Or even better, a fork of Firefox which disable all that telemetry crap and bundle with uBlock Origin : LibreWolf.
but hardened firefox 😏
Shut up, you godless furry
This!
Godless furry bot: when
Is it as simple to use out of the box as Firefox or does it require some tinkering first?
No tinkering required, technically you could achieve the same result with regular Firefox + tinkering.
It’s as simple out of the box but with a greater focus on privacy with telemetry off and the pocket integration disabled.
Can confirm. Started using it yesterday after another comment. It's pretty much plain FF, so works well right out of the gate. I enabled some features in the setting like Firefox sync and allow DRM media, but I'm really liking it.
I've found that it might not work on banking sites because of the fingerprinting protection. Be warned, if you try to use on banking sites, you may be locked out. I suggest you do all banking and stuff on a separate browser that saves cookies and tracks you.
I don't use banking websites, I just use the app so can't confirm. I would imagine it'll be down to the default cookie blocking which you can edit in the settings though if it causes issues for you
My banks app is not as feature full as the website
LibreWolf is so clean and minimal, whenever I go back to Firefox it feels bloated in comparison.
The new Mullvad browser is even better, and regularly maintained. But a little bit further down on the privacy end of the Spectrum and further from the useability end. Watch out for timezones, that one always gets me!
Mullvad has a browser now? Sweet! I've been a fan of their no nonsense approach to VPN for a while now.
Yeah it's basically TOR browser without the TOR network. Created in direct collaboration with TOR.
Fr, people need to stop the lies that firefox itself is a privacy respecting browser, which it isnt- not since it was bought out years back.
LibreWolf and Mullvad are great examples of Firefox Forks that are ACTUALLY privacy focused browsers.
Bought out? Firefox was never bought out by anyone. What are you talking about?
Stumbled over that last week. There is a company where I buy nearly all my computer stuff from, and I'm a customer for more than 20 years.
I wanted to order parts for a high-end PC, but simply could not add the motherboard to the shopping cart. Everything else was already in there. I called them, and they asked me if I used Firefox. And they told me in no uncertain terms that Firefox was dead and would no longer be supported for "safety and security reasons", I should use Chrome or Edge instead.
If their site is too stupid to cope with Firefox, why the heck does it not tell me about this upfront, e.g. when I try to enter an item into the shopping cart?
I've had a few websites tell me to view their website in Chrome. I just leave, because no way am I putting any kind of personal data into a website run by such incompetent people.
I used to be a web developer. Back 8 years ago, you used to have to do a lot of special tricks to make your website look and function the same in all the browsers. Now, you really don't. Unless you're using some really obscure closed source codec or something, websites literally render and function properly without needing any browser specific code fixes.
There's no excuse, unless you're blocking older versions of every browser for security reasons, which is fine, because browsers update automatically these days, and it's very rare for someone to be running a really old version.
Usually the thing about the webpage not working is just codeword for "we have not tested it and we won't". If you really need to access it, there are some extensions that can change your user agent so the page thinks you are in chromium.
Funnily enough, I can't log into my bank on chrome, but Firefox works just fine.
That sucks.i am not going to not use Firefox, fuck chrome
LOL I work in IT for a rather large company and we are supposed to use FF because it's actually more secure and is more reliable than chromium browsers.
I work at home in the health field and the only browser they have us use for everything is chrome. It makes me laugh honestly.
Firefox rules, people need to smarten up. Hell, Firefox on Android has an Adblock extension. Firefox is what's up.
It's also as fast, if not faster, than Chrome now.
Is Firefox for Android getting faster as expected? Last time, it seems very slow. I might switch back from Vivaldi if tests seem very well.
I recently switched to Firefox Nightly on Android and haven't noticed it being any slower than the previous chromium browser I was using. I did opt to forgo the Dark Reader add-on for it though since that was slowing down webpage rendering a bit.
I recently switched from Opera to Firefox.
I was getting 59 FPS average in Opera, full bore 165 FPS / Hz in Firefox.
I didn't -want- to switch but it's objectively faster, especially on Linux.
The issue for me with Firefox on Android is it would sometimes refuse to load pages when switching back after being suspended from the background and I have no clue why. I'd have to open a new tab and copy the URL to force it to load and it was so frustrating.
I use Brave now (with the promotional stuff off, even though I still don't fully trust them), since it seems to be the only other ad-blocking browser on Android that's even decently easy to use. However, I still use Firefox on Windows with tree style tabs and raindrop.io to sync bookmarks, both of which are god tier productivity tools.
I get this issue every now and then with Chrome.
There's a work around for Firefox nightly that allows installation of any add-on too, eg sponsor block.
The fact that it needs a workaround is still bullshit.
Privacy is like the least important reason I use Firefox. With Microsoft Edge and Opera being based on Chromium now there are just so many of them. With Chromium essentially becoming the de facto standard because everyone uses it that means Google can ignore web standards and just do whatever they want.
It means Google can set the web standards, which is worse.
Everything else I said, sorry if that wasn't clear!
Essentially there are organizations like W3C and IEEE that define standards for how the internet works and how websites behave. All browsers follow these so everything works properly. Let's say you have some idea you want to add to your browser you develop. You do it and tell everyone about it. You don't have many users. Maybe a few sites do it but it isn't really a problem that it doesn't work on other browsers because so few people do it.
Chromium has a massive market share because so many browsers use it as their base. Even Opera and Microsoft Edge which historically have been alternatives to Google Chrome now use Chromium as their base. The danger is that Chromium has such a large user base that they are essentially what the standard is.
As a quick aside, Chromium is the name for the open source base of Google Chrome. Chrome itself is technically not open source. This jus thust in case you or other readers haven't seen that word.
Imagine a world where everyone uses Chromium. Why would you (if you were in charge of Chromium) need to listen to what standards organizations say about how the web should work? You're literally in charge of every browser! You can just add some new features or take some out and every website would have to comply because you (in this hypothetical) truly do control every single web browser on the planet. Their websites would not work otherwise.
Sure, out of the goodness of your heart you might behave and be a good steward but there will always be reasons for you to act against the standards that you don't view as "bad" that other people might think are bad. I'm not saying all standards organizations are perfect and good or anything like that, but I believe I trust them more than Google.
Even if Google never does anything "bad" (naive thinking lol) avoiding the situation where they have that kind of power is a good thing.
To me that's the most important reason to use a non-Chromium based browser. To avoid Chromium becoming the one true browser.
And just for some context, Google has done bad things before with regards to web standards and then having the de facto standard with Chrome. The recent changes to the extension API to neuter ad blocking being a prime example. And we don't even have to speculate and sound like nutjobs. They're a public company. They've said before that ad-blocking is one of the biggest threats to their ad revenue. Not that it feels tin foil hatty to suggest even if they hadn't said it, but they actually have said it in reports.
That it allows Google to destroy the open internet by changing the standards until non-Chromium browsers can't engage with the web.
Oh yeah I fully get that. I think that’s very important too. The reason why I asked is because I thought there was a nifty feature I wasn’t aware of.
That it allows Google to destroy the open internet by changing the standards until non-Chromium browsers can’t engage with the web.
Im glad the websites have a saying in this. If google also owns these all then we are TRULY fucked.
