RFC: Switch to Firefox and a 1.5 GB image

[Felix Geyer]

Hi,

I'd like to propose switching to Firefox as our default browser.

We have discussed switching to a different browser more than once in
the past. I think the arguments against it were "let's give rekonq a
try and see how it evolves", "we prefer KDE applications" and "no
space on the CD image".
At the same time we provide a Firefox installer in the Kickoff menu.
Isn't that already a strong indication that we should really switch to
Firefox if possible? :-)

So here are my arguments why we should switch:

- I'm worried about the security support of rekonq + QtWebkit.
  Firefox and Chromium regularly provide security updates while
  there were none for QtWebkit. I find it hard to believe that
  it doesn't have any vulnerabilities. In fact the security tracker [1]
  lists many webkit CVEs.
- I think rekonq is not stable enough, i.e. it crashes too often.
- The browser is the most important application so we should provide
  the best solution available for Kubuntu and not limit ourselves to
  "KDE-native" applications.
- The Firefox KDE integration works very well now so we have KDE
  file dialogs and correct file type associations.
- It should be obvious that Firefox has superior features. Just think
  about bookmark and history syncing and the vast amount of extensions
  available.

Some may prefer Chromium over Firefox but that isn't in the Ubuntu main
component so we'd have to convince the MIR team [2]/Canonical to
guarantee support for the package.

Firefox requires approximately 20 MB on images. This is too much
for our 700 MB CD image. Thus I propose that we switch to a 1.5 GB
USB/DVD image that includes everything on the CD + Firefox + more
language packs + maybe a few more applications. This also means
dropping our current DVD image which is imho of very limited use
anyway [3].
We would still provide a CD image with rekonq and a very limited set
of languages (probably just one).

What are your opinions?

Felix


[1] http://people.canonical.com/~ubuntu-security/cve/main.html
[2] MIR approval team: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-mir
[3] It contains the live CD image and an alternate image with all KDE
    SC packages. Who seriously wants all those packages on his/her system?