Honestly, that’s why I recommend Brave to friends, family members, and other acquaintances who are not tech-savvy like myself; it’s a literal upgrade from Microsoft Edge’s bloatware and crap, which is just unparalleled.
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Off-topic(ish)
I used to have that mentality, but forced myself to use Arkenfox. Even to this day, I have never looked back.
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LW competes with Firefox+Arkenfox which is meant for the user to tweak, not with MB (which you shouldn’t touch). I’d argue that it’s a bigger niche than you’d think. Many people have a problem with Mozilla and its direction with regards to user privacy and data collection. LW seems to be pretty committed at shipping good defaults that can be configured to match each users’ needs.
I have a browser installed in which I use arkenfox too, but remembering to update AF, merging changes etc. is a PITA, so I just pretty much never update (AF not the browser). Also, if Mozilla happens to implement a bad feature, said bad feature will be shipped to me and may be enabled straight away. Not ideal.
An ideal setup for me right now is: TB, MB with the proxy feature for ephemeral searches/browsing, and multiple instances of librewolf, with extra extensions for more convenient browsing, and one extra instance with split tunnelling for services that need to know my identity. In practice however I use a different browser (floorp+arkenfox, might switch to Zen sometime) for the latter, because keeping multiple instances of the same browser is a pain and is very likely to lead to a mistake (e.g. performing a search that I didn’t intend to, in the browser not connected to the VPN).
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In your use case, I would use Brave browser. With updating Arkenfox, it was initially annoying, but naturally became easier as I did it.
To add, Librewolf is neither a disaster nor a great option, when thinking in long term mindset.
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xD I think that of people who have a problem with Mozilla, pretty much 100% also have a problem with Brave. Plus, it’s chromium.
do you have a RSS for releases, or do you just randomly check the github to see if there’s an update every now and then?
It’s unfortunate but when it comes to long term, other than MB/TB things aren’t exactly looking up in my opinion. As far as I’m aware LW is still the better choice, but maybe Zen Browser will turn out good? I suppose we wait and see.
I run the updater after a new Firefox release or some of my modifications, which pulls the latest user.js from Github. Then, I get prompted to run the prefsCleaner.
Did you read the entire wiki?
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Oops, somehow I missed that. Thanks, I’ll try it out!
Arkenfox isn’t for everyone, and especially isn’t for people who prefer a hands-off relationship towards tech. But calling it a “PITA” to update is a very big exaggeration in my opinion.
(I just timed how long it took me to update and it took 19 seconds in total. And it would be even quicker via the terminal.
Considering that on average Arkenfox has an update every 2 or 3 months, 19 seconds to update doesn’t seem especially burdensome (but if it is, checking for updates could just be automated).
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About that…
a timely update:
Hey all, I’m on the LibreWolf team, and it’s true that since the departure of @fxbrit the project has taken a total nosedive when it comes to keeping up to date with Arkenfox and settings in general. We’re still making releases, but settings did not get updated.
There are also a bunch of useful tickets that also take my time, I’ve not been able to take the LW settings to the last AF release.
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But the approaches are different. If Arkenfox dies then I guess there will be no good options left if you want to customize… LW seems to be in a worse state than I thought but maybe it will improve.
That’s true. I thought that I could trust LW to check for new stuff and disable any telemetry, data collection etc. before they ship the update but if they can’t even do that then there really isn’t a point.
Trusting Mozilla with security is one thing, and trusting them for best practices when it comes to user privacy/data collection is something else. I’d prefer to have at least a middle man that could “clean up” the browser a little before it’s shipped to me.
Welcome back For_Freedom! You doing okay?
I think your thread is still active after such a long time is because web browser choice is definitely one of the most important security/privacy choices.
This topic will probably be discussed as long as this community is focused on user privacy! 
The answer has never been simpler:
Tor browser for anonymity.
Mullvad Browser for regular browsing.
Brave or Firefox with arkenfox for staying logged into sites.
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If I may ask, what’s the significance of using a 3rd browser to stay logged into sites? I know there’s a convenience factor here, but I’m pretty sure arkenfox’s hardening script makes Firefox dump all cache and cookies after you close the browser. So when you relaunch it you won’t be signed in on any accounts. I’m unsure about Brave’s stock settings, but it probably does something similar.
I appreciate your reply!
I wasn’t talking about the current day but in 6 months and beyond.
EDIT:
Nevermind… Firefox is definitely struggling.
Mullvad is for fingerprinting.
Brave and Firefox do offer some fingerprinting, but not enough to make a real difference.
If you don’t care about anonymity, then you don’t need Tor.
If you don’t care about fingerprinting (blending with the crowd) then you don’t need Mullvad.
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Just wanted to share that I’ve been looking for a similarly easy to use alternative to Brave’s forgetful browsing feature. If you click the lock button by the search bar on LibreWolf, it gives you the option to always store cookies/site data for specific websites, while by default, website cookies will be cleared on exit. Very nice.
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So following this:
My question that would remain is, how is Librewolf inferior compared to existing recommendations?
If I remember correctly, the biggest issue with Librewolf was that it didn’t update quickly enough. Is that a fair assumption? Louis Rossman, just recently recommended Librewolf, so I’m wondering if that issue is still present?
Let’s say I haven’t watched his video, does he actually mention any of the points that have been brought up in this thread?
Louis Rossmann does not exactly have a history of approaching things from a privacy & cybersecurity perspective. LibreWolf is certainly aligned with the ideals which are most important to him, which is perfectly fine.
I don’t think most things Rossmann recommends would make it on privacyguides.org though.
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No, his video is mostly about what happened at Mozilla recently (communication mistake). But he starts with recommending Librewolf as a ready-browser out-of the box without the need to play in the settings. Which seems nice, but I just re-read this whole thread and the 2 key points still don’t seem to be addressed by LibreWolf which are:
- Lack of automatic updates
- Poor frequency on updates
The reason why I was wondering at all is, if Mozilla really did screw-up, what would be the short-term go to place?
To answer a common question here, why Librewolf instead of Mullvad or Brave? I need 3 browsers and already have Mullvad and Brave installed for separate use-cases.
Yeah, I don’t really have good answers, except for the last thing you mentioned it seems like multiple Brave profiles would do the trick. That’s a bit off topic though, but obviously you could start a new Privacy > Questions thread if you actually want advice about what 3 browsers to use.