Unfortunately, no, they don't. As Chromium gets more and more wide spread, Google is gaining the power to change the browser standards. Websites will have to comply. If your website suddenly "Breaks" because Google won't allow Chromium load any pages without tracking tags, users will complain to you and not google.
websites not supporting firefox is the site's fault, not the browser's. firefox is not some niche browser. almost every website i have used is fine on firefox, and when it rarely doesnt work (usually bc i have a configured librewolf), i just open brave or whatever.
I just use chrome when it doesn't work since it's such a rare occurrence. There is no reason for me to use chrome on a daily basis.
Not everyone has this luxury, but I just close the website and never use it. So far, I haven't run into anything major that doesn't work with firefox, so this strategy has been working for me so far.
i'd recommend using edge there instead of chrome, because it's the same browser and google is legitimately less trustworthy than microsoft at this point. neither of these companies are the same that they were in the early 2000s, for better or worse
I occasionally switch to chrome as a troubleshooting step when a website doesnt work, and it rarely is firefox the problem.
Im really confused by this sentiment. Ive been using Firefox since like 2007 and I was just a teenager who didn't know any better.
Its been working fine for 16 years now.
Personally, I stopped using Firefox when mobile became my main computing device. When I had shitty phones and mobile browsers were newer, Chrome was much more stable for me than FF. I should try to break the habit and go back to FF now that they are both structurally sound, but by now I have years of stuff saved to and remembered by Chrome. It would be a hassle to switch, and somewhat more control of a portion of my data isn't worth the trouble to me. I'm still gonna use Instagram for professional networking and personal posting, so I'm gonna be in packaged data anyway.
All that stuff you have saved isn't important. You won't even miss what you saved.
That's like not moving into a better home because you don't want to lose what's in your junk drawer in the kitchen.
Edit. Three downvotes with no replies? No one cares to explain thier point of view?
I perpetually want to document and keep things but learning that browsing history, tabs, bookmarks, and cookies are disposable trash that I know I truly don't give a fuck about was enlightening. A clean slate is actually great!
Man, what you said is so true. A few years ago, when I switched from Chrome to Brave (I now use Firefox), one of my worries was losing all the "important" stuff I had saved over the years. As you said, those things weren't important at all, I don't even remember what they were.
For those of you who are like that: change now, you won't regret it and if you really need to save something, just copy/paste those links into a word or any other program.
yeah having all your stuff saved in chrome would make it a hassle. sounds like a rainy day project haha
Even better idea. Wait until about 6pm, open maybe 7 beers and drink them over a four hour time frame. At 10pm, start mixing some cocktails (you can do this beforehand and just store them in the fridge), make sure you have plenty, as over the next 2 hours, you'll need them.
Finally, at 12am, get yourself a nice spirit you enjoy, so maybe a good whisky, a good tequila, a good rum. Anything you like, and start mixing, 50ml alcohol, to about 250ml mixer is what I personally enjoy.
Once you hit 12, just get your things done. Whether it's moving data over. Or just anything that needs to be done. Unless it involves leaving your house. As that may get messy.
This is what I always do when I know I need to get something done. And it hasn't let me down yet.
Oh, and don't forget your favourite music.
Don't forget to speaker phone your ex at some point! Spice that night up baby
Chrome defaultism, and so websites are usually made for Chrome, often disregarding testing on Firefox completely, and so they work a bit worse here and there
Also no Google connectivity
Huh, I haven’t really noticed any differences since making the switch. What do you mean by google connectivity?
I dragged my feet for a long time before switching from chrome to firefox a year or two ago for that exact reason. When I actually did switch it was practically seamless, I haven't run in to any website that has been problematic on firefox but not on chrome. The only thing i dislike is that i haven't found a way to have a custom newtab-page but still be able to directly input text to the navbar, so i always have to do ctrl+t -> ctrl-a.
By custom new tab what are you looking for? You can make the new tab display your home page, I think a blank page, and with extensions you can make it do almost anything with a new tab.
What sites have issues with Firefox? I've been using firefox exclusively since 06 besides trying chrome for 2009-2010 and never had any issues. Not saying they don't exist but it seems like a very small amount that won't function at all.
People always bring this up like it's a major issue to avoid Firefox and it's just not even remotely true. I'm a long-term Firefox user like you and I can count on one hand the number of sites I've had problems with over the many years I've been browsing. For those very rare cases, I just use Brave to access the site. Problem solved. This idea that if the alternative isn't 100% perfect, it is therefore completely unusable and the only realistic option is returning to big tech surveillance just needs to die already.
Anything containing WebGL and anything containing complex CSS/JS animations comes to mind, also Canvas (even though it rarely used, still lags like a motherfucker), Firefox really suffers in that regard, but they recently promised that they will fix it; and I remind you that because of hardware decoder legal ussues Firefox sucked very hard at 4K and 120 Hz YouTube on Linux for a long time too
There are others, commonly created because Firefox focuses on privacy, and so, for example, all internal website timers can only count by 0.1 seconds because anything less will open you to tracking vunerabilities, often settings sacrifice performance for data safety like this
Also no Google connectivity
I wish people would see this as a feature, not a drawback.
Chromium could be spying on you, as it communicates with google servers. You should use ungoogled-chromium, and hope they did a good job...
::: spoiler spoiler
or just use Firefox
:::
Using ungoogled-chromium still contributes to Google's browser engine monoculture.
That's kind of awesome actually. I've been looking to replace brave for a while now while retaining the chromium feel.
Perhaps I'm missing something but I've been a Firefox user for years- at work and home. I have yet to find a website that misbehaves or under-performs.
Mayyybe a few sites here and there a fractions of a second slower or have slightly less acceleration or something that I'm just not noticing?
Without Firefox and its ??forks?? like LibreWolf, the internet would be a total Chromium monopoly at this point, wouldn't it? That would be bad..
I've been daily driving Firefox since 3 years ago, the only time it doesn't load a site properly is when I lost internet connection mid-loading. Some people keep saying some sites don't work with FF and yet none of them was able to give a single example.
The Oklahoma Natural Gas website sometimes won't let me pay my bill if I'm using Firefox.
I actually had to install ungoogled-chromium to change my email on PayPal. No other browser would work, it was weird. That's the only instance I can remember where I've had to try Chrome. Otherwise I FireFox has worked fine. Wonder what happened there.
I've used ha no issues with paypal on Firefox, odd
Some websites do poorly on it. However it's rare and easy enough to just open it in a different browser. I've used Firefox for over 15 years and it's not a serious issue. Usually bad government websites or shitty corporate webapps.
I've had some "Apply to Job" buttons on job sites not display in Firefox but show up fine in Chrome/Safari.
I’m a die-hard Firefox user (in part because I’m a web developer and prefer the dev tools). But I have seen a couple of sites that only work with Chromium-based browsers. Both are owned by Microsoft, though, so I assume they’re breaking things on purpose to push Edge or something. There’s no significant features Firefox is missing. (Safari is the problem child for web developers now. They tend to be last to support new CSS/JS features.)
Same here, only I use a few different browsers between work and home. I've never once had to skip over to a different browser because Firefox couldn't do it. Only thing that ever stops a website from working for me is uBlock Origin, and that just means it's usually doing its job.
