of two personal rules: (1) never do anything important, such as write a post, before having my 2nd cup of coffee, and (2) never start a post without having re-read the entire thread. I made both rules in recognition of my flaky memory.

Seems I was more than a spectator in the writing of the wolf-pup script, the direct parent of the wolf-pup2 script. But on a positive note, I approached LibreWolf with fresh eyes. Once the idea of running LibreWolf as spot from within a spot folder was discarded [actually not even considered], things fell into place much more easily. If you still feel it necessary to run LibreWolf as spot, MikeWalsh shows how to do it, viewtopic.php?p=19488#p19488.

And now that I'm fully awake, I've taken the time to examine the MenuAdd and Menu-Remove script Mike includes in his portables. They seem straight-forward once you realize that within the included DATA folder he includes there's an icon and a desktop file and that these are copied-to/removed-from /usr/share/pixmaps and /usr/share/applications, respectively. Sweet.