Official Firefox vs. BonEcho

Bogart · 2008-02-23 12:35:06

Hi,

Recently I've been having some problems with Firefox (BonEcho) and decided to try the official Firefox instead. I've been surprised at how good it works for me, so I wondered why there was no package (nor even an unsupported PKGBUILD) for Arch Linux. I thought that others might also enjoy using the official Firefox, so I submitted it to AUR.

Of course I have nothing against the current BonEcho (and I much appreciate its maintainers dedication to it), it's just that Firefox seems to be more practical for me. These are the advantages that I see:

- It doesn't have this very annoying bug when using fonts with ligatures enabled (e.g. DejaVU fonts). This bug was present some time ago and it's now back, without a fix being available for now. Don't know for others, but for me it makes using BonEcho a really bad experience. The official Firefox build has never suffered from it.

- It doesn't have this very confusing problem. Basically some users (e.g: 1, 2, 3, 4) can't use correctly certain sites because BonEcho is not recognized as Firefox and therefor not supported (Yahoo! mail is one example). I submitted that bug report but it was ultimately closed because they didn't want to fake the useragent. In other words, because after all BonEcho is BonEcho and not Firefox, and sites should not only support Firefox but also other Gecko-based browsers. Fair enough, but impractical for me and other users.

- It feel much faster. Don't know the reason (different compiler/flags?), but it's quite noticeable with heavy javascript and with those pages where scrolling is not smooth. Maybe people with newer dual-core machines won't notice it, but with older UP machines, the official build feels much snappier (at least in my case).

- As an extra, with the package I submitted you also get to report that you are a Proud Arch Linux User, so that statistics will show a more accurate usage of Arch Linux. I requested this feature some time ago, but even if Phrakture seemed to agree with it, it was closed without any reason given

- You get the official Firefox(TM) icon. It's a cool icon, and it certifies that you're running the real, certified Firefox built and approved by the mozilla.org team. Some people might have a problem with having an icon that protects a trademark, but for me this is a Good Thing.

- Patrick Volkering does it this way in Slackware, and that means something to me. Quoting his comment on the SlackBuild:

# This is not a source build script. Rather, it builds a Slackware
# package from the official binary tarball available from mozilla.org.
# Using the official binaries seems like the most direct way to satify
# the Mozilla project's concerns about quality control (and thus to
# provide the most quality-certified package possible), and therefore
# be able to use the official trademarks and logos.

Those are the reasons I have for using Firefox(TM) instead of BonEcho. But generally speaking I think it's fair that a distribution like Arch Linux has the real Firefox at least as an option. As I said, I'm fine with BonEcho being there, but I think Firefox should be available too. That's why I submitted it (by the way, I had to rename the package as firefox-official because BonEcho is using the name firefox for its package. Not sure if this is the right thing, or if BonEcho should change its name to BonEcho and Firefox to Firefox). Now if people like the idea, vote for it so it can get into the community repository and be generally available for users :-)

NoOneImportant · 2008-02-23 12:59:00

Bogart wrote:

so I wondered why there was no package (nor even an unsupported PKGBUILD) for Arch Linux.

http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=10599

bangkok_manouel · 2008-02-23 13:14:21

NoOneImportant wrote:

Bogart wrote:
so I wondered why there was no package (nor even an unsupported PKGBUILD) for Arch Linux.
http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=10599

This is just a branded FF. It is build from source and numerous patches are applied to source code (one of the reasons it shouldn't be branded according to Mozilla). Still slightly different from official binaries then.

NoOneImportant · 2008-02-23 13:16:21

bangkok_manouel wrote:

NoOneImportant wrote:
Bogart wrote:
so I wondered why there was no package (nor even an unsupported PKGBUILD) for Arch Linux.
http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=10599
This is just a branded FF. It is build from source and numerous patches are applied to source code (one of the reasons it shouldn't be branded according to Mozilla). Still slightly different from official binaries then.

I'll check out pkgbuild for the aforementioned official firefox then

Bogart · 2008-02-23 13:32:05

Yes, that one is built from source, so it won't have two main benefits for me: it will have the fonts bug and it won't be as fast.

