I made a Firefox fork with Fediverse integration

Submitted ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨rozodru@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨fediverse@lemmy.world⁩

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/5942b11e-1be5-42c3-a5ed-0856590291ed.png

Not sure if this the appropriate place for it but the FOSS communities seemed dead.

This is Bridge - a privacy focused, Firefox AI disabled, Fediverse integrated browser. It has vim navigation via Tridactyl, Bitwarden integration, as well as Ublock integration.

It has an old Firefox RSS feature where you can scan a site for RSS feeds and it will add them to the RSS feed reader.

But the highlight of this is the Mastodon and Lemmy integration. you can have your Mastodon feed displayed in the sidebar on the browser which will give you access to your home, local, and fediverse feeds. you can post, reply, boost, and favourite posts.

The Lemmy extension allows you to see and link directly to lemmy discussions on whatever instance you like (multiple even) if you’re on a site/news article/blog post/whatever. If the extension sees that this has been posted on Lemmy, it will provide you with a direct link to whatever discussions it finds based on the current URL you’re on.

This has been a hobby project of mine for a bit now, It’s very slow development as I have a job and can’t dedicate all the time in the world to this. I wanted to originally build a browser from scratch but realized that would probably take me years so I settled with a fork of firefox.

Currently I believe it only works on Linux and is in a very early alpha. It hasn’t crashed on me yet but visually is a bit rough around the edges.

I just wanted to share this little hobby project I’ve been working on. Thanks!

codeberg.org/rozodru/Bridge

source

Comments

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lambalicious@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

The Lemmy extension allows you to see and link directly to lemmy discussions on whatever instance you like (multiple even) if you’re on a site/news article/blog post/whatever. If the extension sees that this has been posted on Lemmy, it will provide you with a direct link to whatever discussions it finds based on the current URL you’re on.

So wait, it reports all browsing activity you do to third parties to search for matching Lemmy posts?

Bad, bad, system.

You’ve completely lost the point of why we’re here in Lemmy in the first place. Restrain or remove this feature ASAP.

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- rozodru@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  No automatic browsing activity reporting - The extension only searches for Lemmy discussions when:
  
  A page finishes loading (background.js:119-128)
  
  URL changes are detected (content.js:37-54)
  
  What data is sent:
  
  Only the current page URL and its variations (content.js:73-80)
  
  URL variations include cleaned URLs (no tracking params), with/without www, http/https variants (content.js:109-168)
  
  Where data is sent:
  
  Only to Lemmy instances you’ve configured (background.js:149-152)
  
  No third-party analytics or tracking services
  
  All requests go directly to Lemmy APIs for post searches
  
  Privacy protections:
  
  Results are cached locally for 30 minutes (background.js:141-143)
  
  No persistent logging of browsing history
  
  You can disable the notification indicator (content.js:172-184)
  
  Only sends URL when you actually visit a page, not preemptively
  
  User control:
  
  You choose which Lemmy instances to search
  
  You can remove instances at any time
  
  The extension only activates on http/https URLs
  
  Answer: No - The extension does not report all browsing activity to third parties. It only queries your configured Lemmy instances with the current page URL to find relevant discussions, and only when you actually visit a page.
  
  source
  - lambalicious@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Sending the current URL and directly from your own IP too is quite the privacy hurdle already. I’ve already posted on what kind of things could be done to improve this, but first, a notice.
    
    Your README says in the Privacy section:
    
    Does not track your browsing
    
    On the current implementation, this should be changed to:
    
    Enables unverified third parties to track your browsing data
    
    As that honesty is quite important.
    
    As for measures that could be taken to improve on this issue, I have three suggestions (I might Issue Tracker them to the codeberg later, if I can find my credentials XD)
    
    Set up a uBO-stye control pane that allows to set this on or off per-domain or per-site. Bonus points if it allows for per-site specific on which lemmy instances to use the same way as uBO’s “3p” Custom Rules does. This already prevents a number of undesirable use cases, such as automatically sending LAN / non-DNS names to third parties when they can’t really be searched for anyways.
    
    Anonimyzing assist: Allow for sending only the global context of the visited site (eg.: only the domain) instead of the full URL.
    
    Anonimyzing assist: Allow to cache requests to send them later / send them in batches, to avoid clock-based / timezone-based tracking attacks.
    
    Anonimyzing assist: Allow for the browser-specific request being sent through a proxy or relay, so that IP origin information is not leaked. (I think this only really makes sense for users not logged-in?)
    
