# Why is Safari recommended on PrivacyGuides and not anything Firefox-based?

**URL:** https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/why-is-safari-recommended-on-privacyguides-and-not-anything-firefox-based/40436
**Category:** Questions
**Created:** 2026-09-03T11:57:27Z
**Posts:** 7
**Showing post:** 5 of 7

## Post 5 by @coldiron — 2026-09-03T13:16:04Z

Are you only looking at the [mobile browser recommendations](https://www.privacyguides.org/en/mobile-browsers/)? Firefox is recommended on the [desktop browsers section](https://www.privacyguides.org/en/desktop-browsers/#firefox).

Safari is recommended _only_ on [iOS devices](https://www.privacyguides.org/en/mobile-browsers/#safari-ios), where all browsers have to use the WebKit engine. It integrates well with iOS, lets you install extensions, uses iCloud Private Relay if you have iCloud+, and more. In my experience, it’s the most stable, most site-compatible iOS browser. It’s not currently recommended by the site [on macOS](https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/safari-macos/39872), though.

Firefox is not recommended on Android for reasons discussed in the forum and other places, like [GrapheneOS](https://grapheneos.org/usage#web-browsing):

> Avoid Gecko-based browsers like Firefox as they’re currently much more vulnerable to exploitation and inherently add a huge amount of attack surface. Gecko doesn’t have a WebView implementation (GeckoView is not a WebView implementation), so it has to be used alongside the Chromium-based WebView rather than instead of Chromium, which means having the remote attack surface of two separate browser engines instead of only one. Firefox/Gecko also bypass or cripple a fair bit of the upstream and GrapheneOS hardening work for apps. Worst of all, Firefox does not have internal sandboxing on Android. This is despite the fact that Chromium semantic sandbox layer on Android is implemented via the OS `isolatedProcess` feature, which is a very easy to use boolean property for app service processes to provide strong isolation with only the ability to communicate with the app running them via the standard service API. Even in the desktop version, Firefox’s sandbox is still substantially weaker (especially on Linux) and lacks full support for isolating sites from each other rather than only containing content as a whole. The sandbox has been gradually improving on the desktop but it isn’t happening for their Android browser yet.

Also, people who complain about the “downfalls” Brave are in the same breath turning a blind eye to Mozilla. I don’t love everything about Brave, but “concerns” with Brave are for the most part overblown and antiquated. It’s hard to love everything about most things, though. Edit: [Thread](https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/remove-non-hardened-firefox-firefox-without-arkenfox/29260) containing issues with non-hardened Firefox.

[Cromite has been removed](https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/cromite-still-present-on-pg-website-despite-removal-pr-on-github/39194) because it is inconsistently maintained, often lagging months behind important Chromium updates.

Personally, I’m interested to see what a potential [Proton browser](https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/proton-seems-to-be-working-on-its-own-web-browser/39642) would be. Hoping for something like Brave Origin but purple. :wink:

---

_[View the full topic](https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/why-is-safari-recommended-on-privacyguides-and-not-anything-firefox-based/40436)._