If it really has to be a Chromium browser, Vivaldi will do the trick.
And if you REALLY take security seriously, LibreWolf is based on Firefox but without the annoying stuff from Mozilla attached to it.
Vivaldi a privacy respecting browser? It's closed source and barely has any concern on the matter.
Nah, they have a big concern on that matter. Not collecting or selling your data is one of their main selling points lol.
Also, while not completely open source, the main changes they do to the chromium base is open for everyone
Not collecting or selling your data is one of their main selling points lol.
And.. how can we trust that claim?
Just use Librewolf. Problem solved. If you want some gimmicky stuff that Vivaldi provides, that's fine. Just know that it's not as private as Librewolf is. It's default privacy measures are subpar at best.
I personally trust Vivaldi because they haven't slipped up once so far. Besides the open source dispute, it's easily the least controversial company.
Closed source browser run by a company? No thanks.
Also me. Mull + Librewolf combo, portmaster and etc/hosts to block adware, malware and nsfw. I feel free.
And a pihole for the other people on my network who can't quite let go of some apps and services.
After a weekend where the whole family was there, my pihole displayed that 57% of all connections where blocked.
57%
No one complained about anything not working.
57% of all connections were completely and utterly unnecessary to the actual services that were being used.
That is just wild.
God, I wish there was less monopolies in the world, I hate when there is no alternative other than a product developed and maintained by evil corporation that profits off of selling my data.
Anyway, the only browser that everyone should use is Chrome, if you don't use Chrome you're dead to me.
Buddy we have something called suckless you know, USE FUCKING SURF
I use firefox for obvious privacy reasons but also because I can customize the UI. Chromium's interface is oversized, ugly, and locked down while on firefox I can change any aspect of it using my own CSS.
Also addons against ads which Google obviously wouldn't allow on their crap browser.
I initially read your comment as "I use firefox for obvious piracy reasons" and thought "yeah, that's fair".
After the quantum update i switched to firefox, as now in performance it is almost on par with chrome or sometimes better.
I remember I switched to chrome way back when chrome was first becoming popular because of its speed compared to Firefox in like 2010 or something. Firefox caught up within a year and I have never missed Chrome for a second.
Oh, I was similar. When Chrome was new I liked it, but it seems to be vulnerable to get these weird superfluous add-ons that I may have acquired through malicious links. When I switched to Firefox I wasn't as suseptible to malware, and the speed was just as good.
it kinda pisses me off that Chromium is the default browser on Raspbian.
I believe it's because vanilla chromium doesn't come with widevine or any of the closed source DRM binaries. Raspberry Pi org takes a pretty strong stance on open source.
There is no privacy on chromium, it phones home to Google a lot and those communications are encrypted so you will never really know what data is being sent but assume Google can link everything you do in Chromium to you.
Users who think they are "ungoogling chromium" are fooling themselves.
All the commercial browser reeleases like Mullvad browser, Brave or duckduckgo browsers are just window dressing.
Firefox or its children really are the only option.
Mullvad Browser sue Firefox as base not Chromium
Specifically speaking it branches off tor browser bundle which itself is modified firefox-esr.
Ungoogled Chromium doesn't send data to Google servers, if that's what you are implying it is misinformation.
Also, Chromium is open source - you can very easily know what is being sent. I appreciate privacy awareness, but not baseless fearmongering.
I hate Google and Chromium's dominance on the browser market as much as the next person, but this is straight up false information.
Chromium itself is open source, it is 100% possible to make forks that remove all Google telemetry, and such forks do exist.
Mullvad is based on Tor Browser.
Correction: Mullvad is based on Firefox, and Tor is also based on Firefox.
Just wondering as a Mac user without much experience: how is Safari in terms of privacy compared to say Firefox?
If a lack of privacy is like being nude in public, Apple is an expensive bouncer at an expensive club where you take your clothes off for free in front of people who pay apple a cover charge, because Apple promised them you have the biggest tits.
It's kinda flattering, but is it really privacy?
I don't think u need to worry to much about ur browser when ur os is always sending info in the background.
What info? god knows, but its concerning how it increased after apple introduced his plan to do some shady Facebook like business just after u guessed, blocking Facebook for doing the same without giving him his part of the cake.
when ur os is always sending info in the background.
Flashback to the Windows 10 launch, when typing anything while the resource manager was open revealed a small spike in internet traffic.
No clue what actually happened in the background, but it was consistent over multiple friends computers. Very fun.
I have a vendetta against Chromium because of Valve having to cease support for older OSes. They did that because of Chromium being built into the Steam client.
Firefox is also going to stop supporting Windows 7, are you going to develop a vendetta against it too?
Older OSes are unsupported for a reason.
Firefox 115 is the last version to support Windows 7, so Valve using Gecko instead of Blink wouldn't have made a difference here. Maybe it's time to move on from a 14 year old operating system on the internet with known zero-day exploits that aren't going to get patched.
Ungoogled Chromium exists but it just feels 1/10 of what Firefox is capable of doing.
There is also UnMozilla'd Firefox for even more privacy!
You mean like icecat, librefox or using user.js
Is Fennec on Android like that? Still developed by Mozilla, but has all branding, telemetry and firefox-account stuff removed (even comes with duckduckgo as default search engine)
Can someone make a comment on if and how chromium development changed since Edge uses it?
I often hear that Google dictates chormium dev, but what about MS? Are they doing dev work, too?
But sadly, in privacy matters their interests are likely aligned, so that we can expect to be it further hollowed.
they're 100% doing dev work at ms, afaik their contributions are public because chromium is an open source project. and i think it would be very beneficial for larger amounts of people to use edge (only if they're dead set on not using firefox though) because having two different companies compete on that is still better than just having google have a monopoly.
Pleading ignorance here and genuine questions. Is anyone, within the context of browsers able to define privacy and what it is that FF does that is superior to other say, Chromium based browsers? And what the real world effects are of not using FF for the purpose of privacy? Either reply or point to sources on the Web would be much appreciated.
Chrome is run by an ad company with a vested interest in your data and has been outspoken about banning adblockers in the past.
Firefox is a completely open source project run by a non-profit organisation who accepts donations to cover costs.
Other Chromium-based browsers can generally be fine but the overuse of chromium reinforces web standards that are hard to reproduce. A web browser is a fairly complex beast these days even for the best programmers. Just see XMPP for an example of where things could lead to.
While it's true that Firefox receives some of those donations from Google for being the default search engine, they have no influence over decisions made by the Firefox team whatsoever. That's the short version of it.
As I understand it, you can make a Chromium browser just as privacy friendly as Firefox. I use Vivaldi on my home PC and mobile which is strongly privacy focused and has a ton of small QoL features neither Chrome nor Firefox has (I use both at work, prefer FF over Chrome). (Going off the tangent here) for example, it's incredibly easy to re-open recently closed tabs in Vivaldi with just two clicks—a feature I use all the time—as the recently closed tabs list is very obvious and easy to access in the tab bar itself without the need to futz around in the menus to find browsing history. The customizable speed dial, sidebar menu for things like bookmarks and downloads are really nice and the download manager in Vivaldi is IMO better than FF, too.
