Edit: would it make sense to write a script that compares firefox and librewolf versions that’ll remind me when it is not up to date anymore?
If you abandon librewolf, how will I, a user, know that it won’t get updated anymore?
I know that the librewolf extension exist for the windows users that checks if it is up to date but what if librewolf is not up to date with firefox anymore?
As this is my first post here, thank you guys for your work! Librewolf makes it very easy for anyone to have a very good privacy browser.
- install via a package manager. on linux whatever your distro offers or flatpak or whatever, on mac use brew, on win we offer choco and winget.
- if we abandon the project we would announce it for sure.
- check that commits are regular on gitlab: the source and the settings repo are the most active ones.
Thanks for this response. I love LibreWolf and would happily subscribe to any newsletters / mailing lists too if there was something like that in future. A sure way to be updated on important announcements!
Thank you!
You check what the window says in the browser at “help” > “about”
Then look here and compare the numbers
What you do about a miss-match depends on your OS and how you installed the browser.
Edit: I see you are worried about what happens if the project gets dropped - the answer is it may become vulnerable to security holes if updates don’t keep up (the LW team aims to update within 3 days of FF normally), at that point you would switch to Firefox (or another browser) unless someone else picks up the torch.
Thanks. The question is how do I, a user, know that it is dropped. Checking each month manually if it is still up to date can’t be the solution. Currently I check out lemmy and reddit regularly enough to stay up to date but what if that changes one day. Or what about a good friend of mine I recommended librewolf to, but who doesn’t check forum posts. If I don’t meet that friend anymore, I won’t be there to tell him.
I was thinking a script would be the way to do it, and I see you have come to the same conclusion. for an Ubuntu install with flatpak I can see the version number with
flatpak list | grep -i librewolf
which returns
LibreWolf io.gitlab.librewolf-community 96.0.3-2 stable system
and this gives the latest librewolf version
git ls-remote --refs --sort=“version:refname” --tags https://gitlab.com/librewolf-community/browser/source.git | cut -d/ -f3-|tail -n1
returns
97.0-2
Thanks! I’ll check it out if I can make something out of it! :)
I check on Mozilla updates regularly and every time there is an update for Firefox, in a matter of days, LibreWolf team comes with the update including the upstream changes as well. They are doing a great job of maintaining this project. I would therefore follow the instructions by @mekhos@lemmy.ml, but make sure the current LibreWolf version also corresponds to the current Mozilla Firefox version, too.
To be honest, I do not believe there is any addon or any official way (as a browser notification etc.) of notifying the user if this were to happen someday in the future other than simply watching the official channels. I would say if you are concerned, just make sure to follow the LibreWolf team announcements.
Even following this community should be in theory enough to notice something went off. There are quite a few LibreWolf users here who would discuss it if the original LibreWolf team were to abandon the project all of a sudden without any previous notice. I know I would. I really do not think that will happen any time soon, at least not without letting us all know one way or another, by the way. Other ways to get in touch with the team behind LibreWolf as Matrix or Gitter are possible as well. See for yourself by checking this community sidebar and following the links there, if curious. As of now, LibreWolf is as much up-to-date as it can be.
Thanks. At this time, I would know if something were off but what if I do not check forum posts regularly anymore in the future? I think about writing a script for that but don’t know if that’s the way to go. I mean I wasn’t on lemmy a month ago, who knows if I’ll be on lemmy a year from now. Or people I recommend librewolf to that aren’t even checking on forum posts.
Well, generally speaking, how does this differ from checking any other software if the development of said software was not dropped? You usually do not have anything like this. You can be only notified about SW updates. I understand your request, but it is somewhat impossible to achieve, in my opinion.
What I get from you is that you want an addon which would send a notification to all of its users when the project gets dropped. Consequently, someone would have to write and send that notification manually, meaning someone would have to check regularly whether the project is still active and up-to-date. You still rely on that someone to do their work and not abandon this addon as well. If developer team announcements are not good enough, nothing and no one can be possibly trustworthy enough to guarantee the notification will be sent when it is due. There will always have to be someone who needs to manage all this and you would have to trust this someone to do their job. What would be the metrics to consider the project abandoned, anyway? That someone would have to somehow deduce that a certain project is abandoned, if we are speaking about SW in general.
Back to LW and Firefox specifically, If what you want is to compare the versions of LW with Firefox each time LW starts (or periodically, for example) and this is all you are worried about, why not. Be sure you do not send false notifications every time Firefox gets updated and LW team has a few days before LW gets the update. If the time between Firefox and LW updates is the metrics by which you consider a project being abandoned, that is. But I do not believe this would work in practise. You rely on LW having the same structure versioning as Firefox in the future, no changes from the upstream release cycle etc. What if Mozilla stops updating Firefox, for example? Then the upstream project would be abandoned but the addon would still happily report everything is up-to-date. It is possible to write such a script, I am just a bit sceptical about its usefulness.
If this is the solution you require, then no, nothing like this exists as far as I know, and yes, the script to do this would work as described, but I am not ultimately sure if this is desired. And I honestly think this would cause more disinformation and discomfort for the user than it would be useful. I wish you good luck nevertheless. Perhaps I am completely wrong and it is a brilliant idea. Hope you find a satisfiable solution that would work for all of you.
Maybe you don’t even need to check both versions always. I’ll have a look into firefox and how frequently they update. I think it’s monthly but I’m not quiet sure. Maybe it would be enough just to remind you if the current version is older than x days, then check manually what’s going on. A browser can be a security risk. Who cares, if texstudio updates.
If the release cycle is stable, then yes, that could do the work for now (with the problems connected to it, but still). Be sure to report back here on Lemmy what have you come up with ;)
I believe I have used an add-on called LibreWolf updater? Although I’m now using Arch which reminds me when updates are available for the software I use.
This would not notify the user that the project have been abandoned and no further updates will be coming, though, right? If I understand the OP question correctly, that is. This addon would only notify the user about any new updates.
You are right. I’m on eos/arch as well, updating is not the problem here
True, I guess it’d depend on realising there just wasn’t an update for a while! Apologies, I misunderstood. And so good to see someone also using eOS and Arch as I am!
