20 ms·

A look at Firefox forks

565 points by sohkamyung 2y ago

Y_Y 2y ago
Fireforks
- nonrandomstring 2y ago
  Fireworks: Emphasis on colour, animation, bells, whistles and bangs. Liarfox: Even more corporate shitfuckery and deception. Firefux: Porn optimised browser. endless possibilities.....
RVuRnvbM2e 2y ago
It is an indictment on the state of the web that regardless of Mozilla's missteps, Firefox remains the best choice for a secure, open-source web browser that isn't another chromium reskin.
- ramon156 2y ago
  I don't get the public "step down" that people are taking from using Firefox. How many users are actually switching? I doubt it's much. Many are audible about it, though. Yes browsers share your data, it's a browser... Firefox is not doing much worse than chromium browsers
  - neurobashing 2y ago
    the point is not that firefox is "not doing much worse than chromium browsers". the point is that they were founded upon principles of not doing that
  - mfro 2y ago
    I switched. I have been on the fence for some time now, what with the pocket nagware and the various 'sponsored' features showing up in FF. Very easy for me to start using librewolf. It even seems to be faster.
  - sshine 2y ago
    I switched on mobile and on MacOS. I intend to switch on Linux soon. > Yes browsers share your data, it's a browser... No, my software does not betray me. If money could buy better software, I’d spend it. Unfortunately, commercial end-user software (and SaaSS) almost always has deep ties with advertising. I don’t mind crash reporting. I don’t mind opt-in telemetry for QA. There is no justification for telemetry by default, not informing of the extent, using it for advertisement, and selling your data as payment for use of software. Companies that figured out that a steady source of ad revenue beats subscription money will always compromise their customers. I don’t want that. And Firefox is now in the category of software that cannot be trusted until a worthy steward of a fork steps up. In the meantime, I’m using Orion by Kagi until I have a non-WebKit alternative.
  - chneu 2y ago
    I switched after years of annoyances with mozilla.
  - spudlyo 2y ago
    I also switched from Firefox to LibreWolf, both on Linux and on macOS. I'll likely use the latest Chrome just for banking and other high security tasks, but for my normal browsing LibreWolf seems to work fine.
  - mimasama 2y ago
    > Yes browsers share your data, it's a browser... That's not the problem people have with Firefox. One of the issues right now is that there are people who have intentionally opted-in to sharing "technical data" to Mozilla for the sole purpose of improving the browser, when in fact, it's not just for that but also for improving ad-tech which was never an intent those power users had in mind: https://www.quippd.com/writing/2025/03/12/mozilla-has-been-sharing-aggregated-firefox-data-with-advertisers-since-2017-when-it-enabled-telemetry-by-default.html https://www.quippd.com/writing/2025/03/12/mozilla-has-been-s...
- jimbob45 2y ago
  You can’t get an OSS team to fix vulns in a meaningful amount of time, let alone research them. Waterfox/Palemoon stay months behind the official branch and are always vulnerable.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - MrAlex94 2y ago
    Waterfox is not months behind? We follow ESR releases fairly promptly.
- INTPenis 2y ago
  Big corporations on the w3c board, and their control of the largest platforms, have contributed to the enshitification of the web by making web standards move just as fast as Windows APIs or Office formats. Making it much harder for open source volunteer driven projects to keep up. I compare an open source project trying to make a browser to an open source project trying to keep up with MS Office formats or Windows graphics APIs. It requires a lot of resources. And there is no global resolution to this as long as certain nations allow rampant unchecked capitalism and innovation under the sole supervision of the profit driven corporations themselves. Because they will forever keep inventing new standards that they launch on their platforms and become ubiquitous to end users.
  - sshine 2y ago
    Netscape / Firefox once broke the browser market. We need a hero.
    - astrobe_ 2y ago
      Modern bad guys kill heroes in the womb. We need a safe harbor outside of the WWW for things that actually need nothing more than HTML 1.0. And be prepared to do without the wonderful services and contents that are "offered" by big corps "for free".
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
- paulryanrogers 2y ago
  Perhaps more an indictment of failed regulators who have allowed these mega corporations to entrench a single browser engine, steer web standards, and consolidate so many of the social destinations on the web.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
xnx 2y ago
Microsoft, a company that competes directly with Google, thought it was a good idea to use Chromium as a base for Edge. Why doesn't Firefox switch its efforts into improving Chromium for users instead of reimplementing so many pieces?
- vasachi 2y ago
  Microsoft doesn't compete with Google.
  - inglor 2y ago
    Sure it does, it competes on many fronts like Office (vs docs), Sharepoint (vs Google Drive), Azure (vs GCP) and many others. Most of these have a direct relationship to Chrome vs. Edge - for example the Google workspace suite (docs, sheets etc) comes pre-bundled with Chrome whereas Office Online needs to be downloaded like any other website by the user.
    - notRobot 2y ago
      > for example the Google workspace suite (docs, sheets etc) comes pre-bundled with Chrome This is not true
      - xnx 2y ago
        Doesn't a fresh Chrome install add those shortcuts to Windows' desktop?
      - inglor 2y ago
        Lol they just hide it very well - go to chrome://apps and check what's there :)
  - andix 2y ago
    Azure vs GCP Microsoft 365 (Office, Exchange) vs. Google Workspace (Gmail, Office Apps) Windows/Surface vs. ChromeOS/Chromebooks Bing vs Google Search ...?