The bigger problem is Google having defacto monopoly over browser market and thus having too much influence over how web standards work and how the user can browse the web (I'm old enough to remember "This web page is best viewed on Internet Explorer" messages on websites). The move to manifest v3 to curb content blockers is one such example.
Thanks for your reply. I am a Vivaldi user myself currently after trying numerous browsers over the years. I was trying to reconcile in my mind what am I giving up in terms of privacy for my choice. I do tend to lean on and learn from other more knowledgeable myself. I do have a few privacy related extensions installed. But you touch on something there that extends further than personal privacy but Googles influence on web standards, good one.
I'm sure you can just Google what the benefit of using Firefox is. When "privacy" is talked about in terms of web browsers and apps, it's mainly about blocking trackers. Ad companies inject trackers into websites and apps, which collect your data. Google has their own ad company, and by using Chrome, you're supplying them with personal information without them even having to pay. Firefox doesn't sell your information. They also have many extensions available that will block any data collecting attempts from websites.
Duck Duck Go is even more secure. The whole point of their browser is for user privacy. Their app even blocks other apps from tracking you. You'd be amazed by the data collected by apps. My fucking shopping list app has trackers from multiple companies.
Yeah I could google it but sometimes I also like to converse and ask questions. Hence why we're here.
Thanks for explaining, I have prior understanding of what most you mentioned, Im just hazy how it relates to browser choice since you can block with extensions on most if not all browsers. So if someone is using any chromium based browser, you info is still going to google or is that exclusive to Chrome?
Might need to use chrome so I can blur my video background on google meet. Firefox not a supported browser for video filters. Ungh.
Firefox is the last good browser.
Might need to use chrome so I can blur my video background on google meet. Firefox not a supported browser for video filters. Ungh.
That's exactly what Google wants you to do, when it writes its software to anti-competitively discriminate against Firefox users. Don't let it get away with it.
Mullvad Browser is perfect for privacy. Firefox is good with the extensions too. Both of them are better options when it comes to preserving your privacy.
Librewolf is also magnificent
It is the Tor Browser fot the clearnet, I would also use it for browsing eepsites woth the i2pd server
I committed to opera a long time ago and now I'm too many saved passwords deep on shit websites I've not visited in 4 years to make the change.
Does it run better than it did fifteen years ago? Because that was the reason I switched to Chrome.
of course not, it hasn't been updated for FIFTEEN YEARS and definitely didn't even get an engine upgrade in 2017 let alone a new version half a month ago and a hotfix last week
Damn I've heard Android is really shitty and full of malware that haven't been updated since 20 years ago. I don't know why idiots still buy their shitty androids, iPhone is clearly the superior platform!
/s
Significantly
I switched from Chrome to Firefox somewhat recently. The experience really isn't any different, except Firefox doesn't use 110% of your CPU.
I have a ton of privacy extensions which causes a few issues when creating accounts by linking to your Google account (the pop-up is blocked) or opening redirect links to apps (I think it's only Discord that I've had an issue with). I don't consider those drawbacks because the browser is doing its job. Instead, I go copy and paste the link in Chrome.
Yes. In fact, I'd say that Firefox runs clearly better than Chrome does these days. An inversion of the past.
It doesn't really matter, Apple doesn't allow any third party web-engines, so no matter which browser you are using, you basically get the same privacy standards as safari
Even though Apple is not sharing personal data with third parties, relatively recently they started to use personal data in order to use them on advertisement of their own services. And considering the entire Apple ecosystem(if you are using all devices of course) it is a bit concerning they are using all of those data.
But it doesn't though, not really. There are quite a few things which are still sent back as telemetry. One hell of alot better than chrome but it's still watching you. It's still not respecting your privacy.
There are some privacy respecting browser out there but they're quite inconvenient to use. I haven't found a real reasonable middle ground personally, but altering librewolf or the mulvad browser to keep you signed in has been nice enough for me
To clarify why this is important, this data can be de-anonymized where anonymized and be used for fingerprinting your internet usage. If you're concerned about privacy this is a pretty big red flag, especially if your government is getting this information, which many have and will be able to in the future.
Fingerprinting isn't a perfect system and can incorrectly flag innocent people. Or, if you unfortunately life in the wrong place, whether true or not being flagged as gay/trans or the wrong political party can very much harm you. Texas has asked the government for a list of trans people inside their state, which was denied, what happens when it isn't? what happens when it's not just trans people, and is instead your group? Caution is king.
Do you have any info on what data Firefox sends home? Have been using Firefox forever.
about:telemetry should tell you if its enabled or not and has links that go into more detail about whats collected and their policies.
So assuming you disable all the optional telemetry in the settings, you should be good right?
Yup, you should be good if you do that. There are some tools to create a more private profile and the librewolf/mulvad browsers do just that (while removing the code which would allow a good portion of it in the first place)
To clarify why this is important, this data can be de-anonymized where anonymized and be used for fingerprinting your internet usage. If you're concerned about privacy this is a pretty big red flag, especially if your government is getting this information, which many have and will be able to in the future.
Fingerprinting isn't a perfect system and can incorrectly flag innocent people.
If you unfortunately life in the wrong place, whether true or not being flagged as gay/trans or the wrong political party can very much harm you. Texas has asked the government for a list of trans people inside their state, though the request was denied for now, what happens when it isn't? what happens when it's not just trans people, and is instead your group? Caution is king.
Or even better, a fork of Firefox which disable all that telemetry crap and bundle with uBlock Origin : LibreWolf.
but hardened firefox 😏
Shut up, you godless furry
This!
Godless furry bot: when
Is it as simple to use out of the box as Firefox or does it require some tinkering first?
No tinkering required, technically you could achieve the same result with regular Firefox + tinkering.
It’s as simple out of the box but with a greater focus on privacy with telemetry off and the pocket integration disabled.
Can confirm. Started using it yesterday after another comment. It's pretty much plain FF, so works well right out of the gate. I enabled some features in the setting like Firefox sync and allow DRM media, but I'm really liking it.
I've found that it might not work on banking sites because of the fingerprinting protection. Be warned, if you try to use on banking sites, you may be locked out. I suggest you do all banking and stuff on a separate browser that saves cookies and tracks you.
I don't use banking websites, I just use the app so can't confirm. I would imagine it'll be down to the default cookie blocking which you can edit in the settings though if it causes issues for you
My banks app is not as feature full as the website
Sounds great! Thanks for the info 🙂
LibreWolf is so clean and minimal, whenever I go back to Firefox it feels bloated in comparison.
The new Mullvad browser is even better, and regularly maintained. But a little bit further down on the privacy end of the Spectrum and further from the useability end. Watch out for timezones, that one always gets me!
Mullvad has a browser now? Sweet! I've been a fan of their no nonsense approach to VPN for a while now.
Yeah it's basically TOR browser without the TOR network. Created in direct collaboration with TOR.
Fr, people need to stop the lies that firefox itself is a privacy respecting browser, which it isnt- not since it was bought out years back.
LibreWolf and Mullvad are great examples of Firefox Forks that are ACTUALLY privacy focused browsers.
Bought out? Firefox was never bought out by anyone. What are you talking about?
