this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2025
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Which browser do you use and why? (lemmy.selfhostcat.com)
submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 10 minutes ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 

Using firefox but concerned now

Read about some alternatives:

Edit 2/28: It seems there is no general consensus if we should switch and/or to what.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 13 hours ago

Practical response.

[–] Vahenir 3 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 19 hours ago (37 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Firefox. Equally concerned as well.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 day ago (5 children)

Looking into Librewolf and Waterfox now!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 22 hours ago

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.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (1 children)

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: https://www.ghacks.net/2025/02/27/mozillas-new-terms-of-use-causes-confusion-among-firefox-users/

[–] [email protected] 15 points 21 hours ago

I think this diff makes it pretty clear its time to run, not walk: https://circumstances.run/@davidgerard/114078708183574404

[–] [email protected] 10 points 19 hours ago

librewolf for a while now. can reccomend 👍🏿

[–] [email protected] 3 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

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. :'( .

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Recent news about Firefox finally got me to go with LibreWolf.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

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).

[–] [email protected] 10 points 23 hours ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

This is my lead contender now that Firefox is shitting the bed. Any downsides?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 12 hours ago

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 https://mullvad.net/en/browser/linux for distro-specific installation instructions.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 14 hours ago (3 children)

Mull browser is deprecated, Ironfox is the community fork

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 day ago (3 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 23 hours ago (1 children)
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