Dwedit 2y ago
I read in a few places that LibreWolf's anti-fingerprinting features are breaking websites. One person complained that their meeting got scheduled incorrectly because the browser was messing with the user's time zone (for privacy reasons).
- saintfire 2y ago
  It does break many sites. Especially if you disable WebGL. You do get used to it but that's a tall task for most users. It has been complained/asked about to have the ability to enable webgl on whitelisted sites but the devs have a fetish with all or nothing privacy. Unfortunately if I'm using a site that, say, distributes 3D models then I'm likely going to need it enabled, privacy aside. The time zone thing causes confusion with office 365, as well. It displays when meetings are in your time zone which did catch me off guard once.
  - pixxel 2y ago
    > devs have a fetish with all or nothing privacy It’s a position, not a fetish.
  - mixermachine 2y ago
    You are free to enable WebGl in the settings and install a Plugin that allows for blocking/allowing WebGl. The default should be privacy if you install a browser that focuses on privacy.
    - zamadatix 2y ago
      Would you expect a "privacy focused" browser to offer you networking disabled by default but the ability to enable completely unrestricted networking in the settings (you can install a plugin for CORS and the like if you want) or to natively provide the privacy controls you need to actually use the browser? If the latter, why is it different depending which attack surface you ask about? If the former, why not just make that plugin part of the browser itself?
      - 2y ago
inversetelecine 2y ago
The biggest issue with forks, which is pointed out in the article, is Mozilla still does the heavy lifting. None of the forks have the resources (and probably interest) to fully fork Firefox and make it their own codebase to maintain. Personally, I like LibreWolf and Mullvad browser. Hopefully they can keep up to date well into the future.
- pndy 2y ago
  These projects to my knowledge do not release patches by themselves but as you said, rely on Mozilla's work - they take Firefox, strip it out of few features - namely one's that raised concerns, toss in additional stuff from other projects and include own branding. So perhaps these are more "customized derivatives" or "spin-offs"? Not that work of these projects isn't good - on contrary. Mozilla has violated the trust of its users in last years with features nobody ask for and those folks pluck that stuff out. Stil, perhaps it's a time for a proper fork that provides own code maintenance, before things will go worse at Mozilla.
- j16sdiz 2y ago
  Mozilla do more then just the code base -- There are larger eco-system for HTTP, HTML5, CSS, Certificate Authority, etc. The effort for entry is quite high for those...
rrgok 2y ago
The browser engine landscape presents an interesting paradox: we have an open specification, yet multiple implementations with their own quirks and incompatibilities. This seems to undermine the very purpose of standardization. Consider our current situation: - The spec is largely influenced by the same big tech companies that develop the engines - Major engines (Blink, WebKit, Gecko) are all open source - Significant engineering resources are dedicated to maintaining compatibility What's the actual benefit of this redundancy? In other domains, we often consolidate around reference implementations. While I understand the historical and theoretical arguments for implementation diversity (preventing monoculture, fostering innovation, avoiding vendor lock-in), I wonder if these benefits still outweigh the costs in 2025. I'd be interested in hearing perspectives on whether maintaining multiple engines is still the optimal approach for the web ecosystem, or if we're just perpetuating technical debt from an earlier era.
- paulryanrogers 2y ago
  Because reference implementations are often less efficient. If the standard exists as an abstract interface then future implementors can make different tradeoffs.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- herrherrmann 2y ago
  If there was a group/vendor you could trust to develop such a universal engine to rule them all, that could work out. But, alas, no big tech company could ever be trusted with such a task (they would try to push their agenda, e.g. by preventing ad blockers).
  - rrgok 2y ago
    How is that any different from now? Look what happened recently with Mozilla and Firefox...
    - 2y ago
waltbosz 2y ago
This recent Mozilla stuff has got me wondering if one could fork Firefox, strip out the AI/adware code, then sell the binaries. How much would people pay (who would pay for a web browser)? Just Firefox, minus the crap. Would it generate enough revenue to cover the maintenance costs? Etc, etc.
- paulryanrogers 2y ago
  Arguably that's what Librewolf, Waterfox, and Palemoon are doing, except via donations. Considering how quickly Netscape died once IE appeared, I think the market is so small that sites will never test against them and they'll never get a seat on a standards board.
- mmooss 2y ago
  If you take enough users from Firefox, who will do the expensive, hard work of updating and maintaining a browser engine?
  - pjerem 2y ago
    If you take so much users from Firefox but they are paid users then you basically have the money to do the expensive hard work.
    - mmooss 2y ago
      It costs over $200M per year. That's a lot of paying users.
      - gkbrk 2y ago
        "Mozilla spends $200M on it per year" does not mean it costs $200M per year. Considering Mozilla overspends on everything else, it's not a stretch to think they might be overspending on this too.
        mmooss 2y ago
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
tmtvl 2y ago
There's an article about insecurities in Firefox (<https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/firefox-chromium.html https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/firefox-chromium.ht...>), which is a few years old now, but it made me curious as to whether it actually is better to run a Firefox fork, like Librewolf; Firefox itself; or a Chromium fork like Ungoogled Chromium. Unfortunately I don't really understand the implications about the security issues and I don't know whether any of the issues have been solved, so I don't know how to evaluate the security risks versus the privacy risks.