Stumbled over that last week. There is a company where I buy nearly all my computer stuff from, and I'm a customer for more than 20 years.
I wanted to order parts for a high-end PC, but simply could not add the motherboard to the shopping cart. Everything else was already in there. I called them, and they asked me if I used Firefox. And they told me in no uncertain terms that Firefox was dead and would no longer be supported for "safety and security reasons", I should use Chrome or Edge instead.
If their site is too stupid to cope with Firefox, why the heck does it not tell me about this upfront, e.g. when I try to enter an item into the shopping cart?
I've had a few websites tell me to view their website in Chrome. I just leave, because no way am I putting any kind of personal data into a website run by such incompetent people.
I used to be a web developer. Back 8 years ago, you used to have to do a lot of special tricks to make your website look and function the same in all the browsers. Now, you really don't. Unless you're using some really obscure closed source codec or something, websites literally render and function properly without needing any browser specific code fixes.
There's no excuse, unless you're blocking older versions of every browser for security reasons, which is fine, because browsers update automatically these days, and it's very rare for someone to be running a really old version.
Usually the thing about the webpage not working is just codeword for "we have not tested it and we won't". If you really need to access it, there are some extensions that can change your user agent so the page thinks you are in chromium.
This is the one I use.
Chameleon is another good plugin for this
I use an user agent switcher in those cases. Most of the time it works and I dont have to change the browser.
Funnily enough, I can't log into my bank on chrome, but Firefox works just fine.
That sucks.i am not going to not use Firefox, fuck chrome
LOL I work in IT for a rather large company and we are supposed to use FF because it's actually more secure and is more reliable than chromium browsers.
I work at home in the health field and the only browser they have us use for everything is chrome. It makes me laugh honestly.
I had issues with my banking app and a few other sites that use my personal government issued 2 factor auth..
But only in firefox.
Firefox rules, people need to smarten up. Hell, Firefox on Android has an Adblock extension. Firefox is what's up.
It's also as fast, if not faster, than Chrome now.
Is Firefox for Android getting faster as expected? Last time, it seems very slow. I might switch back from Vivaldi if tests seem very well.
I recently switched to Firefox Nightly on Android and haven't noticed it being any slower than the previous chromium browser I was using. I did opt to forgo the Dark Reader add-on for it though since that was slowing down webpage rendering a bit.
I recently switched from Opera to Firefox.
I was getting 59 FPS average in Opera, full bore 165 FPS / Hz in Firefox.
I didn't -want- to switch but it's objectively faster, especially on Linux.
The issue for me with Firefox on Android is it would sometimes refuse to load pages when switching back after being suspended from the background and I have no clue why. I'd have to open a new tab and copy the URL to force it to load and it was so frustrating.
I use Brave now (with the promotional stuff off, even though I still don't fully trust them), since it seems to be the only other ad-blocking browser on Android that's even decently easy to use. However, I still use Firefox on Windows with tree style tabs and raindrop.io to sync bookmarks, both of which are god tier productivity tools.
I get this issue every now and then with Chrome.
There's a work around for Firefox nightly that allows installation of any add-on too, eg sponsor block.
The fact that it needs a workaround is still bullshit.
Privacy is like the least important reason I use Firefox. With Microsoft Edge and Opera being based on Chromium now there are just so many of them. With Chromium essentially becoming the de facto standard because everyone uses it that means Google can ignore web standards and just do whatever they want.
It means Google can set the web standards, which is worse.
What are the important reasons?
Everything else I said, sorry if that wasn't clear!
Essentially there are organizations like W3C and IEEE that define standards for how the internet works and how websites behave. All browsers follow these so everything works properly. Let's say you have some idea you want to add to your browser you develop. You do it and tell everyone about it. You don't have many users. Maybe a few sites do it but it isn't really a problem that it doesn't work on other browsers because so few people do it.
Chromium has a massive market share because so many browsers use it as their base. Even Opera and Microsoft Edge which historically have been alternatives to Google Chrome now use Chromium as their base. The danger is that Chromium has such a large user base that they are essentially what the standard is.
Imagine a world where everyone uses Chromium. Why would you (if you were in charge of Chromium) need to listen to what standards organizations say about how the web should work? You're literally in charge of every browser! You can just add some new features or take some out and every website would have to comply because you (in this hypothetical) truly do control every single web browser on the planet. Their websites would not work otherwise.
Sure, out of the goodness of your heart you might behave and be a good steward but there will always be reasons for you to act against the standards that you don't view as "bad" that other people might think are bad. I'm not saying all standards organizations are perfect and good or anything like that, but I believe I trust them more than Google.
Even if Google never does anything "bad" (naive thinking lol) avoiding the situation where they have that kind of power is a good thing.
To me that's the most important reason to use a non-Chromium based browser. To avoid Chromium becoming the one true browser.
And just for some context, Google has done bad things before with regards to web standards and then having the de facto standard with Chrome. The recent changes to the extension API to neuter ad blocking being a prime example. And we don't even have to speculate and sound like nutjobs. They're a public company. They've said before that ad-blocking is one of the biggest threats to their ad revenue. Not that it feels tin foil hatty to suggest even if they hadn't said it, but they actually have said it in reports.
That it allows Google to destroy the open internet by changing the standards until non-Chromium browsers can't engage with the web.
Oh yeah I fully get that. I think that’s very important too. The reason why I asked is because I thought there was a nifty feature I wasn’t aware of.
Im glad the websites have a saying in this. If google also owns these all then we are TRULY fucked.
Unfortunately, no, they don't. As Chromium gets more and more wide spread, Google is gaining the power to change the browser standards. Websites will have to comply. If your website suddenly "Breaks" because Google won't allow Chromium load any pages without tracking tags, users will complain to you and not google.
websites not supporting firefox is the site's fault, not the browser's. firefox is not some niche browser. almost every website i have used is fine on firefox, and when it rarely doesnt work (usually bc i have a configured librewolf), i just open brave or whatever.
I just use chrome when it doesn't work since it's such a rare occurrence. There is no reason for me to use chrome on a daily basis.
Not everyone has this luxury, but I just close the website and never use it. So far, I haven't run into anything major that doesn't work with firefox, so this strategy has been working for me so far.
i'd recommend using edge there instead of chrome, because it's the same browser and google is legitimately less trustworthy than microsoft at this point. neither of these companies are the same that they were in the early 2000s, for better or worse
I occasionally switch to chrome as a troubleshooting step when a website doesnt work, and it rarely is firefox the problem.
Im really confused by this sentiment. Ive been using Firefox since like 2007 and I was just a teenager who didn't know any better.
Its been working fine for 16 years now.
Personally, I stopped using Firefox when mobile became my main computing device. When I had shitty phones and mobile browsers were newer, Chrome was much more stable for me than FF. I should try to break the habit and go back to FF now that they are both structurally sound, but by now I have years of stuff saved to and remembered by Chrome. It would be a hassle to switch, and somewhat more control of a portion of my data isn't worth the trouble to me. I'm still gonna use Instagram for professional networking and personal posting, so I'm gonna be in packaged data anyway.
All that stuff you have saved isn't important. You won't even miss what you saved.