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gholk@taiwan.wtf ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
@bovine3dom This firefox fork integrated #Tridactyl FYI
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SpookyBogMonster@lemmy.ml ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I’m most stoked about RSS integration. I miss Firefox’s old RSS features

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moseschrute@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I don’t use Firefox or Linux, but you had me at Vim

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- 4am@lemmy.zip ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  🤨
  
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  - moseschrute@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Lol. Idk I like my iPhone. Absolutely not the labor practices of Apple, I’ve thought about a fairphone. But Apple is privacy focused enough, and I love their design language, both hardware and software. I love Linux, but mostly for SSH not my laptop.
    
    Firefox is fine, but as a professional frontend developer, I need to test things on a Chromium based browser. I prefer the ethics and privacy of Mozilla, but Chrome is technically a great browser imo.
    
    But vim, omg. I don’t think there’s a more beautifully designed piece of software. I want to reach wizard level. I want to navigate text like it’s magic with perfect fluidity. Vim is perfect.
    
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rimu@piefed.social ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
This is going to absolutely hammer the search API endpoint. Every single time you visit any web page there will be around 5 different requests to lemmy-instance/api/v3/search (see generateUrlVariations()) and running a search is pretty heavy on the server.

I just read the code, didn't actually install the extension, so I could be wrong but at first glance this looks like it would cause real problems if a significant number of people started using it.

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- rozodru@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Totally understandable. I added in some rate limits, search result caching, timeout handling and error handling (to prevent retry storms), there’s also a max result limit per instance. If this WERE to take off with like 1000+ users I’d have to adjust it further. But right now as it stands the impact should be negligible.
  
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  - rimu@piefed.social ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    All it would need is about 10 simultaneous users and the load on the server would be unacceptable to me, as an instance admin. I only run PieFed instances so this isn't going to impact me unless you add PieFed support (please don't).
    
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Pika@sh.itjust.works ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Honestly, this is a really innovative project. I wish it came in an extension because I feel that is likely your biggest bottleneck for getting people to try it. I don’t think many are going to build a browser from source & then port all their stuff over strictly for the integration.

If an extension version ever releases I would for sure be looking at that!

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- rozodru@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  done: codeberg.org/rozodru/LemmyBridge
  
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  - Pika@sh.itjust.works ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Woah, you separated it already? that’s insane. Defo checking it out!
    
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vhstape@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Do you plan to offer a browser extension for those who would enjoy the Fediverse integration but don’t want to run a custom fork?

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- rozodru@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  codeberg.org/rozodru/LemmyBridge
  
  source
kroko@piefed.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
very cool!
Please announce on the Fediverse when you release the standalone extension

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alsaaas@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
You can get more than half of the stuff you mentioned by using LibreWolf. Cool idea tho with the integration, would be nice as an extension

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akwd169@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
It sounds really interesting, i’m definitely going to check it out!

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FarraigePlaisteach@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I actually support telemetry for Mozilla, especially the way they’ve implemented it. But the other features look great and I don’t want anything to do with GitHub projects. Starred on Codeberg!

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TachyonTele@piefed.social ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I'm on android firefox. How the heck do i download this. Codeberg is just as confusing as github to people like me that don't use it.

I want to try this.

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- IllNess@infosec.pub ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Always look in the README.md file first for instructions for downloading and installing.
  
  Prerequisites
  
  Bridge requires a full Firefox build environment:
  
  Linux: GCC/Clang 13+, Python 3.8+, Node.js 16+, Rust 1.70+
  
  Windows: Visual Studio 2022, Python 3.8+, Node.js 16+, Rust 1.70+
  
  macOS: Xcode 14+, Python 3.8+, Node.js 16+, Rust 1.70+
  
  So there is no Android version.
  
  If you do want to install for one of OSes mentioned, the next section gives instructions on how to build by source. This means you have to follow in instructions. This might mean it is too technical for users not used to CLI (command line interface).
  
  source
  - TachyonTele@piefed.social ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Thank you for the explanation and details. I appreciate it.
    
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TachyonTele@piefed.social ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

If the extension sees that this has been posted on Lemmy, it will provide you with a direct link to whatever discussions it finds

This is effing cool

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poVoq@slrpnk.net ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Looks pretty cool on first glance, but I think Opera had a Fediverse integration for some time already, so you are not the first to do so.

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- Kierunkowy74@piefed.social ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Did you mean Vivaldi? It features a sidebar already with their own Mastodon instance: Vivaldi Social featured as one of sidebar entries.
  
  A Vivaldi account allows to use not only Vivaldi Social, but also to make a WordPress blog, with federation available too.
  
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  - poVoq@slrpnk.net ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Ah, you are probably right.
    
