7 ms·

What, if anything, should I do about using Mozilla's Firefox

154 points by ColinWright 2y ago

ForTheKidz 2y ago
Using the www less is also an option. Wikipedia works fine as a mobile app.
huhtenberg 2y ago
** To clarify - looking for any Firefox alternative, not restricted to the Gecko engine Is Brave at all a viable alternative? Or do their own ads and all the crypto-shmypto make the switch moot? Tangentially - has anyone tried building Firefox from the source? [1] I wonder how feasible this would be as an alternative if coupled with disabling all unwanted parts of the browser. [1] https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/setup/windows_build.html https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/setup/windows_build....
- SahAssar 2y ago
  From the article: > sustainable, viable alternative Free/open source browser, in a state which I can use today, supporting the plugins that I use daily, which is not based on Chromium Brave is based on chromium.
  - shikaan 2y ago
    I'd say Vivaldi[0] scratches that itch better for me, without having to sell my soul to the crypto gods. I only wish it did not crash randomly on MacOS a couple of times per week. [0]: https://vivaldi.com/ https://vivaldi.com/
    - SahAssar 2y ago
      Vivaldi is chromium based and not open-source.
      - foxrider 2y ago
        Zen Browser is the closest thing to Vivaldi in Firefox fork land. https://zen-browser.app https://zen-browser.app
        muragekibicho 2y ago
        Can one copy a firefox profile to Vivaldi? Do you think it's possible?
        SahAssar 2y ago
        Probably not since they are based on completely different browsers. You can import bookmarks, passwords, etc. though.
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- naavis 2y ago
  Brave is based on Chromium, so that rules it out for the author based on what they wrote.
- jeroenhd 2y ago
  I use Brave as my go-to "website doesn't work in Firefox so I've got to use Chromium" browser on my phone. The constant cryptocurrency ads are really putting me off. No matter how many times I go through the settings, there's always some kind of cryptocurrency feature being placed front and center. I guess they must be making their money off crypto bros in some fashion, but this crap is preventing me from doing anything more than necessary in that browser. I don't think it's worth it to build Firefox from source when there are so many tiny projects out there maintaining slightly altered versions of Firefox already. You can do it yourself, but then you need to go through every line of code to check if they've added something suspicious and probably end up with some old, vulnerable version as your main browser (because who has time for that stuff).
- jonatron 2y ago
  I built Firefox from source recently, it took under 15 mins to compile on a 7800X3D.
  - randunel 2y ago
    Do websites using akamai work with that browser? Try checking prices on Radisson hotels (their own website, not OTAs), for example. Do prices load, or is it only static resources which work? Same question for Marriott hotels, I can't see any of their rooms unless using an original build.
    - jonatron 2y ago
      Both Radisson and Marriott work for me. I guess my IP address has a better reputation?
      - randunel 2y ago
        Radisson doesn't load on Firefox for me, only on chrome. Marriott doesn't load on chromium. I'm talking about the rooms pages, they show errors when loading prices. Static resources still load. The situation is similar with other websites behind akamai, such as US ESTA, the static resources load but all API calls fail. The IP address probably also matters, indeed.
        xandrius 2y ago
        This is untrue, did US ESTA fully on Firefox. Not sure what settings you use but the problem ain't FF nor the website.
        randunel 2y ago
        Firefox on Linux?
        xandrius 2y ago
- niutech 2y ago
  There are many Gecko-based browsers: Zen, Floorp, Mullvad, LibreWolf, IceCat. Why not use them instead?
- afarah1 2y ago
  Gentoo offers firefox built from source with various privacy defaults such as disabling telemetry: https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/gentoo.git/tree/www-client/firefox/firefox-135.0.1.ebuild#n790 https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/gentoo.git/tree/www-client/fi... It's regularly updated. It also offers a binary package with privacy default configs such as disabling Normandy which "allows Mozilla to push changes for default settings or even install new add-ons remotely": https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/gentoo.git/tree/www-client/firefox-bin/firefox-bin-135.0.1-r1.ebuild#n337 https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/gentoo.git/tree/www-client/fi...
  - lurk2 2y ago
    Do you know if Mint does anything similar to this?
  - Jach 2y ago
    It's really been a joy using Firefox from source with gentoo for so many years. Every so often I'm reminded by a friend about all the crap Mozilla does with new Firefox versions on the Windows side, especially apparently when it comes to messing with the UI whereas mine just stays the same and looks much like I had it back when Firefox 3 was the new thing. I'll trust the gentoo maintainers to keep at it. I also think a big canary on the actual impact/difficulty of disabling for privacy-invading and related things would be for the tor project to give up and switch to a chromium-derived base for their browser bundle. But Mozilla has long since lost any goodwill from me. I use Firefox because there's no alternative for what I want from a user agent. If I could configure or find extensions to make some Chromium-derived thing look and behave the same way, I'd just switch already. (Minimum: adblocking at least as good as ubo, NoScript, RSS feeds, and the big one, close feature parity to TreeStyleTabs or Sidebery. The full scope of everything else I'd really want on top is too much for here.)
- HackerThemAll 2y ago
  Brave is just bag of privacy lies. They have to make money somehow. If the browser is free, who's the product? Ask your AI or just Google it.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
    > They have to make money somehow. If the browser is free, who's the product? The problem is that this covers Firefox and all the Chromium browsers. We've left behind the ability to pick a good option and are instead looking for the least bad option now.
- lurk2 2y ago
  When I used Brave a few years ago the adblocking worked as advertised and the crypto features required an opt-in. The issue was that it was unstable after opening a few tabs and didn't have feature parity with Firefox.
letthegamesbegn 2y ago
it's a tricky situation. I'm using Firefox not because I particularly like it, but because it's not as terrible as the others.
BaudouinVH 2y ago
I've switched to Waterfox (yet another Firefox fork) and so far I'm happy with that choice https://www.waterfox.net/ https://www.waterfox.net/
- Valodim 2y ago
  While these forks are nice and all, I'm not sure how meaningful it is in the bigger picture if 99% of the work done on it is still done (and paid) by the same people. Similarly, I don't get those "I use brave instead of Firefox", as if that wasn't 99% chromium. Don't get me wrong, I know there's not much choice. But that whole direction of "action" that people take just seems like a working marketing tarpit to me.
  - okanat 2y ago
    At least Brave is a profitable company that employs multiple people and they can keep up with Chromium's changes (Some manifest v2 extensions are kept available or certain UI features are reverted). Most of the Firefox forks are 1-5 person gigs. They are not sustainable.
  - saghm 2y ago
