Hi folks - with all the news about Firefox again recently, I want to make sure I am using the right web browser on my linux desktop for my purposes.

I’ve got both Waterfox and Librewolf installed right now. I believe they’re both forks of Mozilla’s Firefox. And I think I understand that Librewolf takes privacy the most seriously, with everything it can locked down or disabled, whereas Waterfox is more locked down than Firefox but not to the same extreme as Librewolf. Do I have that right?

If so, are there any better browsers for a linux desktop user, not necessarily based on FF? What are your favorites?

My criteria for a desktop browser are:

  • well maintained (it doesn’t have to get updates all the time, but routinely is good enough)
  • privacy focused (more than FF or certainly more than anything based on Chrome)
  • uses an engine other than Chromium
  • FOSS

Thanks for any ideas!

  • BigBolillo@mgtowlemmy.orgdeleted by creatorEnglish
    0·
    11 months ago

    On my main phone I’m using brave which doesn’t meet your requirements, but on my second phone I’m using Fennec I believe it meet the requierements.

  • cecilkorik@piefed.caEnglish
    0·
    11 months ago

    I’ve used both and while Waterfox is pretty good, Librewolf is superior. It’s more aggressive in its privacy settings by default, you can either tone that down or learn to work with it (I recommend the latter, which takes some effort and is a different way of doing things, treating privacy as something you have to actively opt-out of on a case by case basis, which will benefit you in the long run).

    Unlike Waterfox, Librewolf has also never had a problem where it “accidentally” sold itself to an advertising company and then changed its mind, but even despite Waterfox’s strange and concerning escapades with System1, I still think Librewolf is simply better on its own merits, nevermind its moral purity.

    • sem@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      0·
      11 months ago

      Is there a way to have one installation of “locked down” librewolf for private browsing, and then a second one with compatibility settings for web-apps where you are logged in, etc? Coexisting on the same system?

      • cecilkorik@piefed.caEnglish
        0·
        11 months ago

        The most compartmentalized setup would be to run librewolf --ProfileManager as a command to start the profile manager, you can set up multiple profiles, and it will either prompt you at startup, or you can create shortcuts for each profile with librewolf -P <profilename>. Each one is basically a completely different instance, with different settings, different history, and different addons.

        Personally, I think that’s overkill, but it may suit you.

        The approach I’d recommend, is to leave the default settings on, and once you spend enough time setting up your exceptions and umatrix configuration for the sites you do want to be logged in at or buy stuff with, you can get the best of both worlds in one profile, but admittedly that takes a little more know-how and work, and it sometimes feels like it never ends, but it does get much better once you’ve got 95% of your typical stuff sorted out.

        • sem@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
          0·
          11 months ago

          There are some things I couldn’t figuRe out how to turn off on a site by site basis, namely Resist Fingerprinting. And some sites I needed weren’t working with it on.

          I’ll try the profiles

    • BassTurd@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      11 months ago

      The only reason I stopped using Librewolf is because it has to install from binaries on update and that took a non-igsignificant amount of time on at least Arch.

      I didn’t love the extra overhead from the security, but I would do it if it didn’t mean 15 min updates seemingly every couple of days. Maybe I’m an anomaly and was doing something wrong, and I’d love to hear if others have something better, but I just try to adjust my behaviour accordingly.

  • DeltaWingDragon@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
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    11 months ago

    If you don’t care about extensions, try some of those “DE default” browsers that never seem to be actual defaults. The ones like GNOME Web, Falkon, Konqueror, Midori (it was the default on one XFCE system once).

  • Maeve@kbin.earth
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    11 months ago

    I’ve been extremely pleased with librewolf, and never disable ootb settings.

  • LEM 1689@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
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    11 months ago

    Ive used Mullvad browser on my laptop for a while now for general purposes, It comes with ublock and noscript. I use Librewolf secondarily, and Firefox with noscript blocking everything for sites I want to limit anything but the main site.

    https://mullvad.net/en/browser

    • perishthethought@piefed.socialOPEnglish
      0·
      11 months ago

      Coolio thanks. I am a happy Mullvad VPN user so I will check this out next. It’s good to see it uses the Gecko engine, not chromium under the hood.

  • Fit_Series_573@lemmy.worldEnglish
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    11 months ago

    Check out Orion. Still in beta for Linux but still pretty good so far from my experience so far. Flawless for anyone on any ios devices or Mac since its build with webkit like Safari.

  • klu9@piefed.socialEnglish
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    11 months ago

    I used Floorp (Firefox mod) and Firedragon (formerly based on Librewolf, now on Floorp), don’t know if they are cutting out the AI cruft. They have other privacy features, mainly their choice of default settings.

    I’m currently using Zen (Firefox mod), which made a statement:

    We noticed a rising interest regarding the use of AI in browsers. To be clear about our position on this: Zen currently is disabling all AI features included in Firefox and will continue to do so.

    https://ohai.social/@zenbrowser@floss.social/115731119727477276

    • klu9@piefed.socialEnglish
      0·
      11 months ago

      And for a full-on fork (as opposed to mod) of Firefox, there’s also Pale Moon, which forked away from Firefox years ago. (I have it as a backup.)