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Staden_@pawb.social ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Would it be difficult to convert into a extension for other firefox-based browsers? I love the idea of seeing lemmy discussions about the page I’m in directly on the page, but I don’t really wanna switch my web browser again.

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- rozodru@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Eventually yes, I will be turning it into a standalone extension.
  
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  - Staden_@pawb.social ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    you’re awesome :3
    
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- tigerjerusalem@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I second this, I rely too much on Firefox and its sync features to give up just yet.
  
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Auntievenim@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
This actually sounds really cool, the idea of having a sidebar pull up posts of the article your reading is like sci-fi movie magic stuff

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pelespirit@sh.itjust.works ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
The RSS alone is awesome. Thank you.

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jaredwhite@piefed.social ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Very cool idea! Just starred on Codeberg.

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Dirk@lemmy.ml ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

So … Basically just another preconfigured Firefox with extensions?

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FarraigePlaisteach@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Apparently not.

“How does Bridge compare to other privacy browsers?

Bridge goes beyond configuration changes by modifying Firefox at the source code level. This provides deeper privacy protections than browsers that only change settings.”

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Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
So…Basically just another negative user with nothing of value to contribute besides a largely unwanted sarcastic comment?

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sexy_peach@feddit.org ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

Go ahead and show what you have done

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Dirk@lemmy.ml ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

// Enable userChrome.css
user_pref('toolkit.legacyUserProfileCustomizations.stylesheets', true);


// Warnings
user_pref('browser.aboutConfig.showWarning', false);


// Style
user_pref('browser.tabs.inTitlebar', 0);
user_pref('browser.theme.content-theme', 1);
user_pref('browser.theme.toolbar-theme', 1);


// Extensions
user_pref('extensions.activeThemeID', 'firefox-compact-light@mozilla.org');
user_pref('extensions.pocket.enabled', false);
user_pref('extensions.screenshots.disabled', true);
user_pref('extensions.getAddons.showPane', false);
user_pref('extensions.htmlaboutaddons.recommendations.enabled', false);


// Zoom
user_pref('toolkit.zoomManager.zoomValues', '.5,.3,1,1.2,1.3,1.5');
user_pref('devtools.toolbox.zoomValue', '1.4');
user_pref('browser.zoom.siteSpecific', false);


// Privacy
//
// Basically do not leak URLs, IPs, etc. to external services
user_pref('browser.safebrowsing.malware.enabled', false);
user_pref('browser.safebrowsing.phishing.enabled', false);
user_pref('security.OCSP.enabled', 0);
user_pref('browser.contentblocking.category', 'custom');
user_pref('app.shield.optoutstudies.enabled', false);
user_pref('browser.urlbar.trending.featureGate', false);


// DoH explicitly off
user_pref('network.trr.mode', 5);
user_pref('network.trr.default_provider_uri', '');


// Cookies
user_pref('network.cookie.cookieBehavior', 2);


// AdBlock
user_pref('browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.showSponsoredTopSites', false);
user_pref('browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.feeds.section.topstories', false);
user_pref('browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.feeds.topsites', false);


// Remove weird URLS
user_pref('toolkit.shopping.ohttpConfigURL', '');
user_pref('toolkit.shopping.ohttpRelayURL', '');
user_pref('browser.partnerlink.attributionURL', '');
user_pref('browser.privatebrowsing.vpnpromourl', '');


// Do not track
user_pref('privacy.trackingprotection.enabled', false);
user_pref('privacy.trackingprotection.emailtracking.enabled', false);
user_pref('privacy.trackingprotection.socialtracking.enabled', false);
user_pref('privacy.trackingprotection.cryptomining.enabled', false);
user_pref('privacy.trackingprotection.fingerprinting.enabled', false);
user_pref('privacy.donottrackheader.enabled', true);


// Beahvior
user_pref('general.smoothScroll', false);
user_pref('signon.autofillForms', true);
user_pref('signon.firefoxRelay.feature', 'disabled');
user_pref('browser.download.manager.addToRecentDocs', false);
user_pref('security.tls.version.min', 1);
user_pref('browser.profiles.enabled', false);


// UI features
//
// https://github.com/yokoffing/Betterfox/blob/main/user.js
user_pref('browser.discovery.enabled', false);
user_pref('browser.shell.checkDefaultBrowser', false);
user_pref('browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.asrouter.userprefs.cfr.addons', false);
user_pref('browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.asrouter.userprefs.cfr.features', false);
user_pref('browser.preferences.moreFromMozilla', false);
user_pref('browser.tabs.tabmanager.enabled', false);
user_pref('browser.aboutConfig.showWarning', false);
user_pref('browser.aboutwelcome.enabled', false);
user_pref('browser.uidensity', 0);
user_pref('browser.urlbar.trimURLs', false);
user_pref('browser.urlbar.showSearchTerms.enabled', false);


