Which browser do you use and why?
from ocean@lemmy.selfhostcat.com to linux@lemmy.ml on 28 Feb 03:46
https://lemmy.selfhostcat.com/post/206561
from ocean@lemmy.selfhostcat.com to linux@lemmy.ml on 28 Feb 03:46
https://lemmy.selfhostcat.com/post/206561
Using firefox but concerned now
Read about some alternatives:
- ARC not OSS and VC funded, NO.
- Waterfox, FOSS
- Librewolf, FOSS
- Zen, FOSS but is just a skin??
- Ladybird, FOSS
- Orion?
- Arctic Fox
- Mullvad
Edit 2/28: It seems there is no general consensus if we should switch and/or to what.
threaded - newest
Found this on HN news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43200604
Despite my issues with it, I use Chrome. It’s simply too integrated into my life. But I just saw (like 2 minutes ago) from another thread here about Zen Browser and maaaan is it nice.
Zen is good. Arc is decent if you must have a chromium browser for some reason, but not OSS
Isn’t Zen just a skin of firefox, so the same issues? And Arc is VC funded…
IMO, if I’m going to jump from Chrome it might as well be for libre/OSS. No reason to just from proprietary to proprietary.
I agree, though there are plenty of situations where you must have a chromium based browser. If it must be a daily driver, Arc is probably better than ungoogled-chromium.
Isn’t Zen just a skin of firefox, so the same issues?
Yes, it seems to use the same engine as Firefox.
But not a fork, right? Sorry I don’t understand it clearly.
Seems to be a fork.
Chromium browsers are affected by any changes to chrome, I wonder if the same is true for Firefox forks.
Simple forks, sure. Independent forks? No. So I guess it depends on if Zen considers itself independent or not, and I can’t seem to find that information.
No, because the Mozilla’s new policy doesnt apply to forks.
What issues?
Firefox. Equally concerned as well.
Looking into Librewolf and Waterfox now!
OK! You’ve had 1 hour to check them out. :D What’s the difference between the two? They’re both Firefox forks, right?
I found a decent answer here reddit.com/…/what_am_i_gaining_if_i_switch_from_l…
That mod sums up a lot that I found. I don’t know the answer because they both have odd downsides.
Yes they’re both forks!
Didn’t Waterfox get bought out by an ad company?
yes and then sold and FOSS again!
Nice!
Long time Firefox user. Installed Librewolf today and so far so good. I used Firefox sync to get all my settings, bookmarks, open tabs, etc. back. At some point I will probably find an alternative yo Firefox sync but it’ll do for the time being.
The only thing that sucks about it is some sites just flat out don’t work well. For example, in Librewolf I cannot login to my banks website. The site loads, but the login just hangs. Firefox it works immediately.
I believe Librawolf defaults to “strict” fingerprinting blocking. Try setting it to moderate and see if that works with your bank
I do believe I tried that but I’ll try again, thanks.
Been moving over to LibreWolf and I’m pretty happy with it so far. I added NoScript and CanvasBlocker extensions, along with my password manager, and I’m getting settled in with it now.
The fingerprint protections in Librewolf already protect against canvas fingerprinting. You actually make ourself stand out even mkre by using it. Even with RFP disable, ETP still protects against canvas fingerprinting.
Nice, I was unaware, thanks!
To a slightly lesser extent, Id also suggest avoiding noscript for the same reason. uBlock Origin can do everything that NoScript can and NoScript contributes as a metric to create your overall fingerprint. If need strong protection against fingerprinting, use Mullvad or Tor Browser. Use Librewolf if you need to customize, or want to change the defaults.
Recent news about Firefox finally got me to go with LibreWolf.
I love Librewolf for PC
and Mull for Android.Edit: Apparently Mull has been abandoned. See below for alternate.
Mull development has been abandoned. You might want to switch to IronFox, the community’s fork to continue its legacy.
Thanks for the info!
A related conversation can be found here: lemmy.ml/post/26534979
Thanks
FireDragon because it’s the version of Firefox that Garuda ships with and I never saw a reason to change from it.
Thanks for this. I’m using mainly Firefox to support alternatives to webkit/blink based browsers but the new ToU makes me a bit apprehensive about the direction they’re going.
I also had been test driving Falkon from KDE but will look into these as well.
I use Floorp, it’s balanced well between looks and privacy, you can’t even enable data collection if you wanted to
Apparently, Floorp is another Firefox fork. Has anyone tried this?
I use Floorp as my main browser! I like it, it’s very customisable and kind of weirdly Japanese lol
How so?
Assuming you mean the “weirdly Japanese” part - it’s hard to say exactly, but it’s made by a small team in Japan and just a kind of vaguely Japanese vibe to it somehow. Sorry I know that’s not very helpful lol
Haha, I’ve tried it out but haven’t noticed any Japanese feelings to it. Would like to know if you later put words to it :)
There was some sort of bullshit going on in like 2003 with Internet Explorer so my dad switched us to Firefox, I’ve been on it since. Never felt the need to go to Chrome when it cane around.
