abrowser-help
Abrowser is the default web browser for Trisquel, Trisquel Mini and Triskel. Abrowser is Trisquel's version of Mozilla's popular web browser with the trademarked logos replaced. Replacing the trademarked logos gets rid of the trademark restriction that forbids selling the software, which would have effectively made it non-free software. Abrowser offers improved privacy, without too many aggressive freedom and privacy features and relies on the best in usability and browsing experience.
Using Abrowser
Abrowser's tabs bar
With the tabs bar it is possible to:
- View recent browsing across windows and devices
- Select open Tabs
- Open a new Tab
A right-click on a tab opens a context menu.
Abrowser's navigation bar
The navigation bar lets you access several functions like going back an forward chronically, reloading a page and abort loading a page.
Abrowser's address bar
The address bar shows the path of the current page. To go to a location, select it, type a location, or search terms and press [ENTER].
Abrowser's tool bar
The tool bar offers you access to (from left to right):
- Account
- Extensions
- Application menu
A right-click on the tool bar opens a menu that lets you modify it.
Abrowser's bookmarks toolbar
With the bookmarks toolbar it is possible to:
- Import bookmarks
- Go to a bookmark, or manage them
A right-click on the tool bar opens a menu that lets you configure it.
Abrowser's working view
This section shows the current page or other media.
The homepage contains by default :
- The logo of Abrowser
- A quick search function
- Sponsored links, later they will be replaced by recent opened pages or media.
- A click on the gear wheel at the upper right lets you personalize this view
Abrowser in dark mode
Some websites adapt their colour scheme based on your preferences. You can choose a colour scheme you’d like to use for those sites. Abrowser's "Dark" appearance, together with "Trisquel Dark" theme looks like this:
You can set the colour scheme by opening the Application menu on the tool bar and select Settings and scroll down to Language and Appearance and select one.
Advanced use of Abrowser
For advanced use of Abrowser:
- take a look at Abrowser's keyboard shortcuts
- read the section Add-ons and take a look at the more technically section Features
Add-ons
To manage Abrowser add-ons, visit the site about:addons within Abrowser, where all installed add-ons are listed. Here it is possible to search for and install add-ons by using the list of free software add-ons, a project that is maintained by the Trisquel project an hosted by gnu.org. It is highly recommended to use this way of installing add-ons, because this list is limited to free software only.Features
Default Search Engine
The default search engine is DuckDuckGo HTML, a version of DuckDuckGo that don't use JavaScript. This option can be modified by going to about:preferences#search and selecting another or adding another one at https://mycroftproject.com/ like described there.
Resisting Fingerprinting
By default, Abrowser resets browser geometry and zoom level, as privacy features. If you wish to disable these features, you can do so by going to about:config and changing privacy.resistFingerprinting to False.Geo location privacy
By default Abrowser will not share nor ask to share your location, if you require this feature to be enabled, you can do so by going to about:config and changing geo.enabled to True.Machine Learning
Machine learning and LLM introduce privacy issues when using third party services, and for local models they need to be vetted and establish some level of trust by the user. This tool is disabled by default, you can manage this by searching for browser.ml in about:config.Firefox Relay and other services
Abrowser disables Firefox Relay service by default, as any third party service should not be enabled by default, but by user specific decision. Please report if any new Mozilla / Firefox service might be enabled by default on a new release.Support
Further support for Abrowser can be found in the user forum or the official IRC channel (#trisquel on irc.libera.chat). Also, please help the project by submitting bug reports.Further Reading
About Abrowser, IceCat and Trisquel
Ruben, the main developer of Trisquel has commented on the reasoning of maintaining two separate, yet very similar, browsers in the following Reddit thread. To sum up from Ruben's writing: "Abrowser, other that saner default settings to improve privacy, is pretty much Firefox and should provide a quite "neutral" browsing experience. IceCat on the other hand includes more aggressive freedom and privacy features".
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| abrowser-default.png | 85.06 KB |
| abrowser-tabs.png | 3.5 KB |
| abrowser-navigation-bar.png | 1.35 KB |
| abrowser-address-bar.png | 5.88 KB |
| abrowser-tool-bar.png | 1.62 KB |
| abrowser-bookmarks-toolbar.png | 6.07 KB |
| abrowser-working-view.png | 65.17 KB |
| abrowser-dark-scheme.png | 84.57 KB |