That's like not moving into a better home because you don't want to lose what's in your junk drawer in the kitchen.
Edit. Three downvotes with no replies? No one cares to explain thier point of view?
I perpetually want to document and keep things but learning that browsing history, tabs, bookmarks, and cookies are disposable trash that I know I truly don't give a fuck about was enlightening. A clean slate is actually great!
Man, what you said is so true. A few years ago, when I switched from Chrome to Brave (I now use Firefox), one of my worries was losing all the "important" stuff I had saved over the years. As you said, those things weren't important at all, I don't even remember what they were.
For those of you who are like that: change now, you won't regret it and if you really need to save something, just copy/paste those links into a word or any other program.
yeah having all your stuff saved in chrome would make it a hassle. sounds like a rainy day project haha
Even better idea. Wait until about 6pm, open maybe 7 beers and drink them over a four hour time frame. At 10pm, start mixing some cocktails (you can do this beforehand and just store them in the fridge), make sure you have plenty, as over the next 2 hours, you'll need them.
Finally, at 12am, get yourself a nice spirit you enjoy, so maybe a good whisky, a good tequila, a good rum. Anything you like, and start mixing, 50ml alcohol, to about 250ml mixer is what I personally enjoy.
Once you hit 12, just get your things done. Whether it's moving data over. Or just anything that needs to be done. Unless it involves leaving your house. As that may get messy.
This is what I always do when I know I need to get something done. And it hasn't let me down yet.
Oh, and don't forget your favourite music.
Don't forget to speaker phone your ex at some point! Spice that night up baby
Wait, people hate Firefox? Why??
Chrome defaultism, and so websites are usually made for Chrome, often disregarding testing on Firefox completely, and so they work a bit worse here and there
Also no Google connectivity
Huh, I haven’t really noticed any differences since making the switch. What do you mean by google connectivity?
I dragged my feet for a long time before switching from chrome to firefox a year or two ago for that exact reason. When I actually did switch it was practically seamless, I haven't run in to any website that has been problematic on firefox but not on chrome. The only thing i dislike is that i haven't found a way to have a custom newtab-page but still be able to directly input text to the navbar, so i always have to do ctrl+t -> ctrl-a.
By custom new tab what are you looking for? You can make the new tab display your home page, I think a blank page, and with extensions you can make it do almost anything with a new tab.
What sites have issues with Firefox? I've been using firefox exclusively since 06 besides trying chrome for 2009-2010 and never had any issues. Not saying they don't exist but it seems like a very small amount that won't function at all.
People always bring this up like it's a major issue to avoid Firefox and it's just not even remotely true. I'm a long-term Firefox user like you and I can count on one hand the number of sites I've had problems with over the many years I've been browsing. For those very rare cases, I just use Brave to access the site. Problem solved. This idea that if the alternative isn't 100% perfect, it is therefore completely unusable and the only realistic option is returning to big tech surveillance just needs to die already.
Anything containing WebGL and anything containing complex CSS/JS animations comes to mind, also Canvas (even though it rarely used, still lags like a motherfucker), Firefox really suffers in that regard, but they recently promised that they will fix it; and I remind you that because of hardware decoder legal ussues Firefox sucked very hard at 4K and 120 Hz YouTube on Linux for a long time too
There are others, commonly created because Firefox focuses on privacy, and so, for example, all internal website timers can only count by 0.1 seconds because anything less will open you to tracking vunerabilities, often settings sacrifice performance for data safety like this
I wish people would see this as a feature, not a drawback.
I don't hate it, I really want to like it. It's just that I have a rather niche issue that really bugs me and forces me to chromium (or derivatives).
FIDO2 / YubiKey support on Chromium is far superior compared to FF.
Ah gotcha. I don’t use a lot of 2FA outside of duo.
Chromium could be spying on you, as it communicates with google servers. You should use ungoogled-chromium, and hope they did a good job...
::: spoiler spoiler or just use Firefox :::
Using ungoogled-chromium still contributes to Google's browser engine monoculture.
That's kind of awesome actually. I've been looking to replace brave for a while now while retaining the chromium feel.
Perhaps I'm missing something but I've been a Firefox user for years- at work and home. I have yet to find a website that misbehaves or under-performs. Mayyybe a few sites here and there a fractions of a second slower or have slightly less acceleration or something that I'm just not noticing?
Without Firefox and its ??forks?? like LibreWolf, the internet would be a total Chromium monopoly at this point, wouldn't it? That would be bad..
I've been daily driving Firefox since 3 years ago, the only time it doesn't load a site properly is when I lost internet connection mid-loading. Some people keep saying some sites don't work with FF and yet none of them was able to give a single example.
The Oklahoma Natural Gas website sometimes won't let me pay my bill if I'm using Firefox.
I actually had to install ungoogled-chromium to change my email on PayPal. No other browser would work, it was weird. That's the only instance I can remember where I've had to try Chrome. Otherwise I FireFox has worked fine. Wonder what happened there.
I've used ha no issues with paypal on Firefox, odd
Some websites do poorly on it. However it's rare and easy enough to just open it in a different browser. I've used Firefox for over 15 years and it's not a serious issue. Usually bad government websites or shitty corporate webapps.
I've had some "Apply to Job" buttons on job sites not display in Firefox but show up fine in Chrome/Safari.
I’m a die-hard Firefox user (in part because I’m a web developer and prefer the dev tools). But I have seen a couple of sites that only work with Chromium-based browsers. Both are owned by Microsoft, though, so I assume they’re breaking things on purpose to push Edge or something. There’s no significant features Firefox is missing. (Safari is the problem child for web developers now. They tend to be last to support new CSS/JS features.)
Same here, only I use a few different browsers between work and home. I've never once had to skip over to a different browser because Firefox couldn't do it. Only thing that ever stops a website from working for me is uBlock Origin, and that just means it's usually doing its job.
If it really has to be a Chromium browser, Vivaldi will do the trick.
And if you REALLY take security seriously, LibreWolf is based on Firefox but without the annoying stuff from Mozilla attached to it.
Vivaldi a privacy respecting browser? It's closed source and barely has any concern on the matter.
Nah, they have a big concern on that matter. Not collecting or selling your data is one of their main selling points lol. Also, while not completely open source, the main changes they do to the chromium base is open for everyone
And.. how can we trust that claim?
Just use Librewolf. Problem solved. If you want some gimmicky stuff that Vivaldi provides, that's fine. Just know that it's not as private as Librewolf is. It's default privacy measures are subpar at best.
I personally trust Vivaldi because they haven't slipped up once so far. Besides the open source dispute, it's easily the least controversial company.
Closed source browser run by a company? No thanks.
Not a fan of Vivaldi either but it's not closed source. https://vivaldi.com/source/
Though the source code doesn't even get a link on their website so I can see why people think that.
Edit: I was wrong, there's closed source parts (the UI).
I really like Vivaldi for its tab tiling. Super useful.
Librewolf*
You and I, we are same
Also me. Mull + Librewolf combo, portmaster and etc/hosts to block adware, malware and nsfw. I feel free.
And a pihole for the other people on my network who can't quite let go of some apps and services.
After a weekend where the whole family was there, my pihole displayed that 57% of all connections where blocked.