Trivalent, i.e. “a hardened chromium for desktop Linux inspired by Vanadium”. Vanadium, for the uninitiated, is the browser found on GrapheneOS; the most secure and privacy-friendly/conscious OS for phones.
i’ve been using firefox and its predecessors since the very beginning, all the way back to pre-release navigator.
i do have (and have always had) other browsers installed (using ‘portable’ installations of them, mostly, these days). currently those include vivaldi, opera, librewolf and waterfox. at least one of which is added along side firefox on each desktop (most often also with a firefox dev edition). these are mostly for testing but also to separate specific online tasks into their own browser. the chromium-based ones are used for very specific things requiring addons that don’t work well or at all with firefox.
unless i need to in order to assist a client, i do not use chrome as provided by google, and i do not use edge from microsoft except for its primary function: downloading another browser when i don’t have a flash drive handy with its installer already downloaded and saved to it.
having actually read the policy documents in question and considering the intent and purpose of the changes that mozilla is making, i have no plans on changing my primary browser.
Well how do you interpret them then
I use Mullvad Browser. It’s maintained in coordination with the Tor Project, and is essentially the Tor Browser with Tor itself stripped out. Same browser fingerprinting protections, however, among other things.
EDIT: I’d like to clarify that this has nothing to do with my trust in Mozilla or Firefox itself, especially not concerning recent panics about benign changes. I still use Firefox on the side, it just does not have fingerprinting protections by default, and hardening it manually leads to minor differences between user configurations (even with Arkenfox if that’s still around) that is solved by Mullvad Browser for me. I use Mullvad Browser for my main browsing, and Firefox for specific exceptions. Firefox itself is fine, and no, Mozilla is not burning it to the ground.
This is my lead contender now that Firefox is shitting the bed. Any downsides?
Mull browser is deprecated, Ironfox is the community fork
Mull Browser != Mullvad Browser. Just to be clear. I’m adding this context because your reply was regarding a thread on Mullvad Browser, and you replied with details about Mull.
For anyone else reading this comment: Mull browser is from DivestOS and deprecated. Firefox fork. Mull was forked by the community into IronFox.
Mullvad Browser is still alive and kicking, developed by Mullvad the VPN provider. Developed in partnership with Tor Browser, also a fork of Firefox.
You are absolutely correct, I apologize.
No prob at all dude! I just wanted to add the additional context in case some other persons stumbled upon these comments, were confused, and so they can get some more information on different browser options out there. Candidly, I only learned about Mull vs Mullvad Browser this week when I was researching what non-chromium browser to switch to next.
Well, the hardening, just as with Tor Browser, does break some sites. It comes preinstalled with NoScript and uBlock Origin, the former of which you will either have to learn how to use or disable, depending on your wants for privacy. While it doesn’t include some of the anti-features of base Firefox, it is still based on Firefox so it will have similar performance for similar tasks.
Personally, I use Mullvad for most of my browsing, and Firefox for a few specific things (like staying logged into site long-term and such).
It’s available as a flatpak via Flathub for an easy installation, otherwise you can check mullvad.net/en/browser/linux for distro-specific installation instructions.
While I’m not sure dropping Firefox is necessary at this juncture, I’ve had a good experience using LibreFox. Hearing a lot about Zen, though.
Check out Mozilla’s clarification: ghacks.net/…/mozillas-new-terms-of-use-causes-con…
I think this diff makes it pretty clear its time to run, not walk: circumstances.run/…/114078708183574404
I gave up on firefox 1 year ago and went to the dark side with Brave. I am really happy with it even tho part of it is closed source.
Looking forward to Ladybird but it is very early days. Have been using Zen a lot. And Orion on iPhone.
What’s wrong with Chromium? License or Google backing?
Nothing. Just echo chamber hysteria.
All these downvotes really prove your point.
I think I might switch to that.
I used Firefox for cross-platform password management. That’s the biggest impact on me.
Who cares about downvotes from people which become irrational about a browser engine, lol.
The Google backing. See ublock Origin for example. Google wants less effective ad blockers because ads are 90% of their business. Google removed manifest v2, which is needed for good ad blocking capabilities. Now Chromium, and any browser based on it (Edge, Brave, Vivaldi, etc.), also lose it. Some have said they will manually add it back in to their browser, but that will only be possible for so long as Google’s upstream Chromium base further diverges.
The massive market share of Chromium-based browsers also gives Google near complete control over web standards. There are many websites that use non-standard functionality that only works in Chromium and not Firefox or Safari. Developers also will not adopt new standards unless Google chooses to as well because there would not be enough users to justify it otherwise.
TLDR: Control over Chromium gives Google extremely strong influence over the web and their interests likely do not have much overlap with yours.
Right now I use mainly Firefox, not because I like it but because it comes with my distro (whereas LibreWolf requires Flatpak) making it work well with the PWA project and it supports weird hacks necessary to install Widevine on my system so I can listen to Tidal. I also have LibreWolf installed with data set to delete on close and set up to proxy over Tor and I2P using privoxy and has LibRedirect installed which is set up to redirect to the corresponding onion/i2p domains. I was trying to install Zen Browser using the Guix package manager earlier but had problems, but I might try again later.
