After reviewing the arguments against LibreWolf in the discussion and spending many hours in research, I have come to the conclusion that LibreWolf should be included in the browser recommendations. In the following, I will address the objections that have been raised against LibreWolf and explain why they don’t apply in my opinion.
This are the objections I will address:
- LibreWolf receives security fixes slower than FireFox.
- LibreWolf doesn’t offer anything that FireFox can’t do.
- LibreWolf doesn’t offer anything that MullvadBrowser can’t do / MullvadBrowser is LibreWolf, just better.
- LibreWolf doesn’t have automatic updates.
- LibreWolf has no use case, in either way you wouldn’t use LibreWolf.
LibreWolf receives security fixes slower than FireFox.
This is the most commonly used and according to those who don’t want LibreWolf in the PG recommendations, probably the best:
So I did some research and found out that if we take the last twenty security fix delays, we get an average security fix delay of 1.7 days. Here’s the whole Comparison of Firefox and LibreWolf Release Dates:
LibreWolf vs FireFox Release QUickness.txt (2.4 KB)
And because I was really very interested, how much the security fix delay of other, on Privacy Guides recommended forks is, I did the same research with the MullvadBrowser, which is the first recommended Browser on the Privacy Guides Browser Recommendations. It had an average security fix delay of 1.3 days. Here’s the whole Comparison of Firefox and MullvadBrowser Release Dates:
MullvadBrowser vs FireFox Release QUickness.txt (3.2 KB)
If 1.3 days of security fix delay is not so relevant that a browser is not included in the Privacy Guides recommendations, then it would probably be ridiculous to argue that 1.7 days would be too much to be included in the Privacy Guides browser recommendations.
LibreWolf doesn’t offer anything that Firefox can’t do.
That’s not correct. First, the most frequently mentioned and probably also most important point: you don’t have to configure and maintain (= checking each time whether ArkenFox has been updated and maybe updating it. You have to do that, otherwise there’s a risk that protection against a possible existing new tracking techniques isn‘t activated) FireFox with ArkenFox. Second, there’s an extra category under the settings that gives GUI access to settings that are only accessible in Firefox through about:config. Third, it’s significantly easier in LibreWolf to set/remove exceptions for cookie and website data deletion on close. You simply click on the lock in the URL bar and activate/deactivate the toggle “LibreWolf: Always store cookies/data for this site”. This toggle doesn’t exist in Firefox with “Delete cookies and site data when Firefox is closed” turned on (or off). Instead, you have to:
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Option: Lock in the URL bar ➝ “Connection secure” ➝ “More information” ➝ “Permissions” ➝ Deactivate “Set Cookies Use Default” ➝ “Allow”
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Option: Menu ➝ “Settings” ➝ “Privacy & Security” ➝ Scroll to “Cookies and Site Data” ➝ “Manage exceptions” ➝ Enter/paste URL ➝ Click Enter ➝ “Save Changes”.
LibreWolf doesn’t offer anything that MullvadBrowser can’t do / MullvadBrowser is LibreWolf, just better.
That’s not true. You can use MullvadBrowser for Browsing if you don’t want to log in into sites. But if you want to log in into websites,… you can’t. There’s an issue that’s present for two years, were disabling “Always use private browsing mode“ and adding a website to the whitelist doesn’t keep cookies and websitedata reliable. And since the 1.7 day security fix update delay doesn’t seem so relevant not to include it in the Privacy Guides Recommendations (see above), and LibreWolf is much more user-friendly (because of the mentioned three reasons, see above) than FireFox and ArkenFox, LibreWolf should be included in the Privacy Guides Browser Recommendations.
Privacy Guides should recommend LibreWolf at very least until the above mentioned issue is fixed (I would argue that it should still be recommended afterwards).
LibreWolf doesn’t have automatic updates.
This argument is out of date, it has now automatic updates for all supported platforms.
LibreWolf has no use case, in either way you wouldn’t use LibreWolf.
This objection was actually refuted by the refutation of the 2nd and 3rd arguments.