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Or use Pale Moon, forked long ago and developed independently, that respects your privacy out of the box without needing 50 different 'hardening' Arkenfox type

Or use Pale Moon, forked long ago and developed independently, that respects your privacy out of the box without needing 50 different 'hardening' Arkenfox type changes or having to keep watch every time Mozilla tries to screw over end users like this. Zero telemetry, zero advertising and no mental gymnastics over how we're financially dependent on Google but still value your privacy. And bonus, it retains XUL extension support and the full customizability that went with it (including full support for full themes that can make it resemble Chrome or modern Firefox if you want to).

efilife 2y ago
https://spyware.neocities.org/articles/palemoon https://spyware.neocities.org/articles/palemoon This article is 5 years old and I'm not sure whether it's accurate anymore, but might be worth checking to be sure we are completely private. I also remember some drama about pale moon's author despising TOR and not wanting uBlock to work
- willywanker 2y ago
  The author of this is has some pretty ridiculous allegations, from blaming the browser for analytics on its homepage provider (when you can directly change the homepage to whatever you want right from the preferences without digging into about:config or elsewhere) to automatic updates, which is set to notify about them by default, not download and apply them. Firefox was(is?) known to install a separate updater service on Windows, FFS. And he's complaining about NoScript, which doesn't play well with Pale Moon to the extent of destabilizing the browser and whose Pale Moon compatible XUL version is long abandoned by its developer while there's an alternative (eMatrix, forked from now abandoned uMatrix that was made by uBlock Origin's author) available. (https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=17619 https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=17619) Pale Moon is what Firefox used to be once upon a time in terms of customization and privacy before Mozilla became Google's controlled opposition to guard against browser monopoly allegations.
luuurker 2y ago
The first thing that comes to mind when I hear "Pale Moon" is their toxic developers. But let's ignore that... Is it safe to use Pale Moon as your main browser? How many security patches is it missing from upstream Firefox? Do they have any security team? I don't mind using outdated software for a specific task, but I feel uncomfortable after a certain point. Unless you absolutely need the old XUL-era functionality, does it make sense to use Pale Moon when you can tweak Firefox to be more private? In my case, I'm not sure.
- willywanker 2y ago
  The toxic developer in question quit 2 years ago - things are peaceful now with the community. Pale Moon isn't a rebuild of Firefox - it's a complete fork with its own rendering engine Goanna based off Gecko 52 and developed independently. Several of the security vulnerabilities introduced due to the larger code base and complexity of a multi process browser (to say nothing of Firefox's additional bloat of adding what are better as extensions to the browser core such as a PDF renderer or Pocket) are simply not applicable to Pale Moon, but the release notes detail the ones that are and have been patched. The only thing 'outdated' is their not jumping on the minimalist, mobile focused UI that Chrome invented and Firefox copied and retaining a sane, desktop user focused and fully customizable UI that doesn't need digging into about:config or userChrome.css tweaks and can be directly done from the preferences dialog or context menus. The way Firefox used to be until version 4 onwards when the copying Chrome and limiting user choice began. To your last point, why should you have to tweak Firefox for privacy at all when they keep proclaiming how privacy friendly they supposedly are? Pale Moon is private out of the box - there is no baked in telemetry (they don't run a telemetry server, for starters), analytics, tracking, advertising or anything else on those lines.
  - luuurker 2y ago
    > The toxic developer in question quit 2 years ago - things are peaceful now with the community. It wasn't just "Matt A. Tobin". For example, "Moonchild" was involved in that OpenBSD debacle ( https://archive.is/qbpmL https://archive.is/qbpmL ). Just someone trying to make Pale Moon to work and they approached it like that. Moonchild still blames OpenBSD devs for it... earlier this year he said they were "uncooperative" ( https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?t=30732 https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?t=30732 )... I wonder why. A few were fine with Tobin's behaviour and happy to support him... and they're still there. This doesn't affect the performance or security of the browser, but it's something that bothers me and so it's a point against when considering which browser should I use.

efilife 2y ago

https://spyware.neocities.org/articles/palemoon https://spyware.neocities.org/articles/palemoon This article is 5 years old and I'm not sure whether it's accurate anymore, but might be worth checking to be sure we are completely private. I also remember some drama about pale moon's author despising TOR and not wanting uBlock to work

willywanker 2y ago
The author of this is has some pretty ridiculous allegations, from blaming the browser for analytics on its homepage provider (when you can directly change the homepage to whatever you want right from the preferences without digging into about:config or elsewhere) to automatic updates, which is set to notify about them by default, not download and apply them. Firefox was(is?) known to install a separate updater service on Windows, FFS. And he's complaining about NoScript, which doesn't play well with Pale Moon to the extent of destabilizing the browser and whose Pale Moon compatible XUL version is long abandoned by its developer while there's an alternative (eMatrix, forked from now abandoned uMatrix that was made by uBlock Origin's author) available. (https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=17619 https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=17619) Pale Moon is what Firefox used to be once upon a time in terms of customization and privacy before Mozilla became Google's controlled opposition to guard against browser monopoly allegations.

luuurker 2y ago

The first thing that comes to mind when I hear "Pale Moon" is their toxic developers. But let's ignore that... Is it safe to use Pale Moon as your main browser? How many security patches is it missing from upstream Firefox? Do they have any security team? I don't mind using outdated software for a specific task, but I feel uncomfortable after a certain point. Unless you absolutely need the old XUL-era functionality, does it make sense to use Pale Moon when you can tweak Firefox to be more private? In my case, I'm not sure.

willywanker 2y ago
The toxic developer in question quit 2 years ago - things are peaceful now with the community. Pale Moon isn't a rebuild of Firefox - it's a complete fork with its own rendering engine Goanna based off Gecko 52 and developed independently. Several of the security vulnerabilities introduced due to the larger code base and complexity of a multi process browser (to say nothing of Firefox's additional bloat of adding what are better as extensions to the browser core such as a PDF renderer or Pocket) are simply not applicable to Pale Moon, but the release notes detail the ones that are and have been patched. The only thing 'outdated' is their not jumping on the minimalist, mobile focused UI that Chrome invented and Firefox copied and retaining a sane, desktop user focused and fully customizable UI that doesn't need digging into about:config or userChrome.css tweaks and can be directly done from the preferences dialog or context menus. The way Firefox used to be until version 4 onwards when the copying Chrome and limiting user choice began. To your last point, why should you have to tweak Firefox for privacy at all when they keep proclaiming how privacy friendly they supposedly are? Pale Moon is private out of the box - there is no baked in telemetry (they don't run a telemetry server, for starters), analytics, tracking, advertising or anything else on those lines.
- luuurker 2y ago
  > The toxic developer in question quit 2 years ago - things are peaceful now with the community. It wasn't just "Matt A. Tobin". For example, "Moonchild" was involved in that OpenBSD debacle ( https://archive.is/qbpmL https://archive.is/qbpmL ). Just someone trying to make Pale Moon to work and they approached it like that. Moonchild still blames OpenBSD devs for it... earlier this year he said they were "uncooperative" ( https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?t=30732 https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?t=30732 )... I wonder why. A few were fine with Tobin's behaviour and happy to support him... and they're still there. This doesn't affect the performance or security of the browser, but it's something that bothers me and so it's a point against when considering which browser should I use.