On Android, I use Vanadium for sites I stay logged into, Cromite with auto clearing history for other stuff, and Ironfox for Kagi and to use plugins like LibRedirect.
Zen for regular activities (I pin all important services), Firefox for browsing for something else.
GNU IceCat is also amazing as concept, but generally unusable since it ends up blocking too much and manually allowing everything is a hassle. But still, the pages that work are clean, and I love that by default the browser doesn’t do anything without your permission - it doesn’t even connect to update and telemetry services, it has 0 connections on startup, unlike almost anything (qutebrowser does the same, but, unless you are a strong Vim fanboy, you won’t like the experience).
I have only tried Zen from your list and it’s been nice so far. The most recent update last night broke something with the multi account containers, but other than that it’s been smooth sailing for months.
Ladybird looks promising but it’s not out yet. Planning to try switching to it when it’s out.
Arc is apparently dead (or dying), but it was chromium based, VC funded, and Zen does most of the same things anyway. theverge.com/…/browser-company-ai-browser-arc
Firefox. I can’t imagine they would do something stupid like this with the little marketshare they have, but nothing surprises me anymore.
Does ublock work with any of these alternatives?
IIRC, it’s one of the few add-ons that does work with Librewolf.
That said, the main reason I don’t use is, if I’m remembering the right browser, it just goes way too far with the privacy protections. There’s literally a single thing that’s a deal breaker for me, and that’s the inability to use dark mode on websites. It’s absolutely blinding to the point of being essentially unusable for me.
I’ve never heard of librewolf preventing dark mode. Garuda’s firedragon browser was based on librewolf before switching to floorp, and it came with the darkreader extension by default.
I use DarkReader on Librewolf, works just fine. In fact, all of my extensions work.
Hm, maybe I’m remembering a different browser when it comes to the extensions thing. I’m thinking of one that used an older version of Firefox’s addon system, so has all of three maintained ones.
Well, either way, is dark reader.actually any good? Every non-native solution for dark mode I’ve ever tried has been a complete piece of crap, just lazily inverting the page contents, images often included.
Librewolf (I love the privacy) Tor browser (To browse onion sites/View webgl websites or privacyintrusive sites)
I’m curious, how do you find your site’s? Is the whole ecosystem sketch?
There is a search engine for it and sometimes from my friends/youtube it isn’t super hard to find onion sites (if this is what you mean)
Librewolf, which is great, but I have been desperate for alternatives for a long time now. I also use Falkon and Gnome Web on the side and those are ok, but unfortunately not on the level of Firefox and its ilk. I’ve been considering Waterfox and GNU IceCat also, but honestly the overall situation is depressing. Currently, Librewolf ticks most of my boxes, but every browser has some issue or another that I’m not keen on. I have no idea what the next step is.
Brave, FOSS. Because it’s the best one I have found for my use case. Been using it since 2021, after some 20 years with FF. No regrets.
I am surprised by the lack of people mentioning brave, i swear it used to be mentioned everywhere.
Did something happen or did a newer better browser come out?
It’s chromium, thus evil, according to the narrow minded community.
Yean chromium itself is not evil, its Google’s use of it in chrome that is evil, people confuse this a lot I think.
It sucks ass, it’s just chrome plus some crypto bullshit.
It is not at all like chrome other than it uses chromium which is not inherently bad, its just googles use of it in chrome that is.
You can turn off like 2 toggle buttons and see nothing related to crypto ever.
20 years with Fx*
Ungoogled chromium. It’s faster then firefox in nearly everything I test, doesn’t have stupid issues like not rendering gradients properly.
I use firefox on my desktop for one single reason, and that’s because there is literally nothing for chromium, that is remotely close to simple tab groups.
Uninstalled firefox yesterday. Trying out vivaldi, the company lead has a history of advocacy. Might give librewolf a go soon, need a browser that ping pongs mobile and desktop seamlessly, has ad blocks available and a flatpack.
librewolf for a while now. can reccomend 👍🏿
I’m a Firefox user and I’m not really that bothered about this tos changes. If they do mess things up I’ll probably just switch to some fork that doesn’t do the fuckery.
Wouldn’t be surprised if Mint packages Firefox with it (whatever “it” is) disabled, since they build Thunderbird without telemetry.
Practical response.
I use Firefox. I don’t like the changes but I don’t want to use any downstream browsers and I don’t think any of the not-downstream alternatives do better.
They are better in most of the case, Firefox only is not that good…
I just don’t care for downstream projects on browsers, with software so critical I want to get the updates in as fast as possible. I know some of those mentioned in OP had issues with that in the past. And not much reason to anyway for me to switch, Firefox works perfectly fine for me, so there’s not much added benefit.