- sfRattan 2y ago
  Browser engines have become so complex that each ultimately represents a massive attack surface. I think, rather than trying to pick the most secure browser (which may change over time) instead: * Stick to one browser engine per device as much as possible. Two at the most. * Isolate installed browser engines as much as possible (i.e. Qubes or mobile operating system levels of sandboxed or virtualized isolation, not just containers or flatpaks for dev-environment tidiness and separation). * Connect end-user devices with browser engines installed to the Internet only while actively using the Internet.
- mixermachine 2y ago
  Would be great if the article would be updated from time to time. It is a good read but some of the presented problems are already fixed.
smjburton 2y ago
If Mozilla needs additional funding, I'd much rather contribute to the project with an "opt-out" subscription plan (say for $20/year) to help support the project without giving away personal data. The author correctly points out that these forks are dependent on Firefox's continued upstream development; however, having this option would provide people with the choice to support the project without giving up personal data, and Firefox and its forks could continue to be sustainably developed.
- MavropaliasG 2y ago
  More money is not the problem, Firefox receives 600+ million USD per year. Is how they waste the money and going back on their pledges and what Mozilla stood for
slindsey 2y ago
For years I've thought of creating a "paid" Firefox fork that is _just_ Firefox rebranded, but otherwise the exact codebase. The money brought in would be used to pay an open source developer to work strictly on things intended to be sent upstream to the Mozilla Firefox. If nothing else, it would prove whether or not people are willing to pay for Firefox. The problem with Firefox currently is the organizational structure; the way that they need to monetize; the fact that you can't pay for Firefox development. The problem with forks is that they are all "Firefox plus this" or "Firefox without that".
- fresh_geezer 2y ago
  I thought it would funny to buy the Netscape brand off AOL and start a fork using that name. Maybe combined with your idea, then when/if there's enough funding coming in it can become the main entity developing the browser.
- cosmic_cheese 2y ago
  I don’t know that this idea would work for literally just Firefox, but I strongly believe that people would be willing to pay for a Firefox fork that has a laser focus on fit and finish and poweruser features. Think a “Firefox Pro” of sorts. Why do I think this? Three reasons: - It elevates the browser into a higher category of tool, where currently Firefox inhabits the same space as OS-bundled calculators and text editors, making it being paid more justifiable in peoples’ minds. - Firefox has long had issues with rough edges and papercuts, which I believe frustrates users more than Mozilla probably realizes. - Much of Firefox’s original claim to fame came from its highly flexible, power user friendly nature which was abandoned in favor of chasing mass appeal.
  - bastawhiz 2y ago
    If someone was building "Arc but for Firefox" I'd gladly pay for that. Firefox is, because of its position in the market, incapable of doing anything broadly interesting that's not "Be as Chrome-like as possible." They sneak in features that are nice, but I simply don't think we'll ever see Mozilla put out something that does anything that really sets Firefox apart. We'll only ever just get marginally better privacy settings or whatever the next Pocket ends up being. Browsers are _user agents_. I want my user agent to serve me by being as frictionless as possible when I use it. I simply can't accept that what Chrome/Firefox/Edge/Safari/Opera have provided as the standard web browsing experience for the last two decades is a global maximum. We use the web in very different ways than we did a generation ago and yet Firefox 136 looks impressively similar to both Firefox 36 and Firefox 3.6. Take the gradients away from Chrome 1.0 and you could convince me a screenshot of it was their next version. If the browser is a tool, it's astounding that the tool has hardly evolved _at all_. I miss the days when Opera did all sorts of weird and wacky shit. Opera 9 was a magical time, and brought us things like tabs and per-tab private browsing and a proper download manager and real developer tools. Firefox should be that, but they're too scared to actually do anything that isn't going to be a totally safe business decision.
pessimizer 2y ago
If you're rich you should consider this a menu. Chrome is about to be split from Google which will be a soft reboot that could go badly or really well, but at the least will lead into an awkward period for them. Alternatively, they won't be split, which will create public anger and likely true accusations of quid pro quo, and possibly a tiny bluesky-sized stampede to alternatives. Chrome will be told they can't pay Firefox for nothing anymore, and Firefox will reply with a not-uninstallable crypto casino or something (why are you complaining, you can turn it off by simply changing 6 unintelligible about:settings, hiding the banner with CSS, and blocking the telemetry and auto-updates at your router...) Grab one of these, and run a TV commercial for a week or two. You'll get 20% market share in a couple months. Hire all of these fork developers, and let them keep running their own projects as forks of yours. Pick up people who get laid off from Firefox. Zen and Floorp look interesting, and librewolf.overrides.cfg is new to me. Making Zen your main sell for marketing purposes, but also distributing LibreWolf for people who prefer a classic setup would make sense. Or if you speak Japanese, replace Zen with Floorp. If you think you can do better than Mozilla, here's your chance! One day we'll be explaining to people that Apache Firefox is unmaintained buggy garbage, and that when old people say "Firefox" they mean Zen.
- b0dhimind 2y ago
  I'd still take the crypto casino Firefox over Chrome :-D JK. But yeah my main issue is performance. I honestly like the AI features, dunno why people so triggered over that. Don't think it affects performance at all. The privacy invasion I need to look into more, maybe only inasfar as it affects performance as well.
