Make sure Element Web works with Firefox ESR

[olberger]

Your use case

It seems (given the discussion in #27682, unless the person in charge of support there) that Firefox ESR isn't supported.

Given it has a large user base (enterprise, Debian stable and derived, etc.) it would be very valuable to have it supported.

Have you considered any alternatives?

No response

Additional context

No response

[oliversalzburg]

Updated Response

To be perfectly honest, as a Debian user, I am well familiar with having to install certain software from external repositories or from sources, because the Debian repositories, while stable, don't provide my necessary feature sets.

In fact, if you only install packages from Debian stable repositories, you're leaving yourself vulnerable to issues that stand unfixed in the stable versions of Debian. Stable in Debian terms does not mean more secure or better in any way, especially if you're on Desktop.

Do yourself a favor and just move away from the ESR Release in the Debian repositories.

If you still feel like you have valid reasons beyond that, consider that internationalization, localization, and accessibility probably outweigh your desire to use an ancient ESR to access a version of Element which is apparently not even even under your control.

Previous Comment

Start with the default configuration

You can pick a sound set of versions with the defaults query which is a shortcut for > 0.5%, last 2 versions, Firefox ESR, not dead. It matches recent versions of popular and supported browsers worldwide and includes Firefox Extended Support Release which is updated roughly annually.

The defaults query was thoroughly designed by the Browserslist community. It helps promote best practices and avoid common pitfalls.

From https://browsersl.ist/

Not sure what the best practice was at the time the supported environments were picked, but it seems not ideal today.

[Tortoise17]

For me also it is broken. On firefox it is not working anymore since recent update from yesterday.

[t3chguy]

Not sure what the best practice was at the time the supported environments were picked, but it seems not ideal today.

That would have us support Chrome down to 109, mobile browsers, Opera, KaiOS, UC Browser, and all other things we have intentionally excluded in preference to having access to sane Web APIs shortly after they are available. We have a supported environments thing at the top of our README for a reason. ESR is in a similar boat, being over a year old at this point.

[alfem]

Yes, broken in 115.12.0esr (64-bit).

I use to report this kind of issues in mozilla channel in matrix, but unfortunately it is not possible now.

[rosemash]

I want to reiterate something that was mentioned on #27682: firefox-esr is the main supported browser in Debian stable, which is a massive user base (especially of OSS like matrix). I use the element instance at chat.mozilla.org and was completely unaware firefox-esr was unsupported until I was locked out of my only session half an hour ago. That just doesn't seem right. A debian user can install chromium, but won't be able to verify their new session with their original one.

[isAAAc]

same with Opera

[t3chguy]

@isAAAc Opera has never been a supported environment: https://github.com/element-hq/element-web#supported-environments - it ever working was purely incidental as it supported the necessary APIs at a previous time

[isAAAc]

Opera has never been a supported environment

oh, ok ^^

A debian user can install chromium, but won't be able to verify their new session with their original one

you could/should use the passphrase