Good $TIME_OF_DAY, beehaw folks!
Today I come to share the first announcement of Konform Browser 140.8.0-103 and what's new since previous update post last week!
If you are new to Konform Browser, it was previously introduced to the lemmies in this post. In one sentence, it's a web browser for Linux based on Firefox ESR with the primary goals of security, privacy, and user freedom. Hoping to be an example of how these three goals don't have to be at odds but support each other and work in harmony.
Without more ado, some highlights of the new since last week:
- Exposed UI for "Local AI" features like full-page translations, link previews and configuring local models. These features are all disabled by default but now easier to selectively enable and keeps working locally and offline more gracefully when remote updates are disabled.
- This coincides funnily with the new "AI killswitch" news from FF v148 this week. Konform Browser approaches the "AI/ML" feature-set from the opposite end from upstream: Selective opt-in, progressive enhancement, and graceful degradation, while making sure any external endpoints or keys are user-configurable.
- Check out
about:translations(which is pretty handy and reliable) andabout:inference(where you can now load and test arbitrary models from HuggingFace)! - The "Link Preview" feature is rather janky and considered experimental.
- The "AI chatbot" integration to bigcloudtech is unaffected by these changes and remains disabled under every preset.
- Latest security fixes up to Mozilla Firefox ESR 140.8.0.
- Various privacy improvements
navigator.sendBeacon()now disabled by default (re-enabled by "Just Make It Work" preset)- Ported over several relevant patches from Tor Browser
- Proxy bypass protection enabled to reduce risk of network leaks
- Changes made on
about:welcomenow take effect immediately without requiring browser restart - UI: Disabled various nags and onboarding callouts (no more "Hey please try the new feature" in the middle of your workflow)
For more details check out release notes and (if that's not detailed enough for you :p) commit log.
If you check it out, would love your feedback on the project in general and, if this isn't a first, your take on development and recent updates. Fellow devs: Doors wide-open for new (carbon-based) contributors ^^
Konform Browser is now also on Mastodon: https://techhub.social/@konform
Packages available for most Linux distributions.