    At this point, "marketing tarpit" seems like a pretty accurate description of Mozilla's stewardship of Firefox as well, so if I'm going to get sucked one, I'd rather it be the one that's taking a maybe untenable stand for something that I agree than the one that's trying to gaslight me about whether "disseminating user data to a third party for valuable consideration" is what most people would consider "selling user data".
    - Valodim 2y ago
      That is an unreal standard to hold anyone to while using Microsoft or Google products, because this wouldn't even register compared to what these companies do on a regular basis. People are just less dependent on Mozilla so moral outage doesn't feel as pointless.
      - 2y ago
poglet 2y ago
There is Waterfox that syncs with the Firefox bookmark service. Testing it out for the last day, also looking for an option on iOS otherwise will stick with Firefox.
- muragekibicho 2y ago
  I'd love to know the results of your test. Plese let me know if there's a social media account where you'll post your results.
ez8 2y ago
It's the best option we have.
- foxrider 2y ago
  It really isn't, people just keep saying that out of habit
  - maccard 2y ago
    What is then? I have my gripes with Mozilla, but they’re far better than Google.
    - immibis 2y ago
      Firefox forks, such as Librewolf and Waterfox.
  - amake 2y ago
    As long as it's the only one supporting Manifest v2, I think it really is the best option.
sakisv 2y ago
That sucks. I'm kind in the same boat, but with one additional requirement: It should have an android app that I can install uBlock origin. The few times that I had to browse from a phone without an adblock I had to stand in awe as to what a lot/most people have to suffer through daily. (The other more minor requirement for me is bookmark tags, but I may be able to hijack my way around that)
reidrac 2y ago
I moved to Waterfox on Android and, in a couple of small things, it works better for me than Firefox; but being a soft fork it has some of the problems of LibreFox. As the post is saying: I'm disappointed, but there is no technical reason to drop Firefox for now. Yet I feel like I must do something when the ToS is still hot, although I don't expect any change from Mozilla.
- poisonborz 2y ago
  I have to say Firefox (and forks) for Android is several levels inferior to chrome (forks). Just slower and consumes way more battery - and does not even have the customizability of alternatives.
  - Valodim 2y ago
    It supports web extensions.
    - okanat 2y ago
      So does MS Edge but you get Microsoft ads and tracking.
  - sgc 2y ago
    FF has ublock origin, so already end of story there. But it also does a better job of allowing me to request desktop site and actually get it, and thus around some website bugs.
    - poisonborz 2y ago
      Chrome forks like Kiwi also have ublock, extensions or desktop view.
spinningslate 2y ago
What you do will, in part, depend on how you feel about 2 things: 1. Mozilla is now an advertising business - see e.g. links in this El Reg post [0]. 2. How you feel about the alternatives. Behind the PR bluffing of the last few days, #1 is clear. Mozilla has hitched the wagon to advertising. There's unlikely to be a single good answer for #2. All the alternatives have compromises: Vivaldi is chrome-based and has some closed source code; Brave has crypto and Eich's political views (and also chrome-based; the various firefox forks (LibreWolf, PaleMoon, Waterfox, ...) all have questions over their sustainability. Perhaps the most promising is Ladybird, but it's a good way off yet. Let's hope we're near the botton of the enshitification curve and there are positives on the horizon somewhere. [0]: https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/02/mozilla_introduces_terms_of_use/ https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/02/mozilla_introduces_te...
DrinkyBird 2y ago
I decided to just stay with Firefox and disable any rubbish that Mozilla adds as it comes. I tried Librewolf, but the unstable RPM repository was very annoying, because zypper disallows system updates if even one repository fails to refresh. I also had some weird issues keeping it pinned to my desktop environment's dock. It also didn't want to save its window geometry (very annoying for me), and the only way to transfer from Firefox is to manually copy your profile data. But mainly, I'm still dependant on Mozilla no matter where I go. They are the ones actually doing the hard work of developing the browser engine; all of these forks are just some patches upon that, so with Firefox I only have to deal with (and trust) Mozilla and my distro, and not some other project in addition to Mozilla.
- soulofmischief 2y ago
  That's my issue with all of these solo-maintained forks. It's a security nightmare, and browsers are a prime target for supply chain attacks or other forms of subterfuge. The security model just simply isn't acceptable.
  - vincvinc 2y ago
    So what's stopping anyone from forming a group or foundation based on donations from like-minded people? And maintain a secure, free fork? I see this topic often enough on HN, this might a big enough group.
    - bluGill 2y ago
      You need several million dollars per year to be useful. Anyone can form a foundation but if you don't have that much or more it was a waste of time. it need not be money a dozen developers donating code full time would work but that is harder to get.
      - KronisLV 2y ago
        Currently Ladybird has 200k USD from FUTO, 100k USD from Shopify and then a bunch more from ProtonVPN, Ahrefs, etc., they also have 7 full time employees and a bunch of volunteers: https://ladybird.org/#faq https://ladybird.org/#faq They fall short of the numbers you suggest, but it's kind of encouraging that some people can do that for an entirely new project. Time will tell how it works out for them, but I could feasibly imagine a Firefox fork gaining similar ground, should people get tired of Mozilla's stewardship for whatever reason. After all, even something like 3% of the market share is way more of a proof of feasibility than 0% and if you get a bunch of money when that figure is 0% like Ladybird, things can only get better for a project built on established technology.
yeyeyeyeyeyeyee 2y ago
I moved to LibreWolf - https://librewolf.net/ https://librewolf.net/
- amelius 2y ago
  How are they funded? Or, in other words, how do we know they won't end up in the same situation?
  - everdrive 2y ago
    There's probably no ideal out there, just different better (or if you prefer, 'less bad') options. With the modern web, nothing is permanent. If a company or software is amazing, it could always become awful in the future. In principle software always potentially suffered from this problem, but the modern web really accelerates this process. There's effectively no web browser which can remain static as the web around it changes so rapidly. And, in order to be meaningfully useful for a broad audience it would also need to keep up with Chromium, which is incredibly well-funded. I think we're in a losing game.
  - JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B 2y ago
    I respect what they do, but it's a bunch of patches and scripts on top of Firefox, maybe less demanding that the real deal. Also: > no donations means no expectations Which is very healthy way to take care of a personal project. And if Firefox ever closes, all the forks will have to close at the same time anyway.
Havoc 2y ago
Switching between forks of it seems a bit pointless to me if the base project is in trouble. The Chrome/Chromium mono-culture google created is imo the problem here. Until a solution to that is found this will continue to be a problem