// Telemetry
//
// https://github.com/yokoffing/Betterfox/blob/main/user.js
user_pref('datareporting.policy.dataSubmissionEnabled', false);
user_pref('datareporting.healthreport.uploadEnabled', false);
user_pref('toolkit.telemetry.unified', false);
user_pref('toolkit.telemetry.enabled', false);
user_pref('toolkit.telemetry.server', 'data:,');
user_pref('toolkit.telemetry.archive.enabled', false);
user_pref('toolkit.telemetry.newProfilePing.enabled', false);
user_pref('toolkit.telemetry.shutdownPingSender.enabled', false);
user_pref('toolkit.telemetry.updatePing.enabled', false);
user_pref('toolkit.telemetry.bhrPing.enabled', false);
user_pref('toolkit.telemetry.firstShutdownPing.enabled', false);
user_pref('toolkit.telemetry.coverage.opt-out', true);
user_pref('toolkit.coverage.opt-out', true);
user_pref('toolkit.coverage.endpoint.base', '');
user_pref('browser.ping-centre.telemetry', false);
user_pref('browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.feeds.telemetry', false);
user_pref('browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.telemetry', false);
user_pref('breakpad.reportURL', '');
user_pref('browser.tabs.crashReporting.sendReport', false);
user_pref('browser.crashReports.unsubmittedCheck.autoSubmit2', false);
user_pref('app.shield.optoutstudies.enabled', false);
user_pref('app.normandy.enabled', false);
user_pref('app.normandy.api_url', '');


// Disable AI bullshit
//
user_pref('browser.ml.enable', false);
user_pref('browser.ml.chat.enabled', false);
user_pref('browser.ml.chat.shortcuts', false);
user_pref('browser.ml.chat.sidebar', false);
user_pref('pdfjs.enableAltText', false);
user_pref('pdfjs.enableUpdatedAddImage', false);

and

@namespace url("http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul");


/* Tabs styling */

#TabsToolbar {
    background-color: #cccccc !important;
    --toolbarbutton-inner-padding: 0 !important;
}

.tabbrowser-tab {
    padding: 0 !important;
}

.tab-background {
    margin: 0 !important;
    border-radius: 0 !important;
    background-color: var(--toolbar-bgcolor) !important;
    box-shadow: none !important;
}

#alltabs-button {
    display: none !important;
}

#tabbrowser-tabs {
    min-height: unset !important;
}


/* secondary label indicators */

@font-face {
    /* copy font file to same directory as this CSS file */
    font-family: 'SymbolsNerdFont';
    src: url('SymbolsNerdFont.ttf') format('truetype');
}

.tab-secondary-label {
    display: none;
}

.tab-text::before {
    font-family: SymbolsNerdFont;
    padding-right: 0.25em;
}

.tabbrowser-tab[soundplaying] .tab-text::before { content: ''; }
.tabbrowser-tab[muted] .tab-text::before { content: '󰝟'; }
.tabbrowser-tab[activemedia-blocked] .tab-text::before { content: ''; }

/* unselected tabs */

.tab-background:not([selected]),
.tab-icon-image:not([selected]) {
    opacity: 0.4 !important;
}
.tab-text:not([selected]) {
    color: #555753 !important;
}

#tabbrowser-arrowscrollbox {
    min-height: var(--tab-min-height) !important;
    max-height: var(--tab-min-height) !important;
}

scrollbox[part="scrollbox"] {
    gap: 2px;
}

and

/* Style about:home and about:newtab */

@-moz-document url-prefix(about:home), url-prefix(about:newtab) {
    .logo-and-wordmark {
        background-image: url(REPLACE_ME_WITH_YOUR_FAVORITE_IMAGE.jpg);
        background-size: cover;
        background-position: center;
        aspect-ratio: 16/9;
        border-radius: 1em;
        position: relative;
        width: auto;
        height: auto;
        max-width: 80%;
        max-height: 60vh;
        margin: 0 auto;
    }

    .logo-and-wordmark .logo {
        display: none !important;
    }

    .logo-and-wordmark .wordmark {
        position: absolute;
        right: 2em;
        bottom: 0.5em;
        --newtab-wordmark-color: #eb8819;
    }
}

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I made a Firefox fork with Fediverse integration

Comments

Bad, bad, system.

Prerequisites