Libre Browsers Libre Formats

These days there are several free software browsers available. It's important to use browsers which support media formats not encumbered by patents. This page documents browsers which are highly featured, have graphical interfaces, and support free formats.

Free browsers, caveat free

GNU IceCat

GNU Icecat is a free browser based on Mozilla's Firefox. It contains several privacy enhancements and includes extensions like LibreJS turned on by default.

It is sometimes a bit behind Firefox in releases.

Free browsers, with caveats

Iceweasel

Iceweasel is really just Firefox, but rebranded by Debian to be free of trademark issues. It shares some similar issues with Firefox, that of recommending non-free software via add-ons. If you use Iceweasel it's important to be careful. The Trisquel project maintains a listing of free add-ons that can be used in place of the one provided by Mozilla, which is where Iceweasel sends you: https://trisquel.info/en/browser

Browsers that might or might not be free

Chromium

Chromium might or might not be free. During the last review, the copyright or license of some code was unclear. It also has a similiar problem to Iceweasel and Firefox in which it links to proprietary plugins. (Chromium should NOT be confused with Google Chrome, which shares a codebase with Chromium but is not free software.)

Browsers that might seem free, but are not

Firefox

Copyright isn't the only thing that can be used to grant or take away the four essential freedoms. The FSF's Free Software Definition contemplates the possibility of it happening outside copyright when it says "we can't possibly list all the ways that might happen" and goes on to say that if there were one that "restricts the user in an unusual way that copyright-based licenses cannot, and which isn't mentioned here as legitimate, we will have to think about it, and we will probably conclude it is nonfree."

Mozilla has found a clever way to take away freedom #2 using trademark law instead of using copyright law. As the FSF covers in their Free Software Definition, all four freedoms must be available on both a commercial and non-commercial basis. Mozilla's trademark policy serves to limit Freedom 2 (the freedom to make exact copies) to gratis distribution only, making the software nonfree.

It is as if Firefox were under a non-commercial license. It's achieved through means outside of copyright, but the net effect is the same and it still has the force of law behind it. Fortunately, their method leaves a loophole open for derivative works such as GNU IceCat to escape this and this is exactly what they do.

In addition, non-free software is recommended to people using Firefox in the form of add-ons. The Trisquel project maintains a listing of free add-ons that can be used in place of the one provided by Mozilla: https://trisquel.info/en/browser

Finally, Mozilla has implemented support for Digital Restrictions Management inside Firefox. This makes for a good read: http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2014/05/14/to-serve-users.html

Palemoon

Palemoon has a similar problem to Firefox in which Freedom #2 is restricted to non-commercial distribution only: http://www.palemoon.org/redist.shtml

Browsers to avoid

These browsers are entirely nonfree. You may hear recommendations to use them. Please avoid them, and instead use one of the above browsers.

• Google Chrome
• Safari
• Internet Explorer
• Microsoft Edge

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