Mozilla's trademark policy serves to limit Freedom 2 to gratis distribution only, making the software nonfree. GNU IceCat developers dropped support for macOS, and Windows, after version 38.8.0 in 2016: 'Note that building binary packages for Windows and macOS currently requires non-free software, so we no longer distribute binary releases for those platforms.'ĭocumentationWhy not recommend Firefox? As explained in our Free Software Definition, all four freedoms must be available on both a commercial and non-commercial basis. See Collection:Replicant for more information about IceCatMobile in the F-Droid repository. The GNU IceCat developers dropped support for IceCatMobile on Replicant after version 38.6.0 because these builds are already provided by F-Droid. GNU IceCat was formerly known as GNU IceWeasel but changed its name in 2008 to avoid confusion with Debian IceWeasel (who was rebranded back to Firefox in 2017 after Debian was being granted special permission from Mozilla ref).

SpyBlock (Adblock Plus fork) to block privacy trackers.

If you want to permit nonfree software to run, you can easily disable LibreJS.' - Richard Stallman 'We will always make IceCat block non-free JavaScript by default.

DuckDuckGo is the default search engine, which means that you can run '!Bangs' keywords in the location bar to use any search engine.

The proprietary web chat IRC client Mibbit has been removed.

WebRTC is enabled like in Firefox but prevent leaking the LAN ip.

The Play DRM-controlled content option (used to download and enable Widevine Content Decryption Module provided by Google Inc.) has been removed from about:preferences > Content.

is not installed in about:addons > Plugins

Widevine Content Decryption Module provided by Google Inc.Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) is not implemented: Whereas Firefox are being created such that they support Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) systems through their implementation of the Encrypted Media Extension (EME), GNU IceCat doesn't include an EME implementation as it opposes efforts to popularize and ease the dissemination of DRM technology.Important differences between Mozilla's Firefox and GNU IceCat is that IceCat has a focus on freedom and privacy (see settings.js for details). However, IceCat is not a straight fork of Firefox ESR instead, it is a parallel effort that works closely with and re-bases in synchronization on the latest Firefox ESR as the upstream supplier, with patches merged upstream whenever possible although it should be noted that additional security updates are customized to IceCat occasionally.ĭifferences between IceCat and Firefox ESR GNU IceCat is based on the the current Firefox Extended Support Release (ESR), with removal of trademarked name, trademarked artwork, and proprietary components, and enhanced privacy settings. GNU IceCat (originally GNU IceWeasel) is part of GNUzilla (the GNU version of the Mozilla Application Suite). Please ask your distro to package IceCat. Guix and Parabola have up-to-date IceCat binaries. The last IceCat binary release was version 60.7.0, and is no longer supported.

Since 2019, IceCat is maintained only as source code.

Gnu icecat vs firefox