this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2025
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So if you don’t want to use a chromium based browser but also care about privacy, you’re now fucked?
Firefox is open-source. Certainly, you're out of options in terms of "name-brand" browsers, but there's a number of Firefox forks. On desktop, LibreWolf is the closest thing to mainline and on Android, IronFox is the equivalent.
If you want something more than just "Firefox minus the branding and tracking", some of the deeper forks are Zen Browser and Floorp.
Do any of these also have an Android equivalent? I liked being able to browse on my phone and continue on my desktop and vice versa.
There's no technical reason why you need to be using the same-named fork on desktop and Android; they will all communicate via Firefox Sync. e.g. I'm running LibreWolf (desktop) and IronFox (Android) with my data synced, but you could just as easily sync Zen Browser (desktop) and Fennec F-Droid (Android), etc.
That said, if you want to get both browsers from the same team/with the same branding, I think Waterfox is probably your best bet. It doesn't have quite as strong a privacy focus as LibreWolf/IronFox, which both ship with very strict privacy-focussed defaults, which many users will likely roll back. For example, the default setting in LibreWolf is to delete all history and cookies on exit. Even so, Waterfox is more privacy-focussed than upstream Firefox and has released a statement on the Mozilla license changes if you want to get a feel for their perspective.
What happened to Fennec and PaleMoon? Are they no bueno these days?
I can't speak to PaleMoon, but I use Fennec on my phone. My understanding is that they try to track as closely as they can to Firefox main, but with enough changes to be a separate thing.
I've heard nothing negative about PaleMoon either, as far as privacy. I do think it's a bit tougher to recommend to the average user due to its single-process architecture.
The memory footprint is great, but everybody is kind of used to the performance and stability gains from multi-process browsers. I would feel weird recommending somebody coming off Firefox jump to PaleMoon.
I feel weird recommending any Firefox fork other than Iceweasel/Fennec (name change only, pretty much) or Tor/Mullvad Browser. Everything else runs a risk of poor maintenance, which could lead to security vulnerabilities.
If you don't want to use Gecko nor Chromium, I am aware of the following alternatives:
WebKit
Though associated with Apple and Safari, WebKit (@[email protected]) has its origins in KDE and its Konqueror browser. KDE developed its own web engine called KHTML, which was forked into WebKit. It's therefore fully open source, despite the Apple connection.
On Linux you can use WebKit in GNOME Web (formerly Epiphany) or Konqueror. If you're on Mac, Safari is probably your best bet. Windows users appear to be out of luck.
Servo
Servo (@[email protected]) is a brand new Rust-based engine which was originally developed by Mozilla, but which was abandoned by them like good things often are. Thankfully the Linux foundation took over developments. It's still in development, but from their download page you can take it for a spin within seconds on all three major operating systems. It's looking pretty good.
They maintain a list of things made with Servo. The most promising project so far appears to be a browser named Verso.
Ladybird
Ladybird is another development to follow. Unlike WebKit and Servo, Ladybird is being developed as a web browser in its own right, but this browser will come with a completely original rendering engine. It aims to have an alpha released next year, and is largely written in C++.
Funnily enough WebKit was Chromium's original engine.
As someone who has been closely following the development of Servo, today I still learned that Verso and Servoshell are not the only things using Servo.
Librewolf
I just wish it worked on Apple Silicon.
Your wish has been granted. 😁
It’s on the GitHub release page.
I ran it recently on the latest iMac with no issues.
I've seen a lot of advocating for Waterfox that I believe is a fork of FF without corporate shenanigans.
Don't they have a bunch of security issues gone untouched for over a decade now?
I can't find any source on this (although I didn't look to hard, on mobile)
See here, comment by jerm: https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/waterfox-popular-firefox-fork-but-never-discussed-here/18222/4
It has a list of security bugs.
This list is valid but applies to Firefox, not just Waterfox.
Yeah
Does Waterfox (or any of the other forks people are proposing) have apps for iPad OS and Android, and account syncing to enable bookmarks, extensions, and tabs to transfer between devices?
i just put ironfox on my android, and have librewolf for the desktop.
Firefox for iOS ist based on WebKit like Safari. Mozilla stopped porting Gecko over to iOS years ago as Apple's policy doesn't allow anything other that WebKit browsers. Even Google Chrome on iOS uses WebKit.
I don't actually care what backend engine is used (in fact, I have long argued that Mozilla would be better off maintaining a fork of Chromium, and concentrating their effort on keeping good security and privacy features, rather than duplicating work rendering components and implementing JavaScript methods). I care about how my data is used and about the convenience of the experience with features like syncing. If I use Firefox/Waterfox only on my computers, but Chrome on Android and Safari on iPadOS, I don't get synced tabs and bookmarks.
Independent browser engine developers have a say in how web standards evolve. their influence is limited of course, but they use it to keep web open. Google have long been trying to integrate more "advanced" advertisement and data collection technologies directly in web browsers (including imposing it on non-Chromium browser through "open" web standards).
The moment Google has full control of technologies involved they will do everything in their power to make ad blockers technically impossible (or at least extremely complicated and inefficient) and data collection mandatory, integrated directly in Chromium. And they will do so in such a way that most websites will simply not work on Chromium forks with these "features" disabled, so everyone will be forced to comply.
Waterfox and IronFox are both on Android. I'm not aware of any Firefox forks for iOS, but I've never really looked into it, either. All Firefox forks that I'm aware of are compatible with Firefox Sync. If you don't trust Mozilla's Firefox Sync service (and personally, I think it's fine: being end-to-end encrypted, Mozilla can't see what you have in Sync regardless), you can also self-host your own Firefox Sync server.
Ah thanks for this. That's really good to know. I was a little concerned that syncing your tabs in Firefox might be precisely one of those things that they're talking about with this new update.
Oh, that's really cool! Do they have a Docker image for that? (Or even better, a Synology package?)
Yep, a Docker image, instructions in the readme: https://github.com/mozilla-services/syncstorage-rs#running-via-docker
I don't know but I doubt it, considering they are privacy oriented and it would be counterproductive to have your data shared to some other third party.
Giving this a try now.
There is always Dillo...
Labybird is currently in development and it's separate from both Chromium and Firefox
yea buts backed by shopify.
Right but it’s not even something one can use or download right now or in the short term so it’s kind of not even worth considering at the moment.