GNOME 43 is Here. What's Working, What's Not?

Desktop Environments Gnome
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tl;dr not so fast!

Gnome 42 has been more stable since I took some advice in here and selected Xorg on Gnome as display manager. Today I received 42.3 and after some late night reading of the book on Wayland, btw, it’s a good read once you get past the technical jargon) I decided it’s worth another try.

Wayland is working fine. No crashes, everything looks good and it seems to be a smoother experience.

I will admit after reading the entire Wayland book, I was pretty keen to ditch Xorg, after learning about its sheer lack of security in the modern day.-- I am not even sure it was ever secure enough, and even the few X11 developers that exist today, could continue to support it. Wayland came out of Xorg alumni, so they already knew its weaknesses and I think Wayland has a chance at becoming the dominant display manager in future.

But are we ready for GNOME 43? Not so fast…

It’s a fairly ambitious list of enhancements you can read about GNOME 43 to Bring Support for Web Apps in Software, New Device Security Info Panel

But the bottom line is Epiphany is glitchy. Epiphany, as its lead developer still keeps calling it, after its is supposed to have been renamed to GNOME Web over 10 years ago, the Epiphany name still seems to stick, even as the package name. So when I saw Epiphany getting an update today, I became even more curious, since I just finished reading the developer’s blog.
Ok, extension support is not due until September, but I have quiet confidence it will get there… eventually. Install site as a web application is a neat trick, so I am sure all other browsers follow along soon enough. Even Epiphany’s developer is not sure he will meet the next release date deadline, so I won’t be switching to it any time soon. This is the most common message I keep getting…
image

So I had enough confidence to write this is Epiphany, but I have to move back to Vivaldi, it’s bloated but at least it works.

Since 2014 we have been hearing that the Gnome Foundation has run out of money and if we listened to the doomsayers, it would have been long gone by now. Fortunately there will always be a Fedora with Red Hat’s rich benefactors who have extremely deep pockets, namely IBM, so I don’t think Gnome is in any perilous danger.

I am really interested to hear members thoughts on Gnome in general, its direction and upcoming Gnome 43 with all its improvements and full Wayland support. Will Wayland take over?

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So I had enough confidence to write this is Epiphany, but I have to move back to Vivaldi, it’s bloated but at least it works.

If you would use Epiphany if you could why not use Falkon? It is much more similar to Epiphany than Vivaldi!

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Do extensions (uBlock Origin) work on Falkon in the meantime?

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Good point, I will give it a try now. I want an excuse to get rid of Vivaldi since it became a full on OS :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Falkon has a handful of built-in extensions and that is it.

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It has a build in ad blocker.

Falkon has all standard functions you expect from a web browser. It includes bookmarks, history (both also in sidebar) and tabs. Above that, it has by default enabled blocking ads with a built-in AdBlock plugin.

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Yes, I tried that one a few years ago and was not! amused …

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I tired it a few months ago and it wad pretty good. I guess it improved but only one way to find out I guess.

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I just tried it :frowning_face: and as a browser it looks good. But as for having built in plugins makes it a non-starter for me. At least with Epiphany 43 I will be able to add Bitwarden from the Firefox extension store.

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Here is Epiphany 43.alpha+ and extensions are supported by simply importing the xpi

Notice the Bitwarden extension and it works!

image

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Bitwarden:

Permissions Learn more

This add-on needs to:

  • Get data from the clipboard
  • Input data to the clipboard
  • Access browser tabs
  • Store unlimited amount of client-side data
  • Access your data for all websites

This add-on may also ask to:

  • Exchange messages with programs other than Firefox

This is definitely not my cup of rum!

:pouring_liquid:

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I mean, it couldn’t do it’s job without those permissions.

It has to store your entire database locally. It needs to read the page to understand how to fill fields. It needs to be able to talk back to the server to get your passwords.

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@dalto: Strike!!!

:rofl:

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So true Dalto. and soon I will moving it to self hosted Bitwarden–once I figure out the hosting technicalities.

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Should be a piece of cake.

:cake:

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Here is where I am headed - I already have Clould hosting on Hetzner. https://github.com/stefanfluit/bitwarden-hetzner

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I keep using some of Hetzner-hosted DNS as tls upstream providers, although they’re not always available (among others, of course). Other than that, they’ve been notoriously exploited lately… just search for ‘hetzner data breach’.

This is, where I wouldn’t want my passwords to be stored, at all.

Saying this, I wouldn’t trust my passwords to nobody, if I’m just a little concerned about my own privacy. But you told me, it could be therapy. So, to each their own…

:wink:

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:point_up:t2:

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They called it a “data breach” even though it was a cluster failure. They are not my primary host.

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Whatever it was, it made the headlines over here on all computer-related websites.

Cause of data loss is still unknown

Hetzner hasn’t shared many details about what caused the incident, and neither its status page nor its social media channels have any relevant announcements.

Potential reasons for such high-impact data center incidents include hacking of unprotected data center management systems, catastrophic backup errors, physical disasters such as fire, or simply the unfortunate coincidence of multiple hardware failures at the same time.

Last month, Hetzner published a statement explaining that it erroneously blocked a Ukrainian war information site, saying it was a mistake based on misleading technical information, not hiding any political motivation.

Not trying to go into this any further than asking for your responsibility of posting things here that others might follow as being ‘cool’, not realizing the possible consequences of server-side password-storing mechanisms at play when using browser-plugins as their day-to-day password-managers.

From a security-standpoint this is a complete NO-GO!