But thanks for the link, I don't know why I couldn't find it searching for the word Firefox... My bad, I guess.

Bebo · 2008-02-23 14:06:04

Just a comment about the branding; I got tired of compiling the firefox-branded package and wrote a script which brands the "Bon Echo" browser so that it looks like firefox (both icons and useragent). I thought of making a PKGBUILD for it and publish it on the AUR, but in the end I posted it as a stand-alone script on the forum some days ago. But well, it's only a cheat, your PKGBUILD is a cleaner way

NoOneImportant · 2008-02-23 14:39:21

hey, it is kinda faster

SpookyET · 2008-02-23 15:58:42

Dude, learn to search.
Even I made a package for FF3.
http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=15184

Rasi · 2008-02-23 16:26:11

SpookyET wrote:

Dude, learn to search.
Even I made a package for FF3.
http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=15184

He is talking about the 2.x branch tho...

Bestiapeluda · 2008-02-23 16:44:06

I dont like the libgnome dependency on your build.
Is it necesary ?

ozar · 2008-02-23 16:58:46

Bestiapeluda wrote:

I dont like the libgnome dependency on your build.
Is it necesary ?

I don't use Gnome and hate to see any unneeded gnome dependencies included, as well.

fwojciec · 2008-02-23 17:00:26

Bestiapeluda wrote:

I dont like the libgnome dependency on your build.
Is it necesary ?

I'm tempted to say "+1", but I'll say "I've removed the libgnome dependency manually and everything seems to work fine on my system."

Bogart · 2008-02-23 17:38:14

SpookyET wrote:

Dude, learn to search.
Even I made a package for FF3.
http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=15184

If you read my post you'll see this is different package. Yours is Firefox 3 beta, while mine is Firefox 2 stable. Also your package is for building from source. Mine is built from the binary provided by mozilla.org. This has some benefits I explained above.

So both can coexist peacefully, and people can choose.

Bogart · 2008-02-23 17:41:25

Bestiapeluda wrote:

I dont like the libgnome dependency on your build.
Is it necesary ?

Well, it is a dependency, but as far as I know it's only used to handle certain files, i.e, when for example you click on a PDF link, it will prompt you to open it with kpdf (or whatever you have to open PDFs) or sve it to disk. Without libgnome this won't work, and many users find it inconvenient.

Not sure if I should make it an optional dependency, though. It's not a big library, but I understand some people might prefer to stay away from it.

fwojciec · 2008-02-23 17:46:48

Bogart wrote:

It's not a big library, but I understand some people might prefer to stay away from it.

It's not a big library but it pulls half of gnome with it (something like 20 packages in my case)... It's not a huge problem though, it's easy enough to remove it from the PKGBUILD manually.

Last edited by fwojciec (2008-02-23 18:03:18)

Bogart · 2008-02-23 18:01:31

fwojciec wrote:

It's not a big library but it pulls half of gnome with it (something like 20 packages in my case)... It's not a huge problem thought, it's easy enough to remove it from the PKGBUILD manually.

Ah, that's true. I had those other packages too, so wasn't aware of it. I think it's really worth to make it optional and warn users to install it if they want that functionality.

I'll update it asap.

Bogart · 2008-02-23 18:33:23

Bogart wrote:

I'll update it asap.

Ok, updated it to make libgnome an optional dependency.

Thanks for the feedback

SiC · 2008-02-23 20:05:06

Thanks for this Bogart, kept meaning to do something similar, just not got round to it yet. Much appreciated.

wantilles · 2008-02-23 21:52:28

Bogart wrote:

Also your package is for building from source. Mine is built from the binary provided by mozilla.org. This has some benefits I explained above.

Any many insurmountable drawbacks:

- no amd64 support
- no accelerators support in keyboard layouts different than US

Bogart · 2008-02-23 22:44:59

wantilles wrote:

Bogart wrote:
Also your package is for building from source. Mine is built from the binary provided by mozilla.org. This has some benefits I explained above.
Any many insurmountable drawbacks:
- no amd64 support
- no accelerators support in keyboard layouts different than US

This is exactly why choice is good :-)

Those who need/prefer BonEcho can use it already with a simple pacman -S ...
Those who need/prefer Firefox... I'm hoping they can also use it soon with a pacman -S ...