Understand your point of view but in fact the 2 problems you mentioned are mainly not problems :
1 - Updates? The main downstream browsers received updates the same time as Firefox the same day and sometime the same hour
2 - Benefits? The benefits are mainly under the hood, removing Mozilla telemetry and annoying features (account, pocket…) AND the biggest advantages are the gain in term of privacy due the increase of anti fingerprinting methods
I’m not sure if something has changed, but due to changes they’ve made, at least before they couldn’t ship out the updates until they made it so that the updates actually affect their changed codebase. Which understandably causes delays. So there’d always be this delay with something being fixed on Firefox and then being fixed on the downstream projects.
Surely there will be some delay but not that much, for most updates the fixes are transplanted directly to the downstream project making the patches coming very fast, almost as fast as the original project
I’ve just soured on them from when there has been issues. Some security patches took a while because of the changed codebase. Good if that doesn’t happen anymore though.
Should retry it and make your own decision
I’m confused. I’ve already made my decision when I used them before and it doesn’t seem like the main thing (them being just downstream of Firefox) has changed? Like said, I don’t see the benefits being big enough to warrant a switch.
If it’s not for me then you are free to stay with stock firefox
Thanks
But who’s making these “updates”? Who’s doing the actual work of keeping the software secure? Mozilla is.
If everybody moves to a free-riding fork, Mozilla goes to 0% and there will be no browser let alone updates.
You’re right but first don’t worry the biggest part of people use stock Firefox and secondly Firefox stock is just not as private as a fork
How is a hobbyist fork of Firefox selling your data and slurping up whatever they want from the browser? People use forks because the company’s telemetry and data collection are often removed from the fork.
That’s what I said
The biggest part of people use Chrome-based browsers.
Also… the point is that it’s thanks to those people who use stock Firefox that the codebase stays maintained. So admitting that having those people is a good thing is kind of against the idea of encouraging people to move away from stock Firefox.
Even when using forks of Firefox you are contributing to the Mozilla project and can support it as well Using librewolf is better than using chrome in term of support for the main devs Mozilla
The thing is that it’s not very common for people who use a fork of Firefox to donate or encourage contributions to Mozilla… most of the people who go for forks do it because they do not trust Mozilla in the first place or don’t agree with the decisions they take. They are not willing to let Mozilla make profit out of their use of the browser, even when done through an option that can be turned off in the browser, they don’t like it even existing.
So if enough people did that, I don’t think Mozilla would keep developing Firefox, at least not at the level that they are now. In fact, I think even today Mozilla is not seeing much gain, since they keep starting side projects to raise funds in other ways.
If there were a separate foundation that was started by all these forks to maintain a base from which to build on (sort of the Chromium-equivalent but in Firefox world) that isn’t connected to Mozilla and that can fully sustain itself… then that would be good in my book. But as things stand, those projects don’t look like they would survive without Mozilla.
I feel like it makes more sense to support an alternative project entirely, like Ladybird or so.
I understand completely your point of view but I wouldn’t use the stock Firefox as it’s not private enough and it has really bad features
And do you think that most Firefox users donate to Mozilla?
Using Firefox (even a fork) supports the work of Mozilla, like using chromium browser support the work of google
No, most don’t donate directly, but some do use some of the features that indirectly do provide funds. Like for example, would a search engine be willing to pay Mozilla to have them be a default search engine if it had no users?
I feel the weight of Firefox being a popular browser has allowed them to have some partnerships and carry on some strategies that are likely to have been a source of funds. I expect many people do not turn off sponsored links and other features that are likely to help them support the browser and that are likely not available in the forks.
So you recommend people to use the google search engine? :(
No I did not say that. Do you recommend people to use their browser on default settings?
Mozilla gets paid for having it be the default, regardless of whether the user switches it. They get to make money from it because of the number of users alone being already something interesting to target for their partners. So just you using the browser is beneficial for Mozilla, even if you turn all the sponsored features off.
So it’s the same as if your were using a fork nah? The only difference is that mozilla does know that you use a Firefox browser because telemetry is disabled
No, it’s not the same. Firedragon users have a different default. I’ll repeat the question that you didn’t answer yet:
“would a search engine be willing to pay Mozilla to have them be a default search engine if it (upstream Firefox) had no users?”
And this is just an example. There are many other forms of partnership possible beyond search engines… the point is that the number of users that actually are exposed to the default browser settings (ie. the users of upstream Firefox, whether they change the settings or not) does give some leverage for making funds out of, while still giving options/freedom to the users who can freely change the setting.
When you watch a video article with sponsored content, even if you skip the sponsor, the creator still benefits because it builds up the numbers and that’s what attracts sponsors… but if someone starts re-posting the videos with the sponsor bits cut out and the re-posting channel becomes MORE popular than the original to the point that the original gets much less views… do you think companies are gonna want to still have as many sponsor deals with that creator who now gets very few views on their sponsored content?
To an extent, the enshittification of the most popular platform is inevitable.