- anta40 2y ago
  I'll wait for Ladybird to be more mature. Until then, I'm more than happy with Thorium: https://thorium.rocks/ https://thorium.rocks/ So far, the only complain is it doesn't support Netflix (usual DRM stuff): https://github.com/Alex313031/thorium/issues/523 https://github.com/Alex313031/thorium/issues/523
roenxi 2y ago
I'm not sold that avoiding Chromium is any sort of win. It seems to be BSD licensed. The code comes from a long and storied OSS tradition. It is unclear why that having multiple different browser engines is strategically important. As far as I know we've long left behind the world where a hobbyist project could reasonably expect to implement modern JavaScript. Brave's existence and success suggests that competitors building on Chromium are viable. Not to say it is a bad thing to have alternatives floating around; but at this point it is probably easier to have multiple forks of Chromium than strive to have code with a completely independent genealogy.
- mr_sturd 2y ago
  The problem with Chromium is that it's controlled by Google. Given they control the engine in the majority of browsers, they get to call the shots on the direction of the web as a whole.
  - roenxi 2y ago
    They're not in any position to control the web as a whole; Safari is too strong a competitor. But even if Chromium was at 100% market share they couldn't control the web. If they start throwing their weight around then the other web companies will start organising around a Chromium fork. The important thing here is OSS/not-OSS rather than market share. Market share can change quickly enough in response to problems. It is like GCC - there was that spat back in the day, someone forks the code and there is a little war until people figure out which is better. Then the better version became "GCC". It is fine to have one custodian as long as the actual power is retained by the users. Efficient, even.
    - nileshtrivedi 2y ago
      What "other web companies"? Everyone has an app or an app store.
      - roenxi 2y ago
        Whoever. Whatever. OSS is a system for finding the most capable entity in the world at developing a software capability and letting them get on with it. It'll find someone to pick up the slack if Google starts doing a terrible job. In this world of 8 billion humans and however many thousands of companies, there'll be one who knows how to put a web browser together. If I were going to guess today it'd be brave.com, but the world is large and competitive.
crossroadsguy 2y ago
My needs are: - I like Safari as a browser and can live with it - at least on Mac and Safari. But goodness, its sync and almost anything it does with iCloud is atrocious. Now, Apple being Apple they definitely wouldn’t let anyone else fix that. - I also need to use Android where I use Safari. I would happily ditch Safari and Firefox if I can use a browser (without crypto shenanigans, edgy UI) all I need are: - robust sync (tab, bookmarks, and if possible preferences) across platforms (at least between iOS and Mac; and I repeat, no Safari/iCloud isn’t that) - Decent tracking/ad blocking. Doesn’t have to be top notch - Snappy - I am fine with closed source because I have been using Safari all these years
- qskousen 2y ago
  I would recommend Vivaldi then. I've been using it for half a year and it's pretty good.
  - crossroadsguy 2y ago
    I tried it for last two days and then uninstalled it. Didn't click. But I found Vivaldi much (!!) better than Brave. I am trying Orion now based on a comment here. Let's see how it goes.
- mitchell209 2y ago
  The only thing that saves Safari syncing for me is the tab groups. iCloud automatic syncing is terrible. I'm pretty sure it's not even syncing my iPad's open tabs for some reason and I have no idea how to start troubleshooting it except for removing my iCloud account and then signing back in.
  - crossroadsguy 2y ago
    I mean it's just pathetic. I see tabs that I closed from both Mac and iPhone months ago and it had stopped showing up in iCloud Tabs and then it decides to show up again. This is just one among the countless problems. The point is such problems are so old - years/decades - that you know 1. Apple doesn't want to fix it, 2. Apple is not capable of fixing it. I really think both 1 and 2 are correct. I wish Apple just made great and safe hardware let the software be handled by entities with software expertise. By the way someone suggested Orion. I think it has tabs. Might want to try.
ed_mercer 2y ago
What’s wrong with Chromium?
- Macha 2y ago
  Chromium based browsers are beholden to Google's whims the same way Firefox forks are to Mozilla's. I expect those Chromium browsers planning to continue support of effective APIs for adblock will soon find they don't have resources to maintain those patches as more of the underlying infra gets removed from upstream, for example. My level of trust in Mozilla has fallen, but it still doesn't look likely to fall below my trust in Google in the short to medium term
- fau 2y ago
  For me: no Multi-Account Containers, full uBlock Origin about to be disabled.
- everdrive 2y ago
  No manifest v2, worse privacy options, controlled by Google and so sure to get worse over time.
haunter 2y ago
I downladed WebKit for Windows nightly on a whim, not really usebale (as in no extension support) but I wish it were…
The-Old-Hacker 2y ago
Discussion of alternatives here: https://boilingsteam.com/poll-trust-in-firefox-mozilla-is-gone/ https://boilingsteam.com/poll-trust-in-firefox-mozilla-is-go...
HackerThemAll 2y ago
It's the only browser that supports Manifest V2. If you want true ad-blocking capabilities, use and support Firefox. If you're up to Chrome tyranny or Brave lies then go ahead and switch. I consider changing the privacy notice meaningless when I block everything and disable telemetry etc. But at the same time I know y'all are prone to internet drama to get more ad traffic and attention.
daneel_w 2y ago
I'm testing Zen (https://zen-browser.app/ https://zen-browser.app/) on macOS since a while back. Updates seem to lag behind the upstream by everything from 2 to 10 days. Every now and then a Zen-specific update shows up. So far the experience has been good. I don't know how true to their word of protecting privacy the authors really are, as my web proxy shows that the browser connects with Google infrastructure at sporadic intervals through the day even when the browser is sitting idle with no loaded tabs or active extensions. My feeling is that it is too frequent to be the auto-update check. I really hope I'm wrong or goofed up with keeping an eye on its network chatter.
- abbe98 2y ago
  I think most FF forks are dependent on Google Safe Browsing and some of Googles DRM services.
  - daneel_w 2y ago
    Uses it, but not dependant on it. I keep these things disabled.
rohin15 2y ago
I've been using Brave at work for my default browser but Firefox for personal things. I've been really impressed by Brave and so, since the Firefox news, I have decided to use Brave as my personal browser. I understand it's chromium based which is a non-starter for some but that it's open source and that Brendan Eich isn't a Google fan makes it tenable for me to try.
daneel_w 2y ago
For people who use LibreWolf - do you happen to know if it honors Firefox' internal settings relating to disk/memory caches? I insist on configuring Firefox to store as little data as possible on disk in favor or using in-memory caching.
- daneel_w 2y ago
  Pardon the noise, I found the answer within the product description: * Disable disk cache and clear temporary files on close.
FollowingTheDao 2y ago