AdmiralAsshat 2y ago
> The Floorp project is a much newer entrant. It is developed by a community of Japanese students called Ablaze. Development is hosted on GitHub, and the project solicits donations via GitHub donations. According to its donations page, donors who contribute at the $100 level may submit ads to feature in the new tab page—but the ads, which are displayed as shortcuts with a "sponsored" label, can be turned off in the settings. I've been unable to find any information about the project governance or legal structure of Ablaze. So a group of contributors, presumably upset about Mozilla making "user-hostile" changes like displaying ads in the new tab page, create a fork of Firefox, and then solicit donations for their fork using the exact same revenue model?
- sedatk 2y ago
  Sponsored ads and donations are different revenue models. Mozilla has always been collecting donations and nobody had a problem with it.
  - charcircuit 2y ago
    >Mozilla has always been collecting donations and nobody had a problem with it. There are a ton of people who complain about Mozilla taking donations. It shows up in most HN threads about the mismanagement of Firefox.
    - mimasama 2y ago
      I think the issue is that the donations Mozilla receive don't go to Firefox's development. This is not the case with Floorp, Ladybird and Pale Moon where donations and sponsorship money (PM used to accept sponsors but they don't now) do go to development.
- mimasama 2y ago
  It's not the exact same revenue model. Floorp doesn't use tracking whatsoever for sponsored ads in the home page. And donations to Floorp directly goes to development, unlike in Mozilla.
tcfunk 2y ago
I've been using zen lately mostly for the combination of "essentials" + "workspace" tab management scheme. I love having a space for tabs while also having a spot to pin stuff like email and bluesky which doesn't necessarily fit into one category or other. Admittedly I haven't tried many other options, except sidebery which was good but not quite there for me.
- atulvi 2y ago
  OK, this is it. The perfect firefox fork. The last thing I need is the ability to self host a ff sync server so my bookmarks are synced with my phone.
  - Propelloni 2y ago
    Lucky us, you can do this today, because, of course, it is Mozilla, so it is open source: https://github.com/mozilla-services/syncstorage-rs https://github.com/mozilla-services/syncstorage-rs
- jofzar 2y ago
  These are arc features (which were copied/ported to zen) and are the main reason I use ARC atm on my Mac. On PC I use zen because arc sucks on PC. It's hard to lose these features imo.
  - nicoty 2y ago
    In case you didn't know, Arc isn't being developed since 5 months now. The company has moved on to another project called Dia.
- TranquilMarmot 2y ago
  Firefox has vertical tabs and tab groups now; those aren't specific to Zen
  - paldepind2 2y ago
    Correct me if I'm wrong, but neither vertical tabs nor tab groups are fully ready and shipped. From a quick search, it seems that you need to make edits in `about:config` to enable tab groups and use nightly to access vertical tabs.
impalallama 2y ago
Zen seems interesting but their website crashes when I try and visit which is a bit of deal breaker when it comes to a web browser
heraldgeezer 2y ago
IMO no real need for anything but Firefox Beta and Nightly now. A bit faster, faster features. Finally, native vertical tabs. Fully functioning Ublock origin. Browsing life is good.
chasil 2y ago
Are the rhel RPM distributions of Firefox considered forks at all? They are maintained for a very long time.
- mixmastamyk 2y ago
  Probably not. However, I do believe Fedora and Debian configure and patch out the most egregious Mozilla-isms that infect Firefox already.
- jzb 2y ago
  IIRC Red Hat now just ships the Firefox ESRs and does not support a single version for the entire life of a RHEL release. You probably wouldn’t want a 10-year old browser anyway. And, in RHEL 10, they have stopped packaging Firefox in favor of a Flatpak.
nathabonfim59 2y ago
I've been using Zen since it's first public release and I must say, the development peace is simply incredible! It's rough around the edges sometimes, but the quality of life features are chef's kiss: <Ctrl + Shift + C> to copy the current webpage, workspaces, even an easier profile manager (just like chrome's).
- lucb1e 2y ago
  How does one "copy a webpage"? Do you mean taking a screenshot or the equivalent of Ctrl+AC?
  - nguyenkien 2y ago
    No, just copy url
    - lucb1e 2y ago
      Same number of keys in any other browser: Ctrl+LC
      - spectre3d 2y ago
        Focusing on the number of “keys” is an attempt to deceive. Yes, moving focus to the location bar and then copying the URL gives you the same result. It’s not the same number of steps as copying the URL without changing focus. Ctrl-L, then while still holding Ctrl, hitting C is not the same number of steps as chording Ctrl-Shift and hitting C. Two steps vs one step.
amelius 2y ago
If we can't even trust Firefox anymore, how can we trust these other browsers?
MrAlex94 2y ago
> Waterfox is a browser that began in 2011 as an independent project by Alex Kontos while he was a student. It was acquired and then un-acquired by Internet-advertising company System1. Its site does not, at least at the moment, have enough specifics about the browser's differences and features to compel me to take it for a test drive. Are the others that much more descriptive in their features on their website? IMO Waterfox being around for 14 years warrants a bit of a closer look as to why it’s still around after so long…
- broadsidepicnic 2y ago
  well, a browser owned (and de-owned) by an internet advertising company is enough for me not to ever touch that. We already have a chrome, which is one of the reasons we're in this mess to start with. And yea, I did use waterfox like a decade ago.
