[ANNOUNCE] Fifth, a new browser using WebkitFLTK

[Lauri Kasanen]

Hi all,

As a loyal Opera user starting from Opera 5, the policy change after
version 12 really pulled the rug from under many users. Something had
to be done.

I am happy to announce the first public release of the Fifth browser.

Fifth is a Linux-exclusive browser that carries the best features from
Opera, as well as a few unique features that are likely to please Linux
power users. It's based on a custom Webkit port to FLTK and comes
licensed under the GPLv3.

Major features:

- SSL certificate handling

SSL certificates are handled in a SSH-like way. CAs are
ignored, the only thing that matters is that the cert does not
change. With today's rogue CAs and governments, this policy is
better suited for detecting man-in-the-middle attacks than a
browser blindly trusting a CA.

This also nicely sidesteps pay-to-play schemes such as the
Extended Validation, which gives a bigger green secure
notification in common browsers.

One interesting note from testing so far is that Google changes
their certificates almost weekly. Either I'm under serious
attack, or they really follow such a bad practice.

- Hiding among the masses

Fifth gives you the possibility to spoof as many items as
possible used to detect and profile you. Each version will be
released with the most common defaults according to research
such as the EFF panopticlick. Fully customizable per-site, of
course.

- Stance for modern misfeatures

There are some features of the modern web that degrade the
experience, and in some cases expose a huge attack surface.
WebGL, WebCL, plugins, audio and video are among these. These
are explicitly not supported, or as in the case of video,
replaced with better alternatives: download and stream buttons.

The best features of Opera supported in Fifth include the speed dial,
content blocking, per-site settings, and more.

Compared to the other Free Software Opera replacement browser, Otter,
Fifth is lighter, and carries some features that cannot be implemented
in Otter. Otter relies on the Qt-exposed APIs, and as such, can not
spoof many things unless Qt starts exposing that functionality, for
one. Likewise, the SSL functionality and custom HTML widgets require
code changes inside Webkit, which the Otter project will not do due to
the reliance on Qt.

As this is the first release, v0.1, it's likely to be incomplete and
buggy. Interested users are welcomed to download and give it a spin, or
even package for your distribution.

Find downloads, screenshots at fifth-browser.sf.net. A propaganda
benchmark is also posted at the site, comparing the RAM use and
startup speeds of six browsers.

- Lauri Kasanen

[Ian MacArthur]

On Sat Nov 15 2014 22:28:13, Lauri Kasanen wrote:

> I am happy to announce the first public release of the Fifth browser.
>
> Fifth is a Linux-exclusive browser that carries the best features from
> Opera, as well as a few unique features that are likely to please Linux
> power users. It's based on a custom Webkit port to FLTK and comes
> licensed under the GPLv3.

Hi Lauri.

Cool....




Um... Is it Browser Week or something? Nobody told me!

Georg and Lauri both posting browser ports within days...