I basically do not care anymore. It is impossible, What I do do is use Mullvad VPN on my phone where you can block all ads, and I use hosts file and Mullvad on my Laptop. The only thing that will kill surveillance capitalism (fascism?) is to stop giving them the eyeballs, so get everyone you know to do what I do.
replete 2y ago
I moved my profile folder into Librewolf, done. The only thing that's bugging me is the 'LibreWolf: Always store cookies/data for this site' option on the navbar padlock dropdown, it only appears for me in private windows, regardless of my 'Delete cookies site/data...' option. It's annoying because I contributed UX to this librewolf feature a few years ago (because I really wanted it), its finally landed but I can't use it - it was the blocker to adopting the more strict privsec model that librewolf offers by default (it solves the 'cookie exceptions are a pain to manage' problem. Obviously something to do with my kitchen-sink Firefox profile folder copy, but for now I guess I'll just carry on with cookies persisting and at some point rebuild a fresh librewolf profile if I want to adopt their defaults. So there's at least that, if this ambigious license stuff (and recent ad company purchases) bothers you, you can probably just copy your profile into Librewolf's profile folder, rename, and have done something about this perceived issue without a major disruption
everdrive 2y ago
In the short term, I've switched to Librewolf. In the long term, we're probably hosed unless some heroic individuals can produce a new mainstream browser (or just a successful, long-term fork of Firefox that does not necessarily rely on Mozilla maintaining Firefox) It's important to remember that Firefox itself is a good browser, but is far from perfect; it just remains the better option than Chrome. In an ideal world, an ideal browser would look itself would look quite different, as would the web itself.
- mgrandl 2y ago
  Donate to Ladybird? They are already quite far: https://ladybird.org https://ladybird.org
pessimizer 2y ago
This blog entry makes me feel heard. I've chosen Firefox through Debian, but the browser is one of those problems that may kick me off the web entirely. People complain that Firefox is dependent on Google, but the forks are also dependent on Google, through Firefox. Chromium is dependent on Chrome. Moving to Apple explicitly attaches you to a company that wants to monopolize your purchases. This is pushing me to deal with the internet only through single-purpose things that are not browsers, which can be even worse. Losing the browser seems similar to losing general-purpose computing (losing general-purpose social computing, maybe?) edit: will Apple eventually buy Ladybird? Seems like that's what's going to happen.
- lioeters 2y ago
  > Will Apple eventually buy Ladybird? This is the first time I've heard of the idea. Considering how the project has decided to replace C++ with Swift, a language with strong ties to Apple, it seems like a possible scenario. https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1822236888188498031.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1822236888188498031.html
DavideNL 2y ago
I don't see Floorp [1] mentioned a lot here i think... i quite like it, might be a good alternative for now, until something better comes along. Also there's Arkenfox [2] of course, if you want to fine-tune privacy settings. [1] https://floorp.app/ https://floorp.app/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floorp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floorp [2] https://github.com/arkenfox/user.js https://github.com/arkenfox/user.js
sunshine-o 2y ago
I feel like we just went back 20-30 years but MS Windows has become the modern Web browser. - It is totally controlled by big corporations. - It is very expensive to reimplement. - You kind of need it to take part in the world: open and edit an Office doc correctly (but you can also be a freak and use LaTeX if want) - Using a Webkit/Blink based browser is like a dual boot or VM running Windows. Firefox is our Wine/Crossweaver Whatever you think about what happened to Mozilla recently, it is gonna go downhill from there. At some point their engineering is gonna start to really suffer and the quality / security will become a concern. Maybe Librewolf will make some patches, IDK. I am starting to find the Web really boring (to use and develop for). I am tired of proving that I am human by clicking for 2 minutes on images of buses and bicycles. I hope something cool like this [0] happens soon because I am pretty sure all the cool kids will rush to it. - [0] https://joeyh.name/blog/entry/WASM_Wayland_Web_WWW/ https://joeyh.name/blog/entry/WASM_Wayland_Web_WWW/
hardwaresofton 2y ago
Please keep using Firefox. And tell people it’s the only place you can get manifest v2 and fully powered ublock origin
bachmeier 2y ago
I've been thinking about this question myself. It's just a matter of time before Mozilla ends Linux support. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that the whole Mozilla leadership team runs everything like a regular corporation with Windows and MS Office and Teams and uses Edge as their primary browser. We're one cost-cutting decision away from not having Firefox as an option on Linux.
niutech 2y ago
There are more Gecko-based alternatives to Firefox: Mullvad Browser, Zen Browser, Floorp, GNU IceCat, next to LibreWolf. There used to be also Pulse Browser and Flock Browser.
- johntitorjr 2y ago
  +1 for icecat, it's the way to go until ladybird is ready. you'll need to disable some of the default extensions to make it usable. https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/ https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/ https://icecatbrowser.org/index.html https://icecatbrowser.org/index.html
tannhaeuser 2y ago
FWIW, webkit's github [1] links directly to the "Epiphany Technology Preview" at gnome.org as a supported project. I have no idea if that leads to a full-featured modern browser for Linux, but I'm pretty sure if it doesn't, there should be a fork that does or creating one might be worth considering, and should be even fun and relatively easy to get kicked off. Also, since Webkit is based on KHTML, there might be re-integrations into KDE worth exploring. Ages ago there used to be Safari builds for Windows Apple created to get Safari into the hand of web developers that weren't using Macs, but it doesn't look like there's anything left to pickup. [1]: https://github.com/WebKit/WebKit https://github.com/WebKit/WebKit
philippta 2y ago
Any thoughts on Mullvad Browser? https://mullvad.net/en/browser https://mullvad.net/en/browser
- MaxBarraclough 2y ago
  It appears to be a closed-source variant of the Tor Browser, itself based on Firefox. If I were going to use a Firefox variant, I'd probably go with LibreWolf.
  - dustyharddrive 2y ago
    It's FOSS and maintained by Tor Project team members: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/mullvad-browser https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/mullvad-brows...
    - MaxBarraclough 2y ago
      My mistake, thanks.
TheWoodsy 2y ago
Moved from Firefox Dev Edition to Librewolf. No deal breakers yet. Procedure to transfer over painlessly: Install and run Librewolf. On both browsers go Help > More troubleshooting information > profile folder > Open. Close both browsers. Delete everything inside the librewolf profile. Copy everything from Firefox Dev profile directory into Librewolf profile directory. Run Librewolf with "--allow-downgrade" once. First run was a tad slow with extensions doing some 'recombobulation'. You can now run Librewolf normally without the above allow downgrade option. Enjoy.
waltercool 2y ago
[dead]
jsbisviewtiful 2y ago
Personally I’m going to stick with FF until Ladybird is released and then jump ship.

