Where is Otter Browser?

[seacat17]

I've seen people talk about it but I cannot install it. PKG says that it is unable to locate such package. In the repo Otter is listed as disabled. What happened?

[TomJo2000]

It was disabled due to being abandonware at this point.

To quote the commit message from it being moved into the disabled-packages/ directory.

rmpkg(x11/otter-browser): Remove outdated qt5-using package
Remove `otter-browser` as it's a network-facing program (a browser) that
hasn't seen a relase since
[2022-02](https://github.com/OtterBrowser/otter-browser/releases/tag/v1.0.03),
is using Qt5 and does not seem to be maintained.

There are regular commits to
https://github.com/OtterBrowser/otter-browser/commits/master/, but seems kind
of AI generated / aimed to create a github commit streak, not really
addressing user-facing issues or necessary upgrades of dependencies.

• Commit: 5e38bc3
• PR: rmpkg(x11/otter-browser): Remove outdated qt5-using package #27333

It is not receiving any meaningful ongoing development and continuing to package it makes little sense as it is one of very few remaining packages depending on Qt5 broadly, and qt5-qtwebengine specifically.

We have plenty of alternatives available for browsers.
Namely chromium, epiphany, falkon, firefox, netsurf and surf.

Also technically browsh and carbonyl.
But browsh depend on Firefox and renders it to the terminal.
And carbonyl does the same but is built off Chromium.

Falkon would probably be the most direct replacement, being a Qt6 QtWebengine browser.

[seacat17]

Awh, dang it... You probably won't believe it but I wanted to install it because otters are adorable.

So sad it's abandoned.

[seacat17]

Hey uh...

OtterBrowser/otter-browser#1796 (comment)

[TomJo2000]

Upstream is allowed to have their opinion about if their commit farming constitutes maintenance,
we don't feel comfortable continuing to ship it in this state.

[seacat17]

Eh... Okay then...

[TomJo2000]

It was disabled due to being abandonware at this point.

It has been pointed out to me in further conversation that the term "abandonware" comes off as inflammatory in the above response.
I apologize for any offence caused by the term.

We decided to remove the package as part of a cleanup effort to reevaluate packages that haven't received any updates in a long time, otter-browser did not pass the sniff test for on-going packaging given its intended purpose.
This is not intended to be an indictment of upstream's on-going handling of the project, or otter-browser being unfit to be re-added as a package, given it is able to meet the contemporary packaging guidelines.
Nor is it intended to exert any pressure on upstream to change their way of handling their project.