Abrowser: A few concerns.
This post is regarding the latest version of Abrowser. (41.0)
I would like to share a few concerns from the perspective of a user.
[1] A message was displayed in the homepage of the Abrowser, on its first launch, after the recent update for version 41.0;
Abrowser automatically sends some data to Trisquel so that we can improve your experience. Choose What I Share
What is the data that Abrowser share with Trisquel?
[2] Abrowser changes the user defined search engine to Google each time a new version is released. I have seen this behaviour from Abrowser 40.0 onwards. Can't user's search engine preferences be saved somewhere, say as part of a configuration file?
[3] Abrowser Health Report page wrongly links to Firefox Health Report page by Mozilla Inc. This is not a great choice from a privacy point of view.
[4] Make a donation and get involved! links in About Abrowser is meant for Mozilla Inc. We should have a wiki page asking both donations and contributions to the Trisquel Project.
You may refer the attachments provided below.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| Screenshot from 2015-09-23 16:42:29.png | 6.45 KB |
| Screenshot from 2015-09-23 16:43:08.png | 2.3 KB |
| Screenshot from 2015-09-23 16:57:36.png | 137.87 KB |
I also noticed ABrowser asked me about sharing data to help developers improve performance. Clicking on the request opened the preferences to a check box for 'Enable ABrowser Health Report'. The 'Learn More' link opened a generic license page in the Trisquel documentation. Does checking this box send data to Trisquel devs, which I don't mind doing, or to Ubuntu or Mozilla devs, which I'm less inclined to do?
Also Add-ons: ABrowser is still giving out "could not be verified" warning spam for the default ABrowserHome add-on, and refused to let me install trustworthy add-ons like Privacy Badger, HTTPS Everywhere, and HTML5 Everywhere without first downloading the file to the Desktop. On the plus side, all desire plug-ins can be downloaded to Desktop, then batch installed in one action.
I recall seeing an answer for [1] in another thread along the lines of "Well....it doesn't, but since all references to Mozilla were set to be replaced by Trisquel upon building...."
I filed a bug on [2]