154 points by ColinWright 2y ago

Using the www less is also an option. Wikipedia works fine as a mobile app.

** To clarify - looking for any Firefox alternative, not restricted to the Gecko engine Is Brave at all a viable alternative? Or do their own ads and all the crypto-shmypto make the switch moot? Tangentially - has anyone tried building Firefox from the source? [1] I wonder how feasible this would be as an alternative if coupled with disabling all unwanted parts of the browser. [1] https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/setup/windows_build.html https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/setup/windows_build....

SahAssar 2y ago
From the article: > sustainable, viable alternative Free/open source browser, in a state which I can use today, supporting the plugins that I use daily, which is not based on Chromium Brave is based on chromium.
- shikaan 2y ago
  I'd say Vivaldi[0] scratches that itch better for me, without having to sell my soul to the crypto gods. I only wish it did not crash randomly on MacOS a couple of times per week. [0]: https://vivaldi.com/ https://vivaldi.com/
  - SahAssar 2y ago
    Vivaldi is chromium based and not open-source.
    - foxrider 2y ago
      Zen Browser is the closest thing to Vivaldi in Firefox fork land. https://zen-browser.app https://zen-browser.app
      - muragekibicho 2y ago
        Can one copy a firefox profile to Vivaldi? Do you think it's possible?
        SahAssar 2y ago
        Probably not since they are based on completely different browsers. You can import bookmarks, passwords, etc. though.
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
naavis 2y ago
Brave is based on Chromium, so that rules it out for the author based on what they wrote.
jeroenhd 2y ago
I use Brave as my go-to "website doesn't work in Firefox so I've got to use Chromium" browser on my phone. The constant cryptocurrency ads are really putting me off. No matter how many times I go through the settings, there's always some kind of cryptocurrency feature being placed front and center. I guess they must be making their money off crypto bros in some fashion, but this crap is preventing me from doing anything more than necessary in that browser. I don't think it's worth it to build Firefox from source when there are so many tiny projects out there maintaining slightly altered versions of Firefox already. You can do it yourself, but then you need to go through every line of code to check if they've added something suspicious and probably end up with some old, vulnerable version as your main browser (because who has time for that stuff).
jonatron 2y ago
I built Firefox from source recently, it took under 15 mins to compile on a 7800X3D.
- randunel 2y ago
  Do websites using akamai work with that browser? Try checking prices on Radisson hotels (their own website, not OTAs), for example. Do prices load, or is it only static resources which work? Same question for Marriott hotels, I can't see any of their rooms unless using an original build.
  - jonatron 2y ago
    Both Radisson and Marriott work for me. I guess my IP address has a better reputation?
    - randunel 2y ago
      Radisson doesn't load on Firefox for me, only on chrome. Marriott doesn't load on chromium. I'm talking about the rooms pages, they show errors when loading prices. Static resources still load. The situation is similar with other websites behind akamai, such as US ESTA, the static resources load but all API calls fail. The IP address probably also matters, indeed.
      - xandrius 2y ago
        This is untrue, did US ESTA fully on Firefox. Not sure what settings you use but the problem ain't FF nor the website.
        randunel 2y ago
        Firefox on Linux?
        xandrius 2y ago
niutech 2y ago
There are many Gecko-based browsers: Zen, Floorp, Mullvad, LibreWolf, IceCat. Why not use them instead?
afarah1 2y ago
Gentoo offers firefox built from source with various privacy defaults such as disabling telemetry: https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/gentoo.git/tree/www-client/firefox/firefox-135.0.1.ebuild#n790 https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/gentoo.git/tree/www-client/fi... It's regularly updated. It also offers a binary package with privacy default configs such as disabling Normandy which "allows Mozilla to push changes for default settings or even install new add-ons remotely": https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/gentoo.git/tree/www-client/firefox-bin/firefox-bin-135.0.1-r1.ebuild#n337 https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/gentoo.git/tree/www-client/fi...
- lurk2 2y ago
  Do you know if Mint does anything similar to this?
- Jach 2y ago
  It's really been a joy using Firefox from source with gentoo for so many years. Every so often I'm reminded by a friend about all the crap Mozilla does with new Firefox versions on the Windows side, especially apparently when it comes to messing with the UI whereas mine just stays the same and looks much like I had it back when Firefox 3 was the new thing. I'll trust the gentoo maintainers to keep at it. I also think a big canary on the actual impact/difficulty of disabling for privacy-invading and related things would be for the tor project to give up and switch to a chromium-derived base for their browser bundle. But Mozilla has long since lost any goodwill from me. I use Firefox because there's no alternative for what I want from a user agent. If I could configure or find extensions to make some Chromium-derived thing look and behave the same way, I'd just switch already. (Minimum: adblocking at least as good as ubo, NoScript, RSS feeds, and the big one, close feature parity to TreeStyleTabs or Sidebery. The full scope of everything else I'd really want on top is too much for here.)
HackerThemAll 2y ago
Brave is just bag of privacy lies. They have to make money somehow. If the browser is free, who's the product? Ask your AI or just Google it.
- yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
  > They have to make money somehow. If the browser is free, who's the product? The problem is that this covers Firefox and all the Chromium browsers. We've left behind the ability to pick a good option and are instead looking for the least bad option now.
lurk2 2y ago
When I used Brave a few years ago the adblocking worked as advertised and the crypto features required an opt-in. The issue was that it was unstable after opening a few tabs and didn't have feature parity with Firefox.

letthegamesbegn 2y ago

it's a tricky situation. I'm using Firefox not because I particularly like it, but because it's not as terrible as the others.