  - lolinder 2y ago
    Yeah, I'm pretty uncomfortable with Waterfox because of that episode. In the HN thread the creator responded to complaints about this privacy-unfriendly turn by saying that they "tried to stay away from branding Waterfox as" being about privacy or user control. That's fine, but an immediate turnoff for me even now that the advertising company is apparently out of the picture. If Waterfox isn't about privacy or user control, who knows where it gets sold next or what the dev adds to it next? Edit: I just realized that the dev is the one who wrote the grandparent comment. Maybe you have an explanation that would help? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22343476 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22343476
    - MrAlex94 2y ago
      Well the issue I’ve always found is that privacy is a sliding scale. At the time especially, everyone was after “absolute” privacy - i.e. everything Tor offers. But people were coming in to use Waterfox with that expectation and it wasn’t meeting it - but communicating how “much” privacy you’re being offered is difficult. I did settle on the current terminology and when people ask in user forums I try and make it clear that it’s a balance of usability and privacy - as much as possible without breaking websites. Not sure I agree with your understanding wrt Waterfox not being about user control? Always has been and the feature set matches that and that hasn’t changed.
aucisson_masque 2y ago
> The Floorp project is a much newer entrant.... According to its donations page, donors who contribute at the $100 level may submit ads to feature in the new tab page So if I get it right, people can 'donate' money to floorp project in exchange for service (advertisement). Like when I go to the grocery shop and I make a donation, in exchange I get back home with a pack of beer. I didn't know I was donating so much, my dumb ass thought I was just buying stuff. Got to put that on my Tax sheet.
- dv_dt 2y ago
  A more insidious aspect of grocery shoppings is that companies can pay for better placement on the store shelves & floor.
  - joshuaturner 2y ago
    can donate* for better placement
    - labster 2y ago
      Sounds like a good way to increase donations to shareholders.
  - rswail 2y ago
    Our local grocery duopoly (Australia) not only charge for placement, but are now demanding that suppliers pay for transport between the supermarkets central and regional distribution warehouses, but will only take delivery centrally. That's on top of some products (eg bread) being actually stocked on the shelves by the supplier. Basically supermarkets are just local distribution warehouses with everything else either paid for by the supplier or the purchaser (eg shelf picking/checkout).
- notpushkin 2y ago
  > I didn't know I was donating so much, my dumb ass thought I was just buying stuff. Got to put that on my Tax sheet. It’s not tax deductible, though (and even if you didn’t get anything in return, I don’t think Floorp is a registred charity anyway).
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
CaffeineLD50 2y ago
I'm rockin the LibreWolf on my laptop and gosh darnit I kinda like it. Also Waterfox on the surveillance phone. Seems AOK so far.
nialv7 2y ago
Honestly I just wish mozilla can get their act together, fragmentation is usually a bad idea...
rk06 2y ago
Is there any fork which disables firefox's auto upgrade? I am not able disable it on Firefox or zen browser.
- 418tpot 2y ago
  You can do this with vanilla Firefox using policies.json[1]. Check out `DisableAppUpdate` attribute. If you're using Firefox from nixpkgs this is already disabled by default[2]. [1]: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/customizing-firefox-using-policiesjson https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/customizing-firefox-usi... [2]: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/nixos-24.11/pkgs/applications/networking/browsers/firefox/wrapper.nix#L136 https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/nixos-24.11/pkgs/appli...
ksynwa 2y ago
The problem with Firefox forks I have: - you don't know when they are gonna keel over and die. - non-existent support from distro package repositories. Void Linux for example has an understandable policy of not providing Firefox and Chromium forks. I really don't wanna install them from appimages or fatpak. I have found using firefox provided by my distro with something like arkenfox to be a decent medium but it sucks that this is required in the first place. I wonder if distro repository maintainers try to package Firefox with better defaults but I don't know how to look for that.
- creesch 2y ago
  That, and in many cases they get "stuck" at the firefox version they are based on which means that newer things might not work and more importantly security fixes might not be applied.
- criddell 2y ago
  > you don't know when they are gonna keel over and die Would it really matter? Browsers are pretty much a commodity item. Of all the big pieces of software in your life, I can't imagine one easier to replace than a browser.
  - ksynwa 2y ago
    You have to then go through the trouble of redoing persistent logins, transferring bookmarks, history, plugins, etc. That's a nontrivial amount of effort right there.
    - samtheDamned 2y ago
      At least with firefox based browsers I believe the actual user profile folder is pretty compatible across browsers, copying that should copy every aspect of what makes your browser yours, though it might contain extras that won't be utilized by vanilla firefox.
indulona 2y ago
[dead]
PufPufPuf 2y ago
Zen looks like Arc Browser, but Firefox-based and open-source. Exactly what I'm looking for! The UX pattern for tabs in Arc is amazing. No, it's not just "vertical tabs". It's an innovative blend of the concepts of bookmarks and open tabs. Sort of like files: they can be open or closed, and live in a folder hierarchy. But the development of Arc stopped half a year ago (except security Chromium updates), with a well-working Mac version, but Windows version which is barely usable and no Linux support. The creators decided to focus on some sort of "AI agent" browser. So I came looking for alternatives that would be cross-platform, have working adblockers, and preferably be open-source. There are some "Firefox transformation" projects like ArcFox, but they are clumsy to set up and usually only copy the general look, not the actually useful features like nested folders. There are extensions like "Tree style tabs" but they work a different way than Arc.