This needs to be higher up. We need firefox as an alternative to a chrome engine monopoly. ToS and telemetry are miniscule issues compared to what we are up against
Firefox is literally the last thing standing between google controlling the entire browser landscape and having control over all web standards (as if they dont already have too much influence)
People ditching firefox over tos, telemetry, AI, CEO pay, etc. are cutting off their nose to spite their face. Do i wish mozilla would stop doing stupid shit? Of course. But the alternative is far worse. Dont let perfect be the enemy of good. Mozilla will never be as ideologically pure as we want them to be, but that’s OK (for now)
Depends on which way the Firefox ditchers jump - jumping to Chrome, yeah… not great. Jumping to more privacy respecting options… it’s your data, you should be able to choose (if you care…)
Read the post above mine… “Privacy respecting options” are almost always downstream forks of firefox. Abandon/kill the source, and downstream dries up
Using a downstream fork only kills the source if the source is funding itself by spying on you.
I suspect Tor Browser would fork and soldier on if Firefox became an unsuitable base.
I share your general reasoning (about staying with Firefox). Except this:
The added benefit of going with one of the downstream forks is that you can be sure they’re not gonna pull some new monetization trick next month. That does count for something.
BUT, again, I share your concerns about security, that’s why I’ll likely stay with Firefox till the end.
It doesn’t count for much, if they do that I can just switch then.
Yes, that’s my thinking. For now it’s acceptable.
Let’s hope it doesn’t get much worse than this. The direction is pretty alarming.
I’ve been using the Firefox mod Zen Browser on Linux Mint. When Firefox released an update in February, my Zen had it the next day. People depending on the “official” Firefox were left waiting over a week, with multiple threads in the forums asking “when is it coming?”
Also when I looked into mods updates for a critical security fix in November, practically all the mods had updated within 24 hours of FF’s update. (Exceptions: Midori and Mercury.) forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?p=2554267&sid=…
Did Zen come from flatpak and Firefox from deb?
Zen: On one machine, Flatpak. On the other, AppImage through AM. Firefox: Mint-maintained version from Mint repo (deb).
I can’t remember the exact differences between Firefox upstream and Mint version. But I believe Mint began maintaining their own deb at a time when upstream Ubuntu was only offering Firefox as a snap, which Mint is against, and Mozilla hadn’t yet begun offering their own deb repo.
That’s where the delay comes. Though I guess it does point out that even with just Firefox the differences are small in how quickly you get updates.
Maybe it’s just me, but I can’t really see how they can be better beyond philosophical reasons.
I guess bringing back stuff like the proper dropdown menu we had in the 2000s would be an example, but I don’t expect most of them to do something like that.
I expect most of them to have some kind of gimmick that isn’t relevant to how I use a web browser.
Privacy, simply better, better anti-fingerprinting. Sure you can do it with stock Firefox but it’s just simpler to have a pre-hardened browser
What privacy and fingerprinting concerns are there with Firefox?
Lol. That’s not a reason, ya goof.
Explore the Arkenfox user.js and you’ll see all things that can be improved in Firefox
I’m good.
Mullvad browser, simply I used to used hardened Firefox but a pre-hardened one is so much more efficient
Firefox. Read the new statements on their website and the Full diff of the pull request. Not concerned at all.
Edit: pumped for ladybird, but its gonna be a few years until that is finished
Same. I’m not worried, just confused by the new language. It seems unnecessary, but I could end up being flat wrong.
I wish Mozilla would refocus on improving Firefox instead of the AI nonsense they’ve pursued lately. They havent been perfect, but if i’m going to give any faceless entity the benefit of the doubt, it’s Mozilla.
That said, i want the forks to thrive. Librewolf is pretty good. I might check out Pale Moon again to see what has(n’t) changed.
Waterfox is also good from what i remember. I used a build of it with KDE global menu support on OpenSuse for years, and i was happy with it the whole time.
RIP TenFourFox. Hopefully a new fork will emerge for powerpc and other retro computers
I read the new language to mean: they are going to record your input streams and feed them to AI/LLM - thereby recording your previously private info that they used to discard and protect. Up to you, I use Chrome because it integrates well with the gmail account I’ve used for 25+ years and I appreciate the “login anywhere and get your same setup” functionality, as well as the ability to nuke remote login sessions.
You can login with firefox and have the same setup anywhere as well. it’s really convenient to share tabs between mobile and workstation
Mostly fennec (firefox) on android but there are concerning news every half year about firefox. No idea how long I can withstand.
Vanadium is my alternative but it has no (good) browser tab overview (list instead of huge squares). And bottom navigation is sub par as well. Brave would be better in that regard but vanadium is rock solid.
As soon as firefox drops ublock, I’m out. For me, that day is still far away, but I guess it’s inevitable. You can’t trust firefox not chaning their path anymore. :'( .
Myself i run “Firedragon” which is a fork of floorp. As for why its mostly because it came with the distro i run (garuda linux) and it works nicely so i didnt really feel i had to swap it.
Firefox. Google removed a valuable addon from their store without justifiable reason and kept it removed because there’s not sufficient backlash.
