SRWare Iron

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SRWare Iron

SRWare Iron logo
Screenshot of SRWare Iron 5 on Windows 7
Basic data

Maintainer SRWare
developer SRWare
Publishing year 2008
Current  version 83.0.4250.0 Stable for Windows
( July 5, 2020 )
operating system Windows ( 7 / 8 / 10 ), macOS (from 10.7), Linux , Android (from 4.4)
programming language C ++ , assembly language
category Web browser
License Freeware
German speaking Yes
www.srware.net/iron

SRWare Iron , also briefly Iron is a web browser on the code base of Chromium . The manufacturer's website claims that Iron is open source , but from version 6 at the latest until mid-2015 there was no way to get the source code . Downloads with source code have been offered again since mid-2015, but without information on the associated version.

history

In September 2008, the German software company SRware released the first Windows version of the browser. This was a modified version of the Chrome browser, from which some functions were removed due to data protection concerns. Some of these functions, such as Chrome's unique identification number, have now been completely removed from Chrome or are not available in the underlying Chromium or at least can be easily switched off.

For Linux there was a first preview version on May 26th, 2009, the first alpha on June 17th and the first beta on November 7th, 2009. On January 7th, 2010 a (beta) version for Mac OS X was released for the first time . The version for Android has been available in the Google Play Store since April 11, 2016.

Support for Windows XP ended with version 50. All older versions are still available. With version 55.0.2900, control of WebRTC is taken over by an add-on. Therefore the "WebRTC disabled" builds are not necessary.

Differences from Chrome

Iron contains additional functions compared to Chrome and does without others. For example, an ad blocker is built in.

Unlike Chrome, Iron doesn't provide automatic search suggestions or display Google error pages. It has no option to send automatic bug reports and Google will not be informed if the installation is successful.

Other functions not included are RLZ tracking (an encrypted character string), the Google Updater (since Iron does not use a replacement, it therefore has no auto-update function) and DNS - prefetching .

criticism

According to a 2015 article in the online magazine Lifehacker, Iron offers little that is not available by simply configuring Google Chrome's privacy settings . In 2012, a blog commented that Iron was more likely to be scam or scareware , as the developers would address Chrome's non-existent problems to claim Iron solved them.

Although SRWare has claimed that "Iron is free and open source", the latter was de facto no longer true from version 6 until mid-2015 , as the links given by SRWare for the source code were hosted in RapidShare and blocked by the uploader. SRWare Iron "is a completely closed software and that since at least version 6". According to Lifehacker, SRWare Iron was "supposedly open source as of October 2014, but has not published its source for years". In 2015, SRWare continued to publish the alleged source code for the browser on its own site, but without specifying which version the source code came from.

Web links

Commons : SRWare Iron  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ New Iron version: 83.0.4250.0 Stable for Windows . July 5, 2020 (accessed July 19, 2020).
  2. ↑ Download page for Iron
  3. ^ Herbert Braun: First Chrome clone appeared. In: heise online news ticker. Heise Zeitschriften Verlag, September 25, 2008, accessed on August 31, 2010 .
  4. ^ Chromium. Data protection and privacy. In: Wiki ubuntuusers.de. Retrieved October 4, 2010 .
  5. ↑ http://www.srware.net/software_srware_iron.php
  6. ↑ Entry in the Google Playstore
  7. ↑ http://download1.srware.net/old/iron/win/
  8. ↑ http://www.srware.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=11893
  9. ↑ http://www.srware.net/en/webrtc_off.php
  10. ↑ Iron news page
  11. ↑ Alec Kinnear: Organic traffic or AdWords? Foliovision sro, December 9, 2008, accessed on February 27, 2009 .
  12. ↑ Iron FAQ page
  13. ^ Alan Henry: The Best Privacy and Security-Focused Web Browsers . In: Lifehacker . Gawker Media. Retrieved July 21, 2015.
  14. ↑ SRWare Iron Browser - A Private Alternative To Chrome? ( Memento from December 26, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  15. ↑ SRWare: SRWare Iron download page . In: srware.net . Retrieved May 2, 2013.
  16. ↑ SRWare Iron source code - Part 1
  17. ↑ SRWare Iron source code - Part 2
  18. ↑ SRWare Iron source code - Part 3
  19. ^ SRWare: SRWare Iron - The Browser of the Future . In: srware.net . Retrieved July 21, 2015.