Linux @lemmy.ml

1w ago

Which browser do you use and why?

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.

247 comments

Firefox. Equally concerned as well.
- Looking into Librewolf and Waterfox now!
  
  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.
  
  OK! You've had 1 hour to check them out. :D What's the difference between the two? They're both Firefox forks, right?

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
  
  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.
  
  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

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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
- Basically a firefox skin, although they have a VPN as a sponsor, did somebody did a thorough check on that browser?
- 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

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.

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.

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!

A related conversation can be found here: https://lemmy.ml/post/26534979
- Thanks

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.
  
  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.

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?
  
  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.
  
  Mull browser is deprecated, Ironfox is the community fork

I use Floorp, it's balanced well between looks and privacy, you can't even enable data collection if you wanted to

librewolf for a while now. can reccomend 👍🏿

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?

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

I think there is a generaal consensus to say it's not ARC
- great point

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 use several, depending on use case:
Tor Browser for general and anonymous web browsing (e.g. reading news, looking up stuff, and so on)
Mullvad Browser as a clear web alternative for general use
Librewolf for generally logging into sites with personally identifiable accounts (e.g. to buy stuff)
Ungoogled Chromium for those few sites which only work with a Chromium-based browser, or other specific cases
On Android (GrapheneOS): Tor Browser and Vanadium
All regular browsers have some hardening applied and uBlock Origin installed.
- Do you script it so when it is an Ebay/Amazon link, Libre Wolf is opened? Or you just remember to do so?/

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?

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:-
  ISP data logging
  government filters
  region blocking
  hyper-personalised marketing
  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.

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:
  undefined
  
  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.

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

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.

Gnome browser, I’d use ladybird but it’s not ready yet

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. ;)

Librewolf & waterfox are fantastic. Zen is interesting but it takes some work if you are used to firefox/Librewolf. Ladybird isn't out yet 🫠

https://qutebrowser.org/ and Librewolf

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'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

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.

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.

Still using Firefox. They mean well. Wish I could say the same of chrome.

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.

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.

I moved to LibreWolf back when Mozilla announced AI features
I appreciate its privacy-focused approach

Zen Browser I love it :)

LibreWolf

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?

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.

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

FireDragon because it's the version of Firefox that Garuda ships with and I never saw a reason to change from it.

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

Found this on HN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43200604

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.
  
  It sucks ass, it's just chrome plus some crypto bullshit.
- 20 years with Fx*

Still using Firefox but looking to move to LibreWolf

Not sure what you mean by Zen being a skin. Its a fork in the same way Librewolf and Waterfox are forks.

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 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. https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/24/24279020/browser-company-ai-browser-arc

247 comments