The addon is AdNauseam. It’s an improvement on uBlock Origin that clicks ads in addition to hiding them.
Ubo prevents ad resources from being loaded, not loading / rendering ads at all makes a major difference in battery and bandwidth usage in my experience. Most notably bandwidth usage drops by %90 in most extreme cases.
Firefox with Arkenfox. I’m not going to help the Chromium monopoly. The changes suck, but oh the hell well.
Edit: Switched to Librewolf because I was too lazy to reinstall Arkenfox. It’s great!
Zen as main driver because of its features that are on par with Chromium-based Vivaldi browser, and LibreWolf on “older” machines or systems that require stability/consistency. Both are awesome to me. On Android plain Firefox remains pleasant to use, but open to suggestions.
Librewolf & waterfox are fantastic. Zen is interesting but it takes some work if you are used to firefox/Librewolf. Ladybird isn’t out yet 🫠
Been using zen for a few days with ublock, no issues so far but I might go back to librewolf soon even though it feels less modern. It just feels safer, idk tbh
I moved to LibreWolf back when Mozilla announced AI features
I appreciate its privacy-focused approach
I think there is a generaal consensus to say it’s not ARC
great point
Zen Browser I love it :)
Still Firefox. Every time Mozilla does anything the entire privacy community goes insane. The terms of use they published seem entirely benign, and the only thing anyone can actually point to is the “direction being worrisome”. Well, I’ll get worried when they update the terms to be actually onerous. Everything even possibly annoying can be disabled, and it’s still the only browser engine offering competition against Chrome ruling the web.
I don’t see how you could find the terms not concerning and their removal of stating they don’t sell data
It’s easy you just don’t worry too much about it. Is this a completely dumbass, reality avoidant coping strategy? You be the judge
Well, yes.
What in the terms is concerning? They still have the bulk of the language in the old data privacy guarantee as well. This seems like they just got a more circumspect legal department who wants to cover their ass.
It’s always been the case that Mozilla could decide to just make Firefox suck ass. Again, I’ll be worried when they actually change the terms to something unacceptable.
Everything is just a skin of either Chrome or Firefox. Until recently, all browser on iPhone were a skin of Safari. Ladybird is the exception.
Gnome browser and Konqueror are WebKit based like safari is
LibreWolf
I use Librewolf as my daily driver, however it breaks a lot of websites. We had to purchase plane tickets yesterday and to use regular Firefox.
I was super hyped for Ladybird but there was this weird thing regarding pronouns on their docs (last year?) and no matter the outcome, I just decided to not follow it anymore.
I have Chromium installed for things that break even on regular Firefox and for comparing websites when I need.
On mobile (grapheneOS), I am currently using Firefox Nightly, I think because it was the only one I was able to install extensions from custom repositories, I am not sure if that’s still the case. I know I can (and should use) Vanadium, but I always miss my FF extensions when I do it. I play a lot of things so I love when I am automatically redirected from Fandom to a Breeze wiki instance, for example.
I never tried any other browsers of the list, and honestly I am very curious on the differences between Librewolf and Waterfox. Wasn’t able to do the research by myself yet.
I’m a very recent linux convert, coming from windows where I was using Vivaldi and I quite like it. But… are there reasons to switch to something else?
I use firefox and am actively looking to change to something, potentially librewolf.
Edit: just installed librewolf. it’s super clean and I’m glad I got it. replaced firefox almost instantly.
I like librewolf but for me video is so incredibly slow. Is anyone else having this issue?
Have you tried enabling webgl, which by default is disable on Librewolf? You can do that by overwriting the corresponding setting, as it can be done for any Librewolf setting, in particular the webgl override needed is:
defaultPref("webgl.disabled", false);If you do, Librewolf recommend using the extension “CanvasBlocker” given the fingerprinting allowed by webgl. There’s a settings doc BTW…
I haven’t but maybe make a post if the other guys comment to enable webgl didnt work.
Using a firefox derivative I dont think is a good option as it will always be behind on security updates… I guess I am going to wait until the Orion Beta / software comes to Linux which was announced recently. Orion is a WebKit based browser that is on iphone / mac
Falkon, because it’s fully integrated to KDE. Though I wish an actual Qt web browser running Gecko (or Servo, maybe one day) existed.
My issue is that while i am concerned about privacy, i’m more concerned with security patching. And none of these smaller browsers have the resources to turn around security fixes as quickly as firefox or chrome.
Firefox is the least of the concerns as long as we have the config options to disable anything deemed not privacy-respecting.
This is the only good critique in this entire thread (thank you) BUT librewolf is on the exact same version as Firefox. It appears their updates are pretty fast.
Would you have config recommendations beyond the obvious?
I’m probably not the best person to talk to about Firefox hardening. Because… I don’t. I only go as far as using firefox containers.
My threat model is to counter:-
I use a VPN for the first three, and I use Ublock, and don’t use google/meta/twitter/amazon/ebay for last.
I personally believe it is impossible to escape fingerprinting unless you’re on Tor Browser, but using Tor paints you as a target in my country per the first item above.