It's a win-win situation.

aport · 2008-02-24 01:34:27

wantilles wrote:

Bogart wrote:
Also your package is for building from source. Mine is built from the binary provided by mozilla.org. This has some benefits I explained above.
Any many insurmountable drawbacks:
- no amd64 support
- no accelerators support in keyboard layouts different than US

So build the amd64 version. Whoa. Choice.

jacko · 2008-02-24 05:31:39

from the AUR comments:

Thanks... I voted for this because I'd most definitely like to see it dropped into the Extra repo!

this will never happen, that is why arch has officially released bon echo. Doesn't anyone pay attention? Even if it did get enough votes it only makes it to community repository at best!

schivmeister · 2008-02-24 09:44:48

I don't get the fuss

Bogart · 2008-02-24 11:54:11

jacko wrote:

from the AUR comments:
Thanks... I voted for this because I'd most definitely like to see it dropped into the Extra repo!
this will never happen, that is why arch has officially released bon echo. Doesn't anyone pay attention? Even if it did get enough votes it only makes it to community repository at best!

Yes, the community repository is the target of this package. No one wants to replace BonEcho. Just to have this alternative available as a binary package through pacman.

SpookyET · 2008-02-24 15:29:55

Bogart wrote:

SpookyET wrote:
Dude, learn to search.
Even I made a package for FF3.
http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=15184
If you read my post you'll see this is different package. Yours is Firefox 3 beta, while mine is Firefox 2 stable. Also your package is for building from source. Mine is built from the binary provided by mozilla.org. This has some benefits I explained above.
So both can coexist peacefully, and people can choose.

The most important aspect for me is READABILITY. The official Firefox cairo does not have the LCD Patches. So, it's worthless for me. That's why you have to build it from source if you want to have decent fonts.

Arch Linux

#1 2008-02-23 12:35:06

Official Firefox vs. BonEcho

#2 2008-02-23 12:59:00

Re: Official Firefox vs. BonEcho

#3 2008-02-23 13:14:21

Re: Official Firefox vs. BonEcho

#4 2008-02-23 13:16:21

Re: Official Firefox vs. BonEcho

#5 2008-02-23 13:32:05

Re: Official Firefox vs. BonEcho

#6 2008-02-23 14:06:04

Re: Official Firefox vs. BonEcho

#7 2008-02-23 14:39:21

Re: Official Firefox vs. BonEcho

#8 2008-02-23 15:58:42

Re: Official Firefox vs. BonEcho

#9 2008-02-23 16:26:11

Re: Official Firefox vs. BonEcho

#10 2008-02-23 16:44:06

Re: Official Firefox vs. BonEcho

#11 2008-02-23 16:58:46

Re: Official Firefox vs. BonEcho

#12 2008-02-23 17:00:26

Re: Official Firefox vs. BonEcho

#13 2008-02-23 17:38:14

Re: Official Firefox vs. BonEcho

#14 2008-02-23 17:41:25

Re: Official Firefox vs. BonEcho

#15 2008-02-23 17:46:48

Re: Official Firefox vs. BonEcho

#16 2008-02-23 18:01:31

Re: Official Firefox vs. BonEcho

#17 2008-02-23 18:33:23

Re: Official Firefox vs. BonEcho

#18 2008-02-23 20:05:06

Re: Official Firefox vs. BonEcho

#19 2008-02-23 21:52:28

Re: Official Firefox vs. BonEcho

#20 2008-02-23 22:44:59

Re: Official Firefox vs. BonEcho

#21 2008-02-24 01:34:27

Re: Official Firefox vs. BonEcho

#22 2008-02-24 05:31:39

Re: Official Firefox vs. BonEcho

#23 2008-02-24 09:44:48

Re: Official Firefox vs. BonEcho

#24 2008-02-24 11:54:11

Re: Official Firefox vs. BonEcho

#25 2008-02-24 15:29:55

Re: Official Firefox vs. BonEcho

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