BaudouinVH 2y ago

I've switched to Waterfox (yet another Firefox fork) and so far I'm happy with that choice https://www.waterfox.net/ https://www.waterfox.net/

Valodim 2y ago
While these forks are nice and all, I'm not sure how meaningful it is in the bigger picture if 99% of the work done on it is still done (and paid) by the same people. Similarly, I don't get those "I use brave instead of Firefox", as if that wasn't 99% chromium. Don't get me wrong, I know there's not much choice. But that whole direction of "action" that people take just seems like a working marketing tarpit to me.
- okanat 2y ago
  At least Brave is a profitable company that employs multiple people and they can keep up with Chromium's changes (Some manifest v2 extensions are kept available or certain UI features are reverted). Most of the Firefox forks are 1-5 person gigs. They are not sustainable.
- saghm 2y ago
  At this point, "marketing tarpit" seems like a pretty accurate description of Mozilla's stewardship of Firefox as well, so if I'm going to get sucked one, I'd rather it be the one that's taking a maybe untenable stand for something that I agree than the one that's trying to gaslight me about whether "disseminating user data to a third party for valuable consideration" is what most people would consider "selling user data".
  - Valodim 2y ago
    That is an unreal standard to hold anyone to while using Microsoft or Google products, because this wouldn't even register compared to what these companies do on a regular basis. People are just less dependent on Mozilla so moral outage doesn't feel as pointless.
    - 2y ago

poglet 2y ago

There is Waterfox that syncs with the Firefox bookmark service. Testing it out for the last day, also looking for an option on iOS otherwise will stick with Firefox.

muragekibicho 2y ago
I'd love to know the results of your test. Plese let me know if there's a social media account where you'll post your results.

ez8 2y ago

It's the best option we have.

foxrider 2y ago
It really isn't, people just keep saying that out of habit
- maccard 2y ago
  What is then? I have my gripes with Mozilla, but they’re far better than Google.
  - immibis 2y ago
    Firefox forks, such as Librewolf and Waterfox.
- amake 2y ago
  As long as it's the only one supporting Manifest v2, I think it really is the best option.

sakisv 2y ago

That sucks. I'm kind in the same boat, but with one additional requirement: It should have an android app that I can install uBlock origin. The few times that I had to browse from a phone without an adblock I had to stand in awe as to what a lot/most people have to suffer through daily. (The other more minor requirement for me is bookmark tags, but I may be able to hijack my way around that)

reidrac 2y ago

I moved to Waterfox on Android and, in a couple of small things, it works better for me than Firefox; but being a soft fork it has some of the problems of LibreFox. As the post is saying: I'm disappointed, but there is no technical reason to drop Firefox for now. Yet I feel like I must do something when the ToS is still hot, although I don't expect any change from Mozilla.

poisonborz 2y ago
I have to say Firefox (and forks) for Android is several levels inferior to chrome (forks). Just slower and consumes way more battery - and does not even have the customizability of alternatives.
- Valodim 2y ago
  It supports web extensions.
  - okanat 2y ago
    So does MS Edge but you get Microsoft ads and tracking.
- sgc 2y ago
  FF has ublock origin, so already end of story there. But it also does a better job of allowing me to request desktop site and actually get it, and thus around some website bugs.
  - poisonborz 2y ago
    Chrome forks like Kiwi also have ublock, extensions or desktop view.

spinningslate 2y ago

What you do will, in part, depend on how you feel about 2 things: 1. Mozilla is now an advertising business - see e.g. links in this El Reg post [0]. 2. How you feel about the alternatives. Behind the PR bluffing of the last few days, #1 is clear. Mozilla has hitched the wagon to advertising. There's unlikely to be a single good answer for #2. All the alternatives have compromises: Vivaldi is chrome-based and has some closed source code; Brave has crypto and Eich's political views (and also chrome-based; the various firefox forks (LibreWolf, PaleMoon, Waterfox, ...) all have questions over their sustainability. Perhaps the most promising is Ladybird, but it's a good way off yet. Let's hope we're near the botton of the enshitification curve and there are positives on the horizon somewhere. [0]: https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/02/mozilla_introduces_terms_of_use/ https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/02/mozilla_introduces_te...

DrinkyBird 2y ago

I decided to just stay with Firefox and disable any rubbish that Mozilla adds as it comes. I tried Librewolf, but the unstable RPM repository was very annoying, because zypper disallows system updates if even one repository fails to refresh. I also had some weird issues keeping it pinned to my desktop environment's dock. It also didn't want to save its window geometry (very annoying for me), and the only way to transfer from Firefox is to manually copy your profile data. But mainly, I'm still dependant on Mozilla no matter where I go. They are the ones actually doing the hard work of developing the browser engine; all of these forks are just some patches upon that, so with Firefox I only have to deal with (and trust) Mozilla and my distro, and not some other project in addition to Mozilla.

soulofmischief 2y ago
That's my issue with all of these solo-maintained forks. It's a security nightmare, and browsers are a prime target for supply chain attacks or other forms of subterfuge. The security model just simply isn't acceptable.
- vincvinc 2y ago
  So what's stopping anyone from forming a group or foundation based on donations from like-minded people? And maintain a secure, free fork? I see this topic often enough on HN, this might a big enough group.
  - bluGill 2y ago
    You need several million dollars per year to be useful. Anyone can form a foundation but if you don't have that much or more it was a waste of time. it need not be money a dozen developers donating code full time would work but that is harder to get.
    - KronisLV 2y ago
      Currently Ladybird has 200k USD from FUTO, 100k USD from Shopify and then a bunch more from ProtonVPN, Ahrefs, etc., they also have 7 full time employees and a bunch of volunteers: https://ladybird.org/#faq https://ladybird.org/#faq They fall short of the numbers you suggest, but it's kind of encouraging that some people can do that for an entirely new project. Time will tell how it works out for them, but I could feasibly imagine a Firefox fork gaining similar ground, should people get tired of Mozilla's stewardship for whatever reason. After all, even something like 3% of the market share is way more of a proof of feasibility than 0% and if you get a bunch of money when that figure is 0% like Ladybird, things can only get better for a project built on established technology.

yeyeyeyeyeyeyee 2y ago

I moved to LibreWolf - https://librewolf.net/ https://librewolf.net/

amelius 2y ago
How are they funded? Or, in other words, how do we know they won't end up in the same situation?
- everdrive 2y ago
  There's probably no ideal out there, just different better (or if you prefer, 'less bad') options. With the modern web, nothing is permanent. If a company or software is amazing, it could always become awful in the future. In principle software always potentially suffered from this problem, but the modern web really accelerates this process. There's effectively no web browser which can remain static as the web around it changes so rapidly. And, in order to be meaningfully useful for a broad audience it would also need to keep up with Chromium, which is incredibly well-funded. I think we're in a losing game.
- JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B 2y ago
  I respect what they do, but it's a bunch of patches and scripts on top of Firefox, maybe less demanding that the real deal. Also: > no donations means no expectations Which is very healthy way to take care of a personal project. And if Firefox ever closes, all the forks will have to close at the same time anyway.

