Firefox Based Browsers

[SamK]

Do any of the firefox based browser prevent the creation and use of urlclassifier3.sqlite?  If so:

• Which are they?
• What are the security implications of using them?

[netnomad]

hi samk,

i don´t know the exact behavior of the different browsers in all technical details,
but nevertheless i want to give you some hints:

minefield is collecting far less protocolls, journals and logfiles compared to firefox.
icecat works in a resembling way and gnu and fsf are looking for some security concerns, too.

if security and value of personal data is a central topic for you,
i suggest to use icecat, together with noscript and https-everywhere.

the next step could be to start every session with a lean basic set of config-files in your browser-configuration or just delete all *.sqlite-files at every reboot.
there is some extra work to do, f.e. if you change some options or preferences, but you enhance you privacy in many ways.
on the other hand by using always the same set of lean-config-files you reduce the size of your backup-file.
mine f.e. is far smaller than 2mb and it includes many configuration files, scripts, binaries and even some funny stuff, too.

i hope i could give you some interesting hints.

[curaga]

The minefields do, IIRC. The old one I did disabled it in code, the later ones disable it in the config.

Without it FF won't warn you about sites it thinks are phishing, etc.

[Jason W]

I had gone back to the official firefox as the disabling of the official branding was not working, making the result not distributable.  I will try a build again in the near future that will not have the url classifier.

[SamK]

The original question was asked because when using Firefox, in both TC and other distros, and when wanting to avoid the ever growing urlclassifier3.sqlite I tended to replace it with a symlink to /tmp.  Does using a Minefield browser offer any advantages over the linking method with Firefox?

[Jason W]

With a minefield build, that urlclassifier is disabled, so that ever growing file never gets created in the first place, so no file to have to deal with.

[curaga]

Yep, you're wasting RAM and network with that method.