sailfish-browser-next153

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Experimental Gecko ESR153 (Firefox 153) browser for Sailfish OS 5.1 and 5.2. Sailfish OS ships a browser based on Gecko ESR91 from 2021; this is a community port of the current ESR153 engine, the successor of my ESR140 port (sailfish-browser-next). ### Installs alongside the stock browser Every package in this stack carries a "-next153" suffix and uses its own directories and profile. The system browser is not touched, and the ESR140 "-next" stack can stay installed as well — all of them appear in the app grid and can be used side by side. Uninstalling the -next153 packages leaves everything else exactly as it was. ### Installation Enable this repository and install ONLY this package. The dependencies (xulrunner-qt5-next153, embedlite-components-qt5-next153, qtmozembed-qt5-next153 and the three sailfish-components-webview-qt5-next153 packages) are pulled in automatically. Download is roughly 70 MB, installed size around 200 MB. Note: the entries in the app grid currently share the same icon. ### What works - Mobile layout and a mobile user agent (Firefox/153 Mobile) — sites no longer render in desktop mode - Touch: tap, scroll, flick, pinch zoom, double-tap zoom; long-press context menu and text selection - Dialogs (alert/confirm/prompt), HTTP authentication - FIDO2 / WebAuthn security tokens over USB, including PIN entry — registration and login tested with a YubiKey on webauthn.io - Downloads with the native Sailfish transfer UI - Camera and microphone access (WebRTC / getUserMedia) with permission dialog - Sign-in popups that close themselves (Google OAuth), landscape orientation ### Known issues - Typing a search term into the address bar is not yet understood as a search (the bundled search engines fail to register); open the search site directly - Cloudflare "managed challenge" pages (e.g. ecosia.org) loop — the browser is rejected by Cloudflare's server-side scoring before any click; the plain Turnstile widget passes. Under investigation - ID Austria login (login.id-austria.gv.at) reports a wrong password even with the correct one; the password arrives byte-exact, the site rejects the session. Affects the ESR140 port as well. Under investigation - Video is decoded in software on the Xperia 10 V (device/hybris issue, same as ESR140) - Occasional crash on first start; restarting usually succeeds - Rear camera delivers frames but shows a still viewfinder (device HAL issue) This is alpha software. Tested on Sony Xperia 10 V (pdx235), SFOS 5.2.0.15, aarch64. Reports from other devices are very welcome — please include the device model and SFOS version. ### Sources Engine and EmbedLite layer: https://github.com/smatkovi/gecko-dev (branch fork-esr153) JS components: https://github.com/smatkovi/embedlite-components (branch fork-esr153) Release notes and direct RPM downloads: https://github.com/smatkovi/gecko-dev/releases/tag/esr153-alpha1 ### Support this work This port was built in my free time. If you find it useful: https://www.paypal.me/smatkovi https://liberapay.com/smatkovi

Application versions: 
AttachmentSizeDate
File sailfish-browser-next153-3.0.0-1.aarch64.rpm4.27 MB23/08/2026 - 01:18
File sailfish-browser-next153-3.0.0-2.aarch64.rpm4.27 MB23/08/2026 - 15:47
File sailfish-browser-next153-3.0.0-3.aarch64.rpm4.27 MB23/08/2026 - 18:27
File sailfish-browser-next153-3.0.0-4.aarch64.rpm4.28 MB24/08/2026 - 19:12
File sailfish-browser-next153-3.0.0-6.aarch64.rpm4.28 MB24/08/2026 - 22:19
Changelog: 

- Autoplay is now listed on the permissions page and actually does something:
Allow and Block map to media.autoplay.default through the engine settings,
the same way popups and cookies do. The icon for it (icon-m-browser-sound)
had been sitting unused in the theme all along
- The notifications entry added yesterday used qsTr(), which never reaches the
translation files - switched to qsTrId with a source string
- The 153 build has its own icon now, so it can be told apart from the 140
build in the launcher

Comments

abranson's picture

This all looks very promising, though forking off my WIP esr140 branch has meant things have diverged quite a lot already, and your esr153 work is very different to mine. You've done some useful issue finding there already, so thanks for that! Definitely saved me some time.

Hopefully we can get some of your contributions in to the main browser once the Jolla gecko 153 gets released?

aviarus's picture

Yes of course. I always wanted to use fido tokens, so i added that feature. I hope i didn't make some things worse. I'm glad if it saves you time. Thanks for your good work. The new jolla phone is amazing.

abranson's picture

I saw that! Very cool. I think for the core browser I'd prefer to wait until we have some hardware crypto to back it properly. But a community browser is exactly the right place to experiment with that sort of thing.

treagod's picture

Hi, thanks for this great port!

Tested on Jolla Phone 2026 / Sailfish OS 5.2. Sailfish keyboard word suggestions do not work in the browser (tested on multiple websites). Typing works normally.

Also: ChatGPT web sends the message on Enter instead of inserting a new line.

Thanks for bringing a modern Firefox engine to Sailfish!

sdworks's picture

Hitting the back-button, the browser crashes every time on my JP2026 ... . Restarting makes me land on the previous page.

aviarus's picture

Update xulrunner, the last version fixes this

duskull's picture

Thanks a lot for making this and good idea to rename it as it can be confusing if it has the same name as the default browser

ahjolinna's picture

also recoloured icon would also be nice to add, this is what browsers typically do to sperated their stable, beta, nightly version

ahjolinna's picture

tested both version on my xperia x compact, xperia 10 and JP26.

153 is noticeable smoother compare to 140. There are some regression, my guess its mostly related to the port.

one example if you watch any video from https://areena.yle.fi/ and then try to leave and it crashes

here is a log from my JP 26 when I try to play a yle video from and then leave and then it crashed: https://paste.opensuse.org/pastes/471b4b46e85f

edit/update: okay seems the new update fix the crash issue, but its not as smooth as 140 when scrolling