Havoc 2y ago

Switching between forks of it seems a bit pointless to me if the base project is in trouble. The Chrome/Chromium mono-culture google created is imo the problem here. Until a solution to that is found this will continue to be a problem

anta40 2y ago
I'll wait for Ladybird to be more mature. Until then, I'm more than happy with Thorium: https://thorium.rocks/ https://thorium.rocks/ So far, the only complain is it doesn't support Netflix (usual DRM stuff): https://github.com/Alex313031/thorium/issues/523 https://github.com/Alex313031/thorium/issues/523

roenxi 2y ago

I'm not sold that avoiding Chromium is any sort of win. It seems to be BSD licensed. The code comes from a long and storied OSS tradition. It is unclear why that having multiple different browser engines is strategically important. As far as I know we've long left behind the world where a hobbyist project could reasonably expect to implement modern JavaScript. Brave's existence and success suggests that competitors building on Chromium are viable. Not to say it is a bad thing to have alternatives floating around; but at this point it is probably easier to have multiple forks of Chromium than strive to have code with a completely independent genealogy.

mr_sturd 2y ago
The problem with Chromium is that it's controlled by Google. Given they control the engine in the majority of browsers, they get to call the shots on the direction of the web as a whole.
- roenxi 2y ago
  They're not in any position to control the web as a whole; Safari is too strong a competitor. But even if Chromium was at 100% market share they couldn't control the web. If they start throwing their weight around then the other web companies will start organising around a Chromium fork. The important thing here is OSS/not-OSS rather than market share. Market share can change quickly enough in response to problems. It is like GCC - there was that spat back in the day, someone forks the code and there is a little war until people figure out which is better. Then the better version became "GCC". It is fine to have one custodian as long as the actual power is retained by the users. Efficient, even.
  - nileshtrivedi 2y ago
    What "other web companies"? Everyone has an app or an app store.
    - roenxi 2y ago
      Whoever. Whatever. OSS is a system for finding the most capable entity in the world at developing a software capability and letting them get on with it. It'll find someone to pick up the slack if Google starts doing a terrible job. In this world of 8 billion humans and however many thousands of companies, there'll be one who knows how to put a web browser together. If I were going to guess today it'd be brave.com, but the world is large and competitive.

crossroadsguy 2y ago

My needs are: - I like Safari as a browser and can live with it - at least on Mac and Safari. But goodness, its sync and almost anything it does with iCloud is atrocious. Now, Apple being Apple they definitely wouldn’t let anyone else fix that. - I also need to use Android where I use Safari. I would happily ditch Safari and Firefox if I can use a browser (without crypto shenanigans, edgy UI) all I need are: - robust sync (tab, bookmarks, and if possible preferences) across platforms (at least between iOS and Mac; and I repeat, no Safari/iCloud isn’t that) - Decent tracking/ad blocking. Doesn’t have to be top notch - Snappy - I am fine with closed source because I have been using Safari all these years

qskousen 2y ago
I would recommend Vivaldi then. I've been using it for half a year and it's pretty good.
- crossroadsguy 2y ago
  I tried it for last two days and then uninstalled it. Didn't click. But I found Vivaldi much (!!) better than Brave. I am trying Orion now based on a comment here. Let's see how it goes.
mitchell209 2y ago
The only thing that saves Safari syncing for me is the tab groups. iCloud automatic syncing is terrible. I'm pretty sure it's not even syncing my iPad's open tabs for some reason and I have no idea how to start troubleshooting it except for removing my iCloud account and then signing back in.
- crossroadsguy 2y ago
  I mean it's just pathetic. I see tabs that I closed from both Mac and iPhone months ago and it had stopped showing up in iCloud Tabs and then it decides to show up again. This is just one among the countless problems. The point is such problems are so old - years/decades - that you know 1. Apple doesn't want to fix it, 2. Apple is not capable of fixing it. I really think both 1 and 2 are correct. I wish Apple just made great and safe hardware let the software be handled by entities with software expertise. By the way someone suggested Orion. I think it has tabs. Might want to try.

ed_mercer 2y ago

What’s wrong with Chromium?

Macha 2y ago
Chromium based browsers are beholden to Google's whims the same way Firefox forks are to Mozilla's. I expect those Chromium browsers planning to continue support of effective APIs for adblock will soon find they don't have resources to maintain those patches as more of the underlying infra gets removed from upstream, for example. My level of trust in Mozilla has fallen, but it still doesn't look likely to fall below my trust in Google in the short to medium term
fau 2y ago
For me: no Multi-Account Containers, full uBlock Origin about to be disabled.
everdrive 2y ago
No manifest v2, worse privacy options, controlled by Google and so sure to get worse over time.

haunter 2y ago

I downladed WebKit for Windows nightly on a whim, not really usebale (as in no extension support) but I wish it were…

The-Old-Hacker 2y ago

Discussion of alternatives here: https://boilingsteam.com/poll-trust-in-firefox-mozilla-is-gone/ https://boilingsteam.com/poll-trust-in-firefox-mozilla-is-go...

HackerThemAll 2y ago

It's the only browser that supports Manifest V2. If you want true ad-blocking capabilities, use and support Firefox. If you're up to Chrome tyranny or Brave lies then go ahead and switch. I consider changing the privacy notice meaningless when I block everything and disable telemetry etc. But at the same time I know y'all are prone to internet drama to get more ad traffic and attention.

daneel_w 2y ago

I'm testing Zen (https://zen-browser.app/ https://zen-browser.app/) on macOS since a while back. Updates seem to lag behind the upstream by everything from 2 to 10 days. Every now and then a Zen-specific update shows up. So far the experience has been good. I don't know how true to their word of protecting privacy the authors really are, as my web proxy shows that the browser connects with Google infrastructure at sporadic intervals through the day even when the browser is sitting idle with no loaded tabs or active extensions. My feeling is that it is too frequent to be the auto-update check. I really hope I'm wrong or goofed up with keeping an eye on its network chatter.

abbe98 2y ago
I think most FF forks are dependent on Google Safe Browsing and some of Googles DRM services.
- daneel_w 2y ago
  Uses it, but not dependant on it. I keep these things disabled.

rohin15 2y ago

I've been using Brave at work for my default browser but Firefox for personal things. I've been really impressed by Brave and so, since the Firefox news, I have decided to use Brave as my personal browser. I understand it's chromium based which is a non-starter for some but that it's open source and that Brendan Eich isn't a Google fan makes it tenable for me to try.

daneel_w 2y ago

For people who use LibreWolf - do you happen to know if it honors Firefox' internal settings relating to disk/memory caches? I insist on configuring Firefox to store as little data as possible on disk in favor or using in-memory caching.

daneel_w 2y ago
Pardon the noise, I found the answer within the product description: * Disable disk cache and clear temporary files on close.