57%
No one complained about anything not working.
57% of all connections were completely and utterly unnecessary to the actual services that were being used.
That is just wild.
God, I wish there was less monopolies in the world, I hate when there is no alternative other than a product developed and maintained by evil corporation that profits off of selling my data.
Anyway, the only browser that everyone should use is Chrome, if you don't use Chrome you're dead to me.
Buddy we have something called suckless you know, USE FUCKING SURF
I use firefox for obvious privacy reasons but also because I can customize the UI. Chromium's interface is oversized, ugly, and locked down while on firefox I can change any aspect of it using my own CSS.
Also addons against ads which Google obviously wouldn't allow on their crap browser.
I initially read your comment as "I use firefox for obvious piracy reasons" and thought "yeah, that's fair".
Vanadium on my phone.
Vanadium is a chromium based browser.
Indeed. But privacy is good. No point in using Firefox on phone since webview is chromium based.
It's Internet Explorer - Google edition.
I just prefer the UI of Firefox
After the quantum update i switched to firefox, as now in performance it is almost on par with chrome or sometimes better.
I remember I switched to chrome way back when chrome was first becoming popular because of its speed compared to Firefox in like 2010 or something. Firefox caught up within a year and I have never missed Chrome for a second.
Oh, I was similar. When Chrome was new I liked it, but it seems to be vulnerable to get these weird superfluous add-ons that I may have acquired through malicious links. When I switched to Firefox I wasn't as suseptible to malware, and the speed was just as good.
I think a lot of people turned away from Firefox after that Mr Robot promotional 'stunt' they pulled.
What stunt?
Here you go.
Mozilla thought it would be cool to install a Mr Robot addon as a paid stunt, didn't go over well.
I'm out of the loop on this one. What happened in Mr. Robot?
Wondering this as well.
Didn’t they have some anti-gay-marriage CEO for a while?
Yeah, they had. Now he's the one that works on Brave afaik.
I see furryfox, I vote up.
it kinda pisses me off that Chromium is the default browser on Raspbian.
I believe it's because vanilla chromium doesn't come with widevine or any of the closed source DRM binaries. Raspberry Pi org takes a pretty strong stance on open source.
There is no privacy on chromium, it phones home to Google a lot and those communications are encrypted so you will never really know what data is being sent but assume Google can link everything you do in Chromium to you.
Users who think they are "ungoogling chromium" are fooling themselves.
All the commercial browser reeleases like Mullvad browser, Brave or duckduckgo browsers are just window dressing.
Firefox or its children really are the only option.
Mullvad Browser sue Firefox as base not Chromium
Specifically speaking it branches off tor browser bundle which itself is modified firefox-esr.
Ungoogled Chromium doesn't send data to Google servers, if that's what you are implying it is misinformation.
Also, Chromium is open source - you can very easily know what is being sent. I appreciate privacy awareness, but not baseless fearmongering.
I hate Google and Chromium's dominance on the browser market as much as the next person, but this is straight up false information.
Chromium itself is open source, it is 100% possible to make forks that remove all Google telemetry, and such forks do exist.
Mullvad is based on Tor Browser.
Correction: Mullvad is based on Firefox, and Tor is also based on Firefox.
Lynx
wget
I compiled wget from source
Netscape Navigator?
Which got forked to become Firefox
Netscape was itself a development from Mosaic, which also spun off into what became internet explorer.
so firefox and Internet Explorer (up to around ie6 at least) are kinda weird cousins.
Just wondering as a Mac user without much experience: how is Safari in terms of privacy compared to say Firefox?
If a lack of privacy is like being nude in public, Apple is an expensive bouncer at an expensive club where you take your clothes off for free in front of people who pay apple a cover charge, because Apple promised them you have the biggest tits.
It's kinda flattering, but is it really privacy?
I don't think u need to worry to much about ur browser when ur os is always sending info in the background.
What info? god knows, but its concerning how it increased after apple introduced his plan to do some shady Facebook like business just after u guessed, blocking Facebook for doing the same without giving him his part of the cake.
Flashback to the Windows 10 launch, when typing anything while the resource manager was open revealed a small spike in internet traffic.
No clue what actually happened in the background, but it was consistent over multiple friends computers. Very fun.
Firefox's supremacy 😆
I have a vendetta against Chromium because of Valve having to cease support for older OSes. They did that because of Chromium being built into the Steam client.
Firefox is also going to stop supporting Windows 7, are you going to develop a vendetta against it too?
Older OSes are unsupported for a reason.
Firefox 115 is the last version to support Windows 7, so Valve using Gecko instead of Blink wouldn't have made a difference here. Maybe it's time to move on from a 14 year old operating system on the internet with known zero-day exploits that aren't going to get patched.
Ungoogled Chromium exists but it just feels 1/10 of what Firefox is capable of doing.
There is also UnMozilla'd Firefox for even more privacy!
You mean like icecat, librefox or using user.js
Is Fennec on Android like that? Still developed by Mozilla, but has all branding, telemetry and firefox-account stuff removed (even comes with duckduckgo as default search engine)
Vivaldi is nice.
It's a nice browser, but also uses chromium as base.
Can someone make a comment on if and how chromium development changed since Edge uses it? I often hear that Google dictates chormium dev, but what about MS? Are they doing dev work, too?
But sadly, in privacy matters their interests are likely aligned, so that we can expect to be it further hollowed.
they're 100% doing dev work at ms, afaik their contributions are public because chromium is an open source project. and i think it would be very beneficial for larger amounts of people to use edge (only if they're dead set on not using firefox though) because having two different companies compete on that is still better than just having google have a monopoly.
LibreWolf
Pleading ignorance here and genuine questions. Is anyone, within the context of browsers able to define privacy and what it is that FF does that is superior to other say, Chromium based browsers? And what the real world effects are of not using FF for the purpose of privacy? Either reply or point to sources on the Web would be much appreciated.
Chrome is run by an ad company with a vested interest in your data and has been outspoken about banning adblockers in the past.
Firefox is a completely open source project run by a non-profit organisation who accepts donations to cover costs.
Other Chromium-based browsers can generally be fine but the overuse of chromium reinforces web standards that are hard to reproduce. A web browser is a fairly complex beast these days even for the best programmers. Just see XMPP for an example of where things could lead to.
While it's true that Firefox receives some of those donations from Google for being the default search engine, they have no influence over decisions made by the Firefox team whatsoever. That's the short version of it.
As I understand it, you can make a Chromium browser just as privacy friendly as Firefox. I use Vivaldi on my home PC and mobile which is strongly privacy focused and has a ton of small QoL features neither Chrome nor Firefox has (I use both at work, prefer FF over Chrome). (Going off the tangent here) for example, it's incredibly easy to re-open recently closed tabs in Vivaldi with just two clicks—a feature I use all the time—as the recently closed tabs list is very obvious and easy to access in the tab bar itself without the need to futz around in the menus to find browsing history. The customizable speed dial, sidebar menu for things like bookmarks and downloads are really nice and the download manager in Vivaldi is IMO better than FF, too.
The bigger problem is Google having defacto monopoly over browser market and thus having too much influence over how web standards work and how the user can browse the web (I'm old enough to remember "This web page is best viewed on Internet Explorer" messages on websites). The move to manifest v3 to curb content blockers is one such example.