- adhamsalama 2y ago
  Try Sidebery extension. It has nested tabs, workspaces and much much more.
  - majesticmerc 2y ago
    I tried Sidebery for a couple of months off the back of multiple recommendations and while it has some decent features, I found it surprisingly lacking in terms of basic features like "close multiple tabs". I also found it regularly would semi-regularly prevent me from clicking on tabs which was frustrating until I restarted the extension or Firefox. In the end I found good old Tree Style Tabs was better. I just wish it had an easier UX for creating named tab groups.
    - Pesopes 2y ago
      I use Sidebery a lot and I'd like to know what exactly you mean by "close multiple tabs"? I currently drag with right click in Sidebery and then click close tabs in the popup menu, however I don't really like doing this way. How is it done in Tree Style Tabs?
eviks 2y ago
Not a single fork with the basic convenience of changing keybinds?
- Mossy9 2y ago
  Zen has quite a nice array of keybinds available in their basic settings menu. Just had a conflict of ctrl+shift+l opening some dev tools window instead of BitWarden, and the browser hotkey was easy to change. Speaking of keyboards, Tridactyl (https://docs.zen-browser.app/faq#how-can-i-sync-my-data-across-multiple-devices https://docs.zen-browser.app/faq#how-can-i-sync-my-data-acro...) works out of the box in Zen as well
  - eviks 2y ago
    Better than the default, but not a nice one - the basics of tab navigation (previous/next) are missing, and you can't assign multiple shortcuts to a command. And extensions don't cover it since they fail outside of a webpage context, so if you have a key to change tabs, you can't just (reliably) use it - it will break your changing sequence once you switch to a protected Settings tab
jaggs 2y ago
I used LibreWolf for a long time, and Waterfox before that. Had to leave LibreWolf though because the audio quality was so awful (videos etc).
- rocketvole 2y ago
  huh, I haven't noticed this, although I wasn't actually listening for poor audio quality. What is your OS?
  - jaggs 2y ago
    Windows 10. I didn't notice it until I had to switch mid-way through a YouTube video to Chrome, and suddenly the audio was significantly louder and clearer. Shocked me.
deeter72 2y ago
Not released yet, but honorable mention to ladybird: https://ladybird.org/ https://ladybird.org/
- kruuuder 2y ago
  Unrelated to Firefox though.
- jbaber 2y ago
  I am a bit confused by their moving from C++ to Swift instead of Rust. It sounds a bit Apple-first. I get that it ports to Linux okay, but will it be hard to make it work with Windows some day?
  - whytevuhuni 2y ago
    Rust makes more sense if you were to start from scratch, but the Ladybird devs said that their code is already heavily OOP, so it maps to Swift a lot better. Also, variety is good, we have Servo in Rust (although I wish they'd make an actual browser around it too).
    - slekker 2y ago
      Yeah I guess it's the same story as with the TSC port to Go
  - ndiddy 2y ago
    The main reasons were that Swift supports OOP and Rust doesn't (useful because web standards are object-oriented and it's easier to follow the specs when you can model them in your code), and that Swift supports C++ interoperability instead of just C interoperability like Rust (makes it easier to incrementally move to Swift in an existing C++ codebase).
adhamsalama 2y ago
Stock Firefox + Siebery extension is all I need.
- immibis 2y ago
  Even though Mozilla tracks you and sells your tracking data?
  - adhamsalama 2y ago
    I do toggle off all the telemetry settings I can find. But you're talking as if there's a browser company that doesn't do that, or at least less than Mozilla, so can you suggest any of those?
  - culi 2y ago
    What browser do you use? You can turn off all Firefox telemetry in the settings.
alok-g 2y ago
In Firefox, you can choose a local html file as your home page, but not as a new tab page. This is allegedly because of some security concerns. Using extentions allows for a limited workaround where the page needs to be re-imported each time it is edited. The surprising part to me is that the same applies to the forks too. If opening a local file for the home page not a security concern, why should it be for the new tab page. I understand that giving local files access to extensions could lead to issues, however, it should not need an extension to use a local file as a new tab page. Note: I maintain my bookmarks in a local html file, which I make into my home page, new tab page, across browsers, and then sync this file across devices using Syncthing.
- Xaphiosis 2y ago
  These restrictions are super-annoying indeed, especially with no way to override them. Example: I like mouse gestures. People say oh yes, you can have mouse gestures in Firefox, here, there are several extensions. Well, open a new tab with a mouse gesture. Cool. Now try close it. Same goes for any other "special" page.
mediumsmart 2y ago
Gnu IceCat for me with Privacy Badger and libreJS. I would pay 10$ every month for Gnu IceCat, the ONLY firefox fork with no telemetry. the ONLY webkit based zero telemetry browser is Kagis Orion
- eudhxhdhsb32 2y ago
  > Gnu IceCat, the ONLY firefox fork with no telemetry. Why would you think that? Plenty of other forks like LibreWolf and IronFox have removed all telemetry.
