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 GNU IceCat new-tab page | |
| Developer(s) | GNUzilla team,GNU Project |
|---|---|
| Stable release | 115.12.0[1]  / 10 June 2024 |
| Repository | |
| Engine |
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| Operating system | |
| Type | Web browser |
| License |
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| Website | www |
GNU IceCat, formerly known asGNU IceWeasel,[3] is a completelyfree version of theMozilla Firefoxweb browser distributed by theGNU Project. It is compatible withLinux,Windows,Android andmacOS.[4]
IceCat is released as a part ofGNUzilla, GNU's rebranding of a code base that used to be theMozilla Application Suite. As an internet suite, GNUzilla also includes a mail and newsgroup program, and an HTML composer.
Mozilla producesfree and open-source software, but the binaries includetrademarked artwork. The GNU Project attempts to keep IceCat in synchronization with upstream development ofFirefox ESR (long-term support versions) while removing alltrademarked artwork and non-freeadd-ons. It also maintains a large list of free softwareplugins. In addition, it includes severalsecurity and privacy features not found in the mainline Firefox browser.
TheMozilla Corporation holds thetrademark to the Firefox name and denies the use of the name "Firefox" to unofficial builds that fall outside certain guidelines.[5] Unless distributions use thebinary files supplied by Mozilla, fall within the stated guidelines, or else have special permission, they mustcompile the Firefox source with a compile-time option that creates binaries without the official branding of Firefox and related artwork, using either the included free artwork or an alternative specified by the person doing the build.[5]
This policy led to a long debate within theDebian Project in 2004 and 2005. During this debate, the name "Iceweasel" was coined to refer to rebranded versions of Firefox. The first known use of the name in this context is by Nathanael Nerode,[6] in reply to Eric Dorland's suggestion of "Icerabbit".[7] It was intended as a parody of "Firefox".[8] Iceweasel was subsequently used as the example name for a rebranded Firefox in the Mozilla Trademark Policy,[5] and became the most commonly used name for a hypothetical rebranded version of Firefox. By January 1, 2005, rebranding was being referred to as the "Iceweasel route".[9]
In August 2005,[10] theGNUzilla project adopted the GNU IceWeasel name for a rebranded distribution of Firefox that made no references to nonfree plugins.[10]
The term "iceweasel" appeared earlier in a line which cartoonistMatt Groening fictionally attributed toFriedrich Nietzsche: "Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come."[11]
Debian was originally given permission to use the trademarks, and adopted the Firefox name.[12] However, because the artwork in Firefox had a proprietary copyright license at the time, which was not compatible with theDebian Free Software Guidelines, the substituted logo had to remain.[13] In 2006, Mozilla withdrew their permission for Debian to use the Firefox name due to significant changes to the browser that Mozilla deemed outside the boundaries of its policy, changes which Debian felt were important enough to keep, and Debian revived the Iceweasel name in its place.
Subsequently, on 23 September 2007, one of the developers of the GNU IceWeasel package announced that the name would be changed toGNU IceCat from IceWeasel in the next release, so as to avoid confusion withDebian's separately maintained, unrelated rebranding of Firefox.[3] The name change took place as planned and IceCat is the current name.[8]
IceCat was ported to the Firefox 3 codebase duringGoogle Summer of Code of 2008.[14][15]
GNU IceCat is freely downloadable as source code from the GNU project.[16]
SomeLinux Distributions offer binary and source packages through their repositories, such asTrisquel,[17]Parabola GNU/Linux-libre[18] andFedora.[19]
As of 2024, GNU IceCat is distributed for Windows,[20] macOS and GNU/Linux.[21]
GNU IceCat is available for macOS 10.14 and higher.[22][23]
IceCat includes additional security features, such as the option to block third party zero-lengthimage files resulting inthird-party cookies, also known asweb bugs[8] (This feature is available in Firefox 1.0, 1.5, and 3.0, but the UI option was absent on 2.0).[8] GNU IceCat also provides warnings forURL redirection.[8]
In version 3.0.2-g1, the certificate of acertificate authority CAcert.org has been added to the list of trustedroot certificates. Concern about that decision has been raised in a discussion on the savannah-hackers-public mailing list.[24]
TheGNU LibreJS extension detects and blocksnon-free non-trivialJavaScript.[25]
IceCat also has functionality to set a differentuser agent string each for different domains inabout:config. For example, setting a mobile user agent string for a desiredDNS domain would make it possible to view the mobile version of a website on a desktop operating system.[26]
Gnuzilla is available under theMPL/GPL/LGPL tri-license that Mozilla used for source code. Unlike Mozilla, IceCat's default icons are under the same tri-license.