I also work in financial services, and am a user of my company’s product. We do significant ‘device intelligence’ and ‘behavioral intelligence’ on client devices, auth attempts, and actions taken in sessions. Log in too many times from too many different (seemingly) devices, user agents, IP addresses, regions, etc and it increases our customer risk assessment of you. Tick over a threshold and your account falls under enhanced customer due diligence. Tick over another threshold, and we’ll set auto-blocks until we can investigate. I assume that any other financial services provider worth their salt would do the same to counter fraud, money laundering, and meeting sanctions.
I basically use a split tunnel VPN. VPN traffic for general browsing, email, etc. And looking as much as a regular user as possible when accessing financial services, government websites, etc.
And yeah, agree LibreWolf is great. Only downside for the average user is the lack of an auto-updater. So the only tweak i’d do with LibreWolf would be to set up a cron/systemd timer to update it nightly.
Thank you for typing this out! :) It was helpful
https://qutebrowser.org/ and Librewolf
Not sure what you mean by Zen being a skin. Its a fork in the same way Librewolf and Waterfox are forks.
As of late using konqueror, it quite bs-less
Firefox. And Thunderbird. And donate to Mozilla.
Don’t really see the point in using a fork that, by the time you boil it down, just takes Firefox’s work and then releases it later.
I want a Google and Apple alternative and I’d rather support it at the top of the chain.
Gnome browser, I’d use ladybird but it’s not ready yet
Vivaldi. Edge for testing. FF dev edition is garbage. Glitchy, inconsistent, and blunt.
Fx*
Check articFox
I still use firefox despite their questionable leadership, for one major reason: it prevents Google from setting whatever web standards they want. Sites that aren’t standards compliant will usually still work in Chromium-based browsers, but they will break in Firefox, and then I can report the bugs.
Starting yesterday unfortunately Chrome and not Firefox. I just need a working web browser and haven’t had the time to figure out what is wrong with my Firefox installation. I have no clue why but after updating to firefox 135 it eats up all my RAM (20GB+) and uses a significant amount of CPU while idle with only the process monitor tab open. Attempting to browse is unreasonably slow. Refreshing Firefox did nothing, despite now having a Firefox installation which isn’t logged into anything and has no extensions. So I figured that if I’m going to deal with a browser not logged into anything it might as well be Chrome for a bit until I can figure out what the problem is since that’s what all of the internet is designed to work with lately.
Librewolf mainly because that’s the Firefox-type browser that comes with my distro (IceCat is there too, but it’s based on ESR and not frequently updated).
Zen, absolutely love the workflow and the fact that it is not chromium based.
Waiting excitedly for ladybird, it is already very impressive but still years left until it is daily drive able
I like zen a lot but I’m struggling to drag a tab from one window to another. The sidebar always collapses on the target window before the tab gets there. Any tips?
Perhaps right click on the sidebar -> disable compact mode? I haven’t had any issues moving tabs between windows, but then again I keep the sidebar persistent
Basically a firefox skin, although they have a VPN as a sponsor, did somebody did a thorough check on that browser?
I use Firefox as my main browser. I use the multi-account containers extension in Firefox to seperate my browsing activities. Brave is installed as a backup in case firefox fails me. I use TOR browser for searching for stuff that I don’t want linked to me.
I use Librewolf, I manage passwords with pass and rofi. Hoppefuly AIs will write a new FOSS web browser. I read here and here that the web standards are too big to be implemented by humans.
the GNU pass encrypt using gpg? How do you transfer between devices, using cloud?
It is that software. www.passwordstore.org I still backup in an external dd but there are ways to store them online, like a git repository as instance.
interesting, so you just back up your ~/.password-store directory? You use the same thing on Android or something else?/
I am using KeePass, it generates password and also TOTP. Works fine but I want to switch to something more Linuxy. Keepass is great but you really depend on a 3rd party.
I m not experienced but this video shows a way to use pass.
m.youtube.com/watch?v=7t5M4FXqs9E&pp=ygUWZ2l0IHBs…
Ungoogled chromium, sadly FF has been getting worse over the years (partially because it is getting worse and partially because web developers happen to ignore it’s existence) also Chromium has superior security.
I’m hopeful about the future of ladybird but it will take a long time until it is a possible daily driver.
I hadn’t heard that before. Do you have a source that I can read up more on it?
grapheneos.org/usage#web-browsing
…github.io/firefox-chromium.html
Fx* has been getting worse
I use several, depending on use case:
Do you script it so when it is an Ebay/Amazon link, Libre Wolf is opened? Or you just remember to do so?/
I was thinking of switching to one of the Firefox forks but have only tried Waterfox so far and not super impressed. I guess Firefox is the best out of the bad bunch until I find an alternative I like.
Librewolf is pretty much standard hardened Firefox. So you should feel right at home with that one
Thanks I’ll give it a go
Interesting. What did you dislike about waterfox?
The UI and dialogue boxes look a bit dated, not sure why
Ah fair enough, can’t argue with personal preference.
