I have an older computer with Fedora 29 that I do not intend to upgrade, bought a DVD set of repository discs that I have manually installed and would like to avoid the dependency to on-line dnf for this particular computer. Have the entire repository stored in home folder. Will not be able to use this manual repository installation anymore since OSDiscs.com where I bought the DVDs on line is no longer in business. Cannot find any other place to pick up any recent 32 or later repositories only operating system discs or thumb drives are available.
As the Firefox and Chrome Browsers become older there will not be any support.
As an alternative I have downloaded stand alone versions of these browsers. Are these browsers a good way to keep up with updates to Firefox and Chrome for security purposes, or is there a serious vulnerability to using these versions instead of the ones that are default with the version of the operating system?
Firefox is available as flatpak. I don’t know if standalone versions auto-update themselves or you need to check for updates manually. With flatpak, you will get latest version from Mozilla.
Using Fedora 29 on a computer that is connected to the internet is a serious vulnerability in itself. No security patches are provided.
Same is true for Fedora 32 if it is not connected to the internet and constantly updating its packages from there.
Firefox security is dependent on system’s security, neglecting any of them is just as serious, especially with an on-line system.
Where’s the problem, that computer is so slow, that you’re disabling all system updates? Or is that a matter of metered and expensive internet connection?
Not exactly sure what flatpak is. All I know is the same version of Firefox that is used for Windows will work on Linux operating systems. You download a zip version, extract, and then update if necessary to latest, currently using version 86. Google chrome is also usable in a similar manner.
Kind of works a lot like the 3d Graphics program Blender. I dabble a lot with this program and have the operating system versions of the program installed through rpm packages, dnf, or software web site on-line. To upgrade this program always get at Blender’s web site an extractable .tar.bz file that will open that version of the program as a stand alone by locating a file within one of the extracted directories and running/ (execute) that file. Personally use Fedora Design Suite and that always has a recent version of Blender, yet lately their new interface change has me staying with the 2.7 versions. I have upgraded to Fedora 32 on one computer and have the ability to use the later versions 2.8 series yet totally confused and back to crawl learning yet can use the standalone version of any 2.7 series. What is really neat about how Wine works with Fedora is that through wine I have been able to install an earlier 2.4 version of Blender .exe that was totally different yet the era I started out with learning following books. Been doing this for years that way.
The stand alone versions of Firefox that are their latest available work the same way. Google Chrome will also work on some Linux operating systems the same way.
My only concern is which Firefox/Google Chrome is safer to use, stand alone or operating system version, stand alone always provides their latest updates. I minimize internet use for this older machine, most often used for artwork production or listening to music through players like Amarok or Clementine. My music collection is off the internet, spent many months converting older CDs, cassettes, and LPs to MP3s and Wav, internet is not necessary for this.
I do make sure that firewalld is installed on operating systems if that helps at all. With this older machine I want to stay with the older operating systems 27 or 30 since I have purchased complete sets of repositories on DVDs for these versions of Fedora. They do take a long time to manually install on your machine yet are worth the extra time and effort. Work offline okay using Shell after installation.
Do not want to throw away all this effort and time and value of all these DVDs, again use these on older machines and believe they will work better on these older operating systems than trying to upgrade to the latest. Since you warn of serious vulnerability, I will minimize any internet use with this machine.
I honestly have been using Linux operating systems and Windows (older XP) off line for many years without any internet. Used library for internet use when necessary (like downloading live iso versions of Fedora Design Suite). Had to get internet at home when COVID 19 started to close everything in this county for public use like libraries. Also like older versions of Fedora Design Suite since they have the 2.7 series versions of Blender, their radical interface change in the 2.8 series has me totally confused. Have a newer machine with 32 installed and keep that updated, really see no use for stand alone versions of internet browsers on a machine with latest operating system updates for Firefox and Chrome, only on older machines with no more update support.