Thanks for your reply. I am a Vivaldi user myself currently after trying numerous browsers over the years. I was trying to reconcile in my mind what am I giving up in terms of privacy for my choice. I do tend to lean on and learn from other more knowledgeable myself. I do have a few privacy related extensions installed. But you touch on something there that extends further than personal privacy but Googles influence on web standards, good one.
I'm sure you can just Google what the benefit of using Firefox is. When "privacy" is talked about in terms of web browsers and apps, it's mainly about blocking trackers. Ad companies inject trackers into websites and apps, which collect your data. Google has their own ad company, and by using Chrome, you're supplying them with personal information without them even having to pay. Firefox doesn't sell your information. They also have many extensions available that will block any data collecting attempts from websites.
Duck Duck Go is even more secure. The whole point of their browser is for user privacy. Their app even blocks other apps from tracking you. You'd be amazed by the data collected by apps. My fucking shopping list app has trackers from multiple companies.
Yeah I could google it but sometimes I also like to converse and ask questions. Hence why we're here. Thanks for explaining, I have prior understanding of what most you mentioned, Im just hazy how it relates to browser choice since you can block with extensions on most if not all browsers. So if someone is using any chromium based browser, you info is still going to google or is that exclusive to Chrome?
This is A+
Might need to use chrome so I can blur my video background on google meet. Firefox not a supported browser for video filters. Ungh.
Firefox is the last good browser.
That's exactly what Google wants you to do, when it writes its software to anti-competitively discriminate against Firefox users. Don't let it get away with it.
is that really a deal breaker lol... have u tried using obs virtual cam ?
My room is very messy. I just turned it in last time but obs virtual cam is a great recommendation! I could at least do some cropping with that.
Its not about Firefox it is about the website code
Mullvad Browser is perfect for privacy. Firefox is good with the extensions too. Both of them are better options when it comes to preserving your privacy.
Librewolf is also magnificent
It is the Tor Browser fot the clearnet, I would also use it for browsing eepsites woth the i2pd server
I committed to opera a long time ago and now I'm too many saved passwords deep on shit websites I've not visited in 4 years to make the change.
Let me help you and from there, you can import all your passwords into Keepass or KeepassXC
Nice one, cheers for that! I've been using bitwarden, so I'll see if I can port them to that
I was in the same boat many years ago with Chrome until I discovered how to migrate the passwords to Bitwarden.
Not gonna try and force you or anything, but if you want to move over to firefox try this: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/import-data-another-browser
Also, be sure to turn off telemetry in firefox. It's not as safe as people say, but it's pretty good
That's brilliant, cheers for the heads up
No way to export that stuff to Firefox or a Firefox derivate?
My man, Opera has been sold to a Chinese company years ago. It's probably the least trustworthy major browser by a large margin.
I wouldn't trust it with my pornhub account if I had one for some reason.
It’s not privacy focused but Arc is the best browser I’ve ever used once I got used to its quirks.
A single entity running the web is dangerous. Using different flavours of what is essentially Chrome is just as bad as using Chrome.
People should really switch away from chromium based browsers if they want to preserve the web. Google is really, really close to having full control.
Isn't Arc just chromium but it treats every page as it's own app?
I recommend ungooogled chromium
Does it run better than it did fifteen years ago? Because that was the reason I switched to Chrome.
of course not, it hasn't been updated for FIFTEEN YEARS and definitely didn't even get an engine upgrade in 2017 let alone a new version half a month ago and a hotfix last week
Damn I've heard Android is really shitty and full of malware that haven't been updated since 20 years ago. I don't know why idiots still buy their shitty androids, iPhone is clearly the superior platform!
/s
Significantly
I switched from Chrome to Firefox somewhat recently. The experience really isn't any different, except Firefox doesn't use 110% of your CPU.
I have a ton of privacy extensions which causes a few issues when creating accounts by linking to your Google account (the pop-up is blocked) or opening redirect links to apps (I think it's only Discord that I've had an issue with). I don't consider those drawbacks because the browser is doing its job. Instead, I go copy and paste the link in Chrome.
Yes. In fact, I'd say that Firefox runs clearly better than Chrome does these days. An inversion of the past.
A hell of a lot smoother than chrome
For privacy on iOS what is really the best one?
It doesn't really matter, Apple doesn't allow any third party web-engines, so no matter which browser you are using, you basically get the same privacy standards as safari
Even though Apple is not sharing personal data with third parties, relatively recently they started to use personal data in order to use them on advertisement of their own services. And considering the entire Apple ecosystem(if you are using all devices of course) it is a bit concerning they are using all of those data.
Ya anybody that believes apple is privacy friendly is just listening to their advertising campaigns. The NSA leaks from Snowden revealed they're part of NSA's PRISM.
https://www.theverge.com/2013/7/17/4517480/nsa-spying-prism-surveillance-cheat-sheet
Shocked Pikachu face
Safari with Adguard adblocker.
But it doesn't though, not really. There are quite a few things which are still sent back as telemetry. One hell of alot better than chrome but it's still watching you. It's still not respecting your privacy.
There are some privacy respecting browser out there but they're quite inconvenient to use. I haven't found a real reasonable middle ground personally, but altering librewolf or the mulvad browser to keep you signed in has been nice enough for me
To expand:
Here's a usefull tool: https://ffprofile.com/
Firefox based privacy browser: https://mullvad.net/en/browser
To clarify why this is important, this data can be de-anonymized where anonymized and be used for fingerprinting your internet usage. If you're concerned about privacy this is a pretty big red flag, especially if your government is getting this information, which many have and will be able to in the future.
Fingerprinting isn't a perfect system and can incorrectly flag innocent people. Or, if you unfortunately life in the wrong place, whether true or not being flagged as gay/trans or the wrong political party can very much harm you. Texas has asked the government for a list of trans people inside their state, which was denied, what happens when it isn't? what happens when it's not just trans people, and is instead your group? Caution is king.
Do you have any info on what data Firefox sends home? Have been using Firefox forever.
about:telemetry should tell you if its enabled or not and has links that go into more detail about whats collected and their policies.
This page explains a bit more about it: https://www.howtogeek.com/557929/how-to-see-and-disable-the-telemetry-data-firefox-collects-about-you/
So assuming you disable all the optional telemetry in the settings, you should be good right?
Yup, you should be good if you do that. There are some tools to create a more private profile and the librewolf/mulvad browsers do just that (while removing the code which would allow a good portion of it in the first place)
Here's that tool: https://ffprofile.com/
Firefox based privacy browser: https://mullvad.net/en/browser
To clarify why this is important, this data can be de-anonymized where anonymized and be used for fingerprinting your internet usage. If you're concerned about privacy this is a pretty big red flag, especially if your government is getting this information, which many have and will be able to in the future.
Fingerprinting isn't a perfect system and can incorrectly flag innocent people.
If you unfortunately life in the wrong place, whether true or not being flagged as gay/trans or the wrong political party can very much harm you. Texas has asked the government for a list of trans people inside their state, though the request was denied for now, what happens when it isn't? what happens when it's not just trans people, and is instead your group? Caution is king.