  - mediumsmart 2y ago
    You are right. I misread somewhere and declared without really checking. Not the first time either. My apologies.
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bovermyer 2y ago
I like the idea of using a Firefox fork, but one thing in particular keeps me tied to Firefox - my Firefox account and the sync feature. I make heavy use of bookmarks and switch between devices frequently. Manually keeping those synced would be a bit of a nightmare. Assuming that Firefox forks can use Firefox extensions, I imagine I could get around this problem by using some kind of bookmark extension. I don't know what options are available for that, though.
- eloisius 2y ago
  I’m using Sync on LibreWolf just fine. I am interested in self hosting sync, but not there yet. I think it would be cool if someone could set up a sync server and charge a small fee for accounts. It’s all OSS and setting it up doesn’t look impossible. Just tedious.
- Croftengea 2y ago
  I use two forks on a daily basis - Floorp and Waterfox. Both sync FF accounts just fine.
- Mossy9 2y ago
  Zen supports FF sync out of the box. Just started trying it out, and it synced at least all the extensions without issue https://docs.zen-browser.app/faq#how-can-i-sync-my-data-across-multiple-devices https://docs.zen-browser.app/faq#how-can-i-sync-my-data-acro...
- sfRattan 2y ago
  There's an extension called floccus [1] that can sync bookmarks between numerous different browsers (including both Firefox/Gecko and Chromium/Blink based browsers, mobile and desktop) and plug into a user-controlled NextCloud [2] or Linkwarden [3] instance running on a local homelab server for backups. However, I try to minimize the number of installed extensions to reduce my own browser fingerprint. As others have replied, Firefox Sync works across most of today's popular downstream shadow-forks of Firefox (as in, forks that shadow the Firefox releases rather than truly forking the code). If you don't want to give Mozilla's enshittified corpse your email (I don't), just use an email service that supports aliases to sign up for Firefox Sync... Which is in any case a good idea generally: no two of your important online accounts should point to the same email, even if behind the scenes the aliases are all routing emails back to you. [1]: https://floccus.org/ https://floccus.org/ [2]: https://nextcloud.com/ https://nextcloud.com/ [3]: https://linkwarden.app/ https://linkwarden.app/
ddtaylor 2y ago
I held off for a long time and tried to find multiple ways to "make Firefox work" and eventually just gave up on that. There are multiple ways to preserve the rights of web users and Mozilla isn't doing a great job there, so stop trying to save something that isn't working and redirect those efforts into something that will.
voytec 2y ago
I've tried using LibreWolf on MacOS but there's a few annoying bugs. HN has a really small text size for me and I usually read HN at 120-133% text size. LibreWolf does not remember this setting on per-site basis and even opening HN-to-HN link in a new tab doesn't preserve text size and I need to increase text size constantly. In addition, posting images to Bluesky doesn't work. Every attempt results in an image of proper size but consisting of only vertical lines. For this, I need to fall back to Firefox or use Safari. Even if the first of above problems is a "feature", the latter is definitely a bug. I haven't filled a report yet. But for now, I'm planning to test Zen.
- Daunk 2y ago
  You can use the Stylus extension to get HN to look any way you want. There are some good community made styles for HN as well.
  - voytec 2y ago
    I appreciate your suggestion. But I hope not to have to exercise it. My go-to setup is: uBlock Origin, NoScript, Dark Reader.
  - culi 2y ago
    Take me back to when user stylesheets were a normal browser feature and not a special extension
- saint_yossarian 2y ago
  Check `browser.zoom.siteSpecific` in `about:config`, in Firefox it defaults to true.
  - voytec 2y ago
    Firefox, LibreWolf and Zen, all have this value set to true by default. This behavior is only present in LibreWolf.
whitehexagon 2y ago
I switched to GNU IceCat about a week ago, following the ToS / privacy changes in FF. I have never used chrome, and never will on principle, in fact I now use zero google services, or best I can. Disabling webfonts / google fonts has been interesting. Anyway, IceCat is growing on me, once I figured out how to gradually enable bits of js for the sites I frequent (not many left at this point). I have a physical aversion to adverts, so I feel better that my limited browsing data is not being sold by mozilla. One thing I havent yet worked out is enabling webGL in IceCat, since I want to get back into my Zig/wasm/WebGL stuff soon. I'm interested if HN has stats for visitor browser-agent, but also for account-holders. Since I wonder how many users actually switched in the last month, or if it was all just huff and puff.
- phatfish 2y ago
  Huff and puff i hope, considering it was a case of Firefox being nit-picked to death again by the privacy crowd that get a Chrome alternative for free. https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/update-on-terms-of-use/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/update-on-terms... I understand that a donation on the Mozilla Foundation is not a way to fund Firefox development, but i believe that the services that get sold through Firefox like Mozilla VPN do fund development. Maybe you could sign up for one (you don't have to use it) to ensure IceCat continues to exist? Full disclosure, I have a 1 year sub to Mozilla VPN, I even used it once or twice.
uoaei 2y ago
Tangential, but what are folks' opinions on Vivaldi?
odiroot 2y ago
I'm generally happy with the "original" Firefox. Just wished it played better with KDE Plasma, especially on Wayland. It ignores the window decoration settings among other things.
