No. You clearly have not understood my reasoning (which has nothing to do with whether a browser is based on another or not). Let me see if I can be a bit more clear.
My reasoning is simple:
Every single privacy feature present in Librewolf, comes directly from upstream Firefox. Firefox devotes considerable time, money, and resources to the privacy features we enjoy in Firefox or in Librewolf. Librewolf just flips some switches that Firefox makes available to them (and us). The same is not true of Brave which begins from a not-very-private base, and meaningfully improves upon it.
Braveâs privacy features are in many cases their own, not inherited from Chromium or Chrome. Brave substantially improves upon Chrome(ium), whereas Librewolf just enables upstream things already present in Firefox.
(put another way, Brave meaningfully improves privacy in many cases in spite of its upstream whereas Librewolfâs privacy is only possible because of itâs upstream)
If Firefoxâs commitment to privacy were âpure propagandaâ Librewolf (which relies 100% on Firefox for all of itâs privacy protections, and Arkenfox (a Firefox community project for its defaults) could not be any better since they donât introduce any features of their own.
If you prefer Librewolfâs defaults out of the box, by all means, use Librewolf. But donât pretend it brings anything new or different to the table beyond a set of defaults, and donât erase/devalue the hard work done upstream to allow me (via Arkenfox or Mullvad) or you (via Librewolf) to have the level of privacy we desire. There are serious, committed, passionate real people devoting a lot of time, thought, and effort to building these privacy features that you, I, and small derivatives like Librewolf rely on.
Brave browser in my opinion is mid. I donât care for all the crypto stuff. And I havenât used Brave in a while so maybe they arenât doing that anymore idk. Also though, and more importantly, being built on Chrome Iâm sure manifest 3 integration will become mandatory at some point, which means uBlock will no longer work. Even if you side load it.
I think Mullvad browser is hard to beat. It basically comes with the same fingerprinting resistance that Tor browser comes with, and uBlock Origin is installed by default. You can even use Mullvadâs DNS if you arenât already encrypting it another way. It basically checks all the boxes for a privacy respecting clearnet browser. If you need anything extra you might as well use Tor. In addition to clearnet, since some anonymity networks like i2p and hyphanet donât have dedicated browsers, I think Mullvad browser would be an excellent browser to proxy their connections through.
âI have created the Ferrari Enzo of privacy, and I will beat my chest for my achievements, and I will sing to the four winds my successes, but when it is time to sell it to customers, I will leave it configured to give the performance of a Fiat Punto, and if they want it to perform at the level of the Ferrari Enzo, they can reconfigure it themselves or go to a mechanic to have it configuredâ⊠Thatâs propaganda. It doesnât matter that Mozilla spends time, effort, sweat, tears, BLOOD⊠if in practice it delivers that great work with half of it not connected. Equivalent to buying a flat screen, that when you install it, only half of the LEDs light up, that you have to go to the configuration to activate the other half, and that we have nothing to complain to the seller of the screen for selling it with half of the screen turned off. I insist, your defense of Firefox seems to me quite poor.
Yes, everything Librewolf is inherited from Firefox. Now choose: Recommend the Ferrari that works like a Ferrari, or the Ferrari that works like a Fiat. Recommend the screen that by default only has half of the LEDs lit, or the screen that by default has all the LEDs lit. Recommend a finished job, or one with what you are looking for without activation.
To each one with what he decides from there, but please, letâs not deny the reality.
And letâs not deny what the other says either, because I remind you that what I have said from the beginning is this:
You do realize that Firefox is a competitor to Chrome and Chromium as a whole? If you want to become a widely used browser and not just stay a niche browser that is used by a few people, then you need to give the best experience for as many people as possible.
Imagine if someone who isnât tech savvy at all decides to try Firefox and experiences breakage or things not working just because itâs configured to be as private and secure as you think it should be. That person would never touch Firefox again.
When you do things like setting up arkenfox or changing settings to more extreme ones, then you probably know what youâre doing, why youâre changing them, and what the possible consequences are.
For people like you who want the best privacy and security, there is Mullvad Browser, which is a million times better than Librewolf.
You want the best defaults? Mullvad Browser.
You want a browser that can be configured and used to your liking? Firefox.
Need or want Chromium? Brave.
It just doesnât make sense to recommend Librewolf.
I know this is not how Privacy Guides operate, but I would personally like to see the recommendations be a little more⊠approachable?!
Instead of the âour way or the highwayâ approach that I feel the recommendations currently is, I think that listing out other browser options - even inferior ones - and what you can do to make them more private, while also educating people on the actual differences between those browsers and their shortcomings, could help people start their privacy journey with what they already use. Or by choosing an easy second browser option, close to what they already use.
I have tried to get my nephews on board with some of this, but jumping through too many hoops at once just makes them feel overwhelmed. I have a feeling they are not the only ones who feel like that. Having another simple Firefox option with Librewolf does not seem like an âopinionated power userâ option to me, but an easy way for someone to try something different out.
I am of course not saying to get rid of the âobjectively bestâ recommendations that it currently provides, since that is useful, but I just wish the recommendations could be a little bit more than just a top tier list. No offense to the Privacy Guides team, of course. I would not be here otherwise.
Honestly, thatâs why I recommend Brave to friends, family members, and other acquaintances who are not tech-savvy like myself; itâs a literal upgrade from Microsoft Edgeâs bloatware and crap, which is just unparalleled.
LW competes with Firefox+Arkenfox which is meant for the user to tweak, not with MB (which you shouldnât touch). Iâd argue that itâs a bigger niche than youâd 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 usersâ 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 didnât intend to, in the browser not connected to the VPN).
xD I think that of people who have a problem with Mozilla, pretty much 100% also have a problem with Brave. Plus, itâs chromium.
do you have a RSS for releases, or do you just randomly check the github to see if thereâs an update every now and then?
Itâs unfortunate but when it comes to long term, other than MB/TB things arenât exactly looking up in my opinion. As far as Iâm 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.
Arkenfox isnât for everyone, and especially isnât for people who prefer a hands-off relationship towards tech. But calling it a âPITAâ 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 doesnât seem especially burdensome (but if it is, checking for updates could just be automated).
Hey all, Iâm on the LibreWolf team, and itâs 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. Weâre still making releases, but settings did not get updated.
There are also a bunch of useful tickets that also take my time, Iâve not been able to take the LW settings to the last AF release.
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.
Thatâs 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 canât even do that then there really isnât 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. Iâd prefer to have at least a middle man that could âclean upâ the browser a little before itâs shipped to me.
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!