FollowingTheDao 2y ago

I basically do not care anymore. It is impossible, What I do do is use Mullvad VPN on my phone where you can block all ads, and I use hosts file and Mullvad on my Laptop. The only thing that will kill surveillance capitalism (fascism?) is to stop giving them the eyeballs, so get everyone you know to do what I do.

replete 2y ago

I moved my profile folder into Librewolf, done. The only thing that's bugging me is the 'LibreWolf: Always store cookies/data for this site' option on the navbar padlock dropdown, it only appears for me in private windows, regardless of my 'Delete cookies site/data...' option. It's annoying because I contributed UX to this librewolf feature a few years ago (because I really wanted it), its finally landed but I can't use it - it was the blocker to adopting the more strict privsec model that librewolf offers by default (it solves the 'cookie exceptions are a pain to manage' problem. Obviously something to do with my kitchen-sink Firefox profile folder copy, but for now I guess I'll just carry on with cookies persisting and at some point rebuild a fresh librewolf profile if I want to adopt their defaults. So there's at least that, if this ambigious license stuff (and recent ad company purchases) bothers you, you can probably just copy your profile into Librewolf's profile folder, rename, and have done something about this perceived issue without a major disruption

everdrive 2y ago

In the short term, I've switched to Librewolf. In the long term, we're probably hosed unless some heroic individuals can produce a new mainstream browser (or just a successful, long-term fork of Firefox that does not necessarily rely on Mozilla maintaining Firefox) It's important to remember that Firefox itself is a good browser, but is far from perfect; it just remains the better option than Chrome. In an ideal world, an ideal browser would look itself would look quite different, as would the web itself.

mgrandl 2y ago
Donate to Ladybird? They are already quite far: https://ladybird.org https://ladybird.org

pessimizer 2y ago

This blog entry makes me feel heard. I've chosen Firefox through Debian, but the browser is one of those problems that may kick me off the web entirely. People complain that Firefox is dependent on Google, but the forks are also dependent on Google, through Firefox. Chromium is dependent on Chrome. Moving to Apple explicitly attaches you to a company that wants to monopolize your purchases. This is pushing me to deal with the internet only through single-purpose things that are not browsers, which can be even worse. Losing the browser seems similar to losing general-purpose computing (losing general-purpose social computing, maybe?) edit: will Apple eventually buy Ladybird? Seems like that's what's going to happen.

lioeters 2y ago
> Will Apple eventually buy Ladybird? This is the first time I've heard of the idea. Considering how the project has decided to replace C++ with Swift, a language with strong ties to Apple, it seems like a possible scenario. https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1822236888188498031.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1822236888188498031.html

DavideNL 2y ago

I don't see Floorp [1] mentioned a lot here i think... i quite like it, might be a good alternative for now, until something better comes along. Also there's Arkenfox [2] of course, if you want to fine-tune privacy settings. [1] https://floorp.app/ https://floorp.app/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floorp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floorp [2] https://github.com/arkenfox/user.js https://github.com/arkenfox/user.js

sunshine-o 2y ago

I feel like we just went back 20-30 years but MS Windows has become the modern Web browser. - It is totally controlled by big corporations. - It is very expensive to reimplement. - You kind of need it to take part in the world: open and edit an Office doc correctly (but you can also be a freak and use LaTeX if want) - Using a Webkit/Blink based browser is like a dual boot or VM running Windows. Firefox is our Wine/Crossweaver Whatever you think about what happened to Mozilla recently, it is gonna go downhill from there. At some point their engineering is gonna start to really suffer and the quality / security will become a concern. Maybe Librewolf will make some patches, IDK. I am starting to find the Web really boring (to use and develop for). I am tired of proving that I am human by clicking for 2 minutes on images of buses and bicycles. I hope something cool like this [0] happens soon because I am pretty sure all the cool kids will rush to it. - [0] https://joeyh.name/blog/entry/WASM_Wayland_Web_WWW/ https://joeyh.name/blog/entry/WASM_Wayland_Web_WWW/

hardwaresofton 2y ago

Please keep using Firefox. And tell people it’s the only place you can get manifest v2 and fully powered ublock origin

bachmeier 2y ago

I've been thinking about this question myself. It's just a matter of time before Mozilla ends Linux support. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that the whole Mozilla leadership team runs everything like a regular corporation with Windows and MS Office and Teams and uses Edge as their primary browser. We're one cost-cutting decision away from not having Firefox as an option on Linux.

niutech 2y ago

There are more Gecko-based alternatives to Firefox: Mullvad Browser, Zen Browser, Floorp, GNU IceCat, next to LibreWolf. There used to be also Pulse Browser and Flock Browser.

johntitorjr 2y ago
+1 for icecat, it's the way to go until ladybird is ready. you'll need to disable some of the default extensions to make it usable. https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/ https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/ https://icecatbrowser.org/index.html https://icecatbrowser.org/index.html

tannhaeuser 2y ago

FWIW, webkit's github [1] links directly to the "Epiphany Technology Preview" at gnome.org as a supported project. I have no idea if that leads to a full-featured modern browser for Linux, but I'm pretty sure if it doesn't, there should be a fork that does or creating one might be worth considering, and should be even fun and relatively easy to get kicked off. Also, since Webkit is based on KHTML, there might be re-integrations into KDE worth exploring. Ages ago there used to be Safari builds for Windows Apple created to get Safari into the hand of web developers that weren't using Macs, but it doesn't look like there's anything left to pickup. [1]: https://github.com/WebKit/WebKit https://github.com/WebKit/WebKit

philippta 2y ago

Any thoughts on Mullvad Browser? https://mullvad.net/en/browser https://mullvad.net/en/browser

MaxBarraclough 2y ago
It appears to be a closed-source variant of the Tor Browser, itself based on Firefox. If I were going to use a Firefox variant, I'd probably go with LibreWolf.
- dustyharddrive 2y ago
  It's FOSS and maintained by Tor Project team members: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/mullvad-browser https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/mullvad-brows...
  - MaxBarraclough 2y ago
    My mistake, thanks.

TheWoodsy 2y ago

Moved from Firefox Dev Edition to Librewolf. No deal breakers yet. Procedure to transfer over painlessly: Install and run Librewolf. On both browsers go Help > More troubleshooting information > profile folder > Open. Close both browsers. Delete everything inside the librewolf profile. Copy everything from Firefox Dev profile directory into Librewolf profile directory. Run Librewolf with "--allow-downgrade" once. First run was a tad slow with extensions doing some 'recombobulation'. You can now run Librewolf normally without the above allow downgrade option. Enjoy.

waltercool 2y ago

[dead]

jsbisviewtiful 2y ago

Personally I’m going to stick with FF until Ladybird is released and then jump ship.