353
The Fennec Android browser is currently behind on Firefox security updates, deemed unsafe by F-droid
(leminal.space)
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?
I'll just throw out Mull from DivestOS's third-party f-droid repo as an up to date alternative. The newest versions are incompatible with the main repo but here is their explanation:
Ah yes, the toolchain changes appear to be a stumbling stone for the Fennec devs as well. That kind of thing doesn't exactly speed up new releases, I'm sure.
What are your experiences with Mull? Is it generally compatible with Firefox plugins, and are there performance improvements as well as in security?
Mull has defaults that improve privacy at the cost of performance and website compatibility. They maintain a list of changes that you can reverse through about:config. If Mull seems slow for you, consider re-enabling the JavaScript JIT.