You sure you weren’t using waterfox classic though? That has a more dated UI than the current version.
I personally use librewolf anyway, but waterfox is still a pretty decent step up from Firefox, privacy-wise.
I’ll give librewolf a go. Can I just copy my profile with all my extensions across?
Librewolf looks exactly the same to me
Still using Firefox but looking to move to LibreWolf
On pc I use both librewolf and firefox
On mobile I use mull, fennec, and vanadium if for some reason they want something chromium based
The Gnome browser (epiphany?) is actually quite good. But when I’m on windows I use Zen. On GrapheneOS I use IronFox.
I also recently tested Ladybird. It’s still not usable for daily use, but I’m excited for it.
Firefox, while I dislike their new FAQ and TOS I build it from source and the TOS does not apply.
I wish they would make Firefox Sync a self hostable product that they also host for you for like 5 bucks a month. I would pay for it (or any other way to directly give money to FX instead of Mozilla) like I do for Bitwarden.
Aren’t their services you can use to sync bookmarks and such like Floccus?
Yes, but I actually would pay them for their services if they guarantee me that they will use that money to improve Firefox and Firefox services. I want to be a premium user of Firefox, but instead of trying to monetize their core userbase they annihilate them.
I actually like their advertising business idea and their other services and I understand that they need money but is whay they are doing right now really the best way?
Switched to Librewolf on Linux and Ironwolf on Android. But looking forward to Ladybird!
Do you mean IronFox or is there another fork I didn’t know yet
Firefox on Desktop. Chrome or Vanadium on Mobile.
Brave.
Because I installed it when it was pre-alpha version. Ended up to an ugly window with just an addresse bar. I though “this shit will never worked, yet another utopistic project, too bad…”
Then, came back 2 years later, gave him a 2nd chance and “OMG ! They fucking did it !”. So I keep it as a redemption for not having believed in the project at first.
…Brave is just chromium by techbros, right?
cryptobros
I have found Mozilla’s sync across devices handy, but now I’m in the process of moving over to using Vanadium on my GrapheneOS phone and FireDragon on desktop.
FireDragon started out as a Librewolf fork, but is more recently based on Floorp. They are still keeping in sync with Librewolf’s privacy enhancements, with some of their own thrown in. I like that the default search engine is Garuda’s instance of Searx, with Whoogle as another option if you don’t want to self host. FireDragon will also sync your Firefox account off Garuda’s server instance if you like (which would be more useful if I weren’t going with a Chromium fork on mobile). The Garuda project is certainly looking more trustworthy than Mozilla these days.
unholy sentence out of context (1st of second paragraph)
Reminds me of gink
Gotta say, you have a point. Too lost in the privacy sauce to really notice it earlier. ;)
I use Firefox and Chrome as I am not a woke vegan
What do you mean by that
People that complain on little tiny thing
Chrome is proprietary
Yes, this tiny
I use Firefox and I literally am a woke vegan.
Nice
I’ve been using Zen for the past couple days and it’s absolutely spectacular. I really really been enjoying it.
It claims to be a fork of Firefox but there’s still Firefox under the hood and you can tell. But I find that it runs significantly faster than Firefox standard. So who knows. The author seems to be making it as ambiguous as possible so I would think that it’s a soft fork that’s basically stock Firefox with a few minor changes and a new look.
.
Librewolf, it’s Firefox but without the evil.
FF is evil now?
Fx*
I fail to understand the question mark at the end of your sentence.
It’s a casual English language construction of the 90s. It’s equivalent to “FF is evil?” And implies that the writer believes that it didn’t used to be.
Vivaldi because:
If i had to choose something fully floss i would go with librewolf.
I used to use variations of Firefox but I got tired of websites not being compatible so sometimes I use chrome 🤷
I’ve never had that happen. What sort of websites
Poorly-designed ones.
Brave
Should we also be comparing rendering engines?
Fennec on mobile, haven’t gotten around to replacing FF on Desktop yet.
I use FireDragon, because it’s the only browser I could find that has a vertical tab-bar that collapses. Supposedly Zen does it, too, but I couldn’t get it to work.
FireDragon also has a toolbar to the side with a notepad and other neat stuff. I haven’t used that yet, but it could be cool.
Currently on Firefox with Betterfox and Lepton. I might change it to Librewolf as a base for its better defaults. Ungoogled Chromium flatpak when I need a Chromium browser. Fennec on GrapheneOS for its extension support even if it might not be as secure compared to Vanadium.
Waterfox is based on esr, so quite outdated. Just use librewolf and some css. You have firefox-one that will make it look pretty and similar to zen. Zen is no good if you care about privacy.
How so?
It doesn’t have good privacy defaults and is easily fingerprintable with all the mods and tweaks it has… You will have to use a user.js at least but it will probably not get as good as mullvad or librewolf
Thanks for the info.
Firefox because I don’t fuck around. ublock origin, betterfox, and nextdns. My config ensures there is that one site I need to use ungoogled-chromium for, once a month.