So currently Endeavour OS defaults to Firefox Vanilla even for the Plasma installation and I thought - considering the fiddling needed to add the -bin package of Firefox-kde (gpg key is a bit of a mess) that it might make sense to mirror and host that package in Endeavour OS and swap out vanilla Firefox during installation if Plasma is chosen?
What makes sense is not to add a custom Firefox in as default. One of the reasons I left Garuda cause they chose to customize Firefox. Distros need to keep their hands off the browser.
Fair enough - the upshot with this one is that it uses KDE and Qt bindings instead of GTK which is rather nifty. Which is the only change, the rest is not touched (so its basically only relevant when you save something, and have access to things like ācreate new folderā and similar)
One alternative would be to host a version in the Endeavour OS repos making it easier to install and keep up to date for the users.
Iām sorry but in my book simply no. Thatās like turning on browser-integration by default, which is simply wrong. One of the first things I check after a install of a OS is to make sure browser-integration is off, and Kget is either disabled or removed.
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So keeping it in the repos would be a better solution then? Making the path to using it easier and more stable for the user without adding it as a default.
(I mean focusing on the actionable instead of what we disagree on 
)
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So here is the real discussion. I am assuming this is the package we are talking about:https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/firefox-kde-opensuse
It is an AUR package and pulling that into the EndeavourOS repository would require the EndeaourOS developers to maintain it. It is a small team which is why EndeavourOS has so few packages in the EndeavourOS repository. It is not really about making it easy for the user but more about making it easier for the developers to maintain.
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Theres two good ones, the bin https://aur.tuna.tsinghua.edu.cn/packages/firefox-kde-opensuse-bin/ and the stock variety https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/firefox-kde-opensuse/
Both are active and I think there is a possibility to link directly to the OBS package which is very actively maintained by the Opensuse people.
EDIT: commented before the edit came up, sry - yeah that is the tricky bit I suppose 
It dumps the weight from one shoulder to the other. Another solutionā¦ and this may be REALLY dumb though is to add the bin package key to the main keyring. The maintainership is secure so its not a security risk but its heavily obscured as a solution for the user so might be pissing in the wind as it where.
That said, since the core complexity is adding the gpg key to the keyring (and adding the key server there too) dodging that entire thing might be a good thing in the long and wont require maintainership by the Endeavour developers.
@ohyran, hi! Why not use this firefox add-on, created by KDE themselves?
Its not the same thing at all sadly
(sorry for the self-marketing 
)
On topic: I do not think it would be a good idea to ship EOS with a browser that is not part of the official repos.
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@anon31687413ās Plasmafox is in the chaotic AUR and quite nice.
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It is possible to get plasma file dialogs in the normal firefox by setting GTK_USE_PORTAL=1
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I donāt even see a meaning in providing a default browser in Endeavour Plasma, so I see even less meaning in providing firefox-kde-opensuse.
It takes seconds installing a browser of your liking.
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It is pretty important to provide a default browser since in some circumstances a browser is needed to get a working internet connection.
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Well the issue is mostly that the most stable KDE version of Firefox is currently the Opensuse one (they do after all have a few paid devs working on it, and many of them are KDE folks too)
One idea would be to just get Falkon in there and leave it at that?
Yes I know. The issue is that its been kinda flakey as a solution at times and clashed with the shortcuts system - although as I recall there was talk of fixing this upstream.
Personally, I hate the idea of installing different browsers for each DE. The default install will never be perfect for everyone. Just remove what you donāt prefer and add what you do.
In what way? I have never noticed this but I may not use the shortcuts in question.
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Will try it out again (just remember it back when we started setting up plasma 5 and it caused all hells of problems) - I mean if it works now and all perhaps the solution would be to set the universal environment variable to simply swap for the KDE file dialogs? That way its sort of killing two birds with one stone.
There are some side effects to setting that globally. It is typically better to set it only for firefox and thunderbird in the .desktop files.
Additionally, keep in mind, EndeavousOS tries to install vanilla environments that are left to the user to customize to their personal preferences. This is philosophically different than distros that try to deliver a canned DE specific experience out of the box.
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Well many distros do that, and while that is an admirable goal its not very feasible unless the āvanillaā experience is a very vague definition. Endeavour installs a lot of KDE apps by default. Some which arenāt even considered the ācore appsā. Not that its something wrong with that obviously.
Firefox in this case can be made more relevant for desktop use. If that is by installing another version of it, or by ignoring the installation of it and use one of the KDE apps (falkon) or just ignoring it and letting it be hoping the user will find and fix it on their own. All fine choices. But they are inevitably choices.
My argument was just that there where ways to improve the experience for end users, as was mentioned having the devs shoulder the opensuse app for endeavour os is hard work for a single distro. Setting up alternative browsers is problematic as then each install need their own browser. And setting the desktop portal for all will cause issues.
I still think looking at how to improve it is worthwhile. Tricky but worth while