- johnkizer 2y ago
  Go to Customize Toolbar, check "Title Bar" at the bottom - that gives a Plasma-native title bar with window controls.
  - odiroot 2y ago
    Sure but then you lose the screen estate. I guess you can't have it all.
RKFADU_UOFCCLEL 2y ago
> Mozilla's actions have been rubbing many Firefox fans the wrong way as of late Just wait until they discover that the web doesn't allow arbitrary browsers anymore, due to a certain "security" company doing deep inspection and blocking anything that isn't Safari, Firefox or Chrome.
- matheusmoreira 2y ago
  Only a matter of time. Remote attestation is one of the most subversive technologies ever invented and they have already tried to make it a web standard, it's only a matter of time before they try again and succeed. We have all this free and open source software and it doesn't matter because they'll refuse us service if we use it. Only corporation owned computers will pass attestation. If you own your machine you will be turned away from every web site.
culi 2y ago
I recently did this exercise as well. There are a lot of browsers not mentioned that you can find here,[0] but there's one big missing one imo. The Tor browser is forked from Firefox to support the Tor Network. On top of the actual tor network it's filled to the brim with novel and unique privacy enhancing features. Mullvad (the VPN company) recently did a partnership with Tor to create the Mullvad Browser.[1] It's exactly the Tor browser but without the onion protocol part. Instead it just has all the anti-fingerprinting and privacy enhancing features. I ended up going with that browser as it's the strongest privacy-focused Firefox fork option [0] https://alternativeto.net/software/firefox/ https://alternativeto.net/software/firefox/ [1] https://support.torproject.org/mullvad-browser/ https://support.torproject.org/mullvad-browser/
- wruza 2y ago
  Tangent, how does “mullvad” sound to native speakers (and non-natives too)? I can’t tell why, but it feels like such an unfortunate combination of phonemes that I avoid even looking into it subconsciously. Can barely force myself to pronounce it, is that just me?
  - pdntspa 2y ago
    It's just another foreign-sounding word in a language full of kidnapped vocabulary
    - nameequalsmain 2y ago
      Mullvad is Swedish for "mole". Mull is a word for soil, and "vad" seems to come from "vada", wade. So translated it would be "soilwade". To me, it sounds like just another word.
  - kseistrup 2y ago
    To native Swedish speakers it will look and sound like just another common Swedish word. And in the context it will even sound like a relevant choice of name. /me is Danish, and the Danish equivalent would be ‘muldvarp’.
bizzyb 2y ago
Haven't seen this mentioned yet, not a fork but a suite of configs and mods for Firefox. https://codeberg.org/celenity/Phoenix https://codeberg.org/celenity/Phoenix
- quickslowdown 2y ago
  This looks cool, am I missing the Windows client, or is it only available on *nix systems?
  - bizzyb 2y ago
    To install on Windows you have to manually install the configs on top of an existing Firefox install. Instructions are on the website.
jug 2y ago
The ecosystem of forks is currently healthy but what concerns me is a lack of Firefox browser support leading to lagging in standards support over time as the browser goes out of fashion for ideological or marketing reasons that this article touches upon. All forks depend on a strong Firefox base and no fork seems to do heavy lifting in terms of web standards, or as a prioritized feature. Instead, they focus on enhancing UX or adhering to open source ideals, but this does little to improve the core browser. :-/ It remains to be seen if we’ll have a new Phoenix moment out of Firefox…? Or does that future belong to Ladybird?
- dmurray 2y ago
  Firefox seems to be good enough - is there anyone who wants to fork Firefox out of a frustration over how it handles some web standard and a feeling that they could do it better? Hard forking a browser and implementing all future features on your own is daunting enough that even Microsoft - a company with more engineering resources than all but a handful of others, and for whom having a branded browser is existentially important - decided not to do it and just to reskin Chrome. So I expect that any truly new browser comes not out of a desire to improve Firefox or Chromium, but from an independent, not economically useful, hacker-driven desire to create something cool. Either Ladybird or someone's RIIR project.
  - rainonmoon 2y ago
    Firefox has made a few headlines over the past year for privacy-unfriendly moves. That's the context you're missing, despite it being in some of the first sentences of the linked article.
    - joshuaissac 2y ago
      > privacy-unfriendly moves Which is a UX issue, not a Web standards issue. None of the major forks were made due to a difference opinion about how the standards should be implemented, so they are all dependent on Mozilla to implement the standards.
worewood 2y ago
Seamonkey needs more love. The best one for me, does not try to be "modern" - keeps the interface unchanged and only updates real functionality.
fsfsd43535 2y ago
Interesting discussion! It's true that many Firefox forks focus on UX and privacy, but as some have pointed out, they still rely on Mozilla for core web standard updates. It would be cool to see a fork that really pushes the boundaries of web tech, maybe incorporating some Rust-based engine components for better performance and security. Has anyone experimented with Servo in a fork? Also, the mention of the Tor browser is spot on - it's a privacy powerhouse, but perhaps not for everyday browsing. I wonder if a fork could combine the best of both worlds?
- samtheDamned 2y ago
  I believe that would be mullvad. Tor browser without the tor.
rurban 2y ago
It's also missing Fennec, the most well-known Android browser fork. I'm using it for years

565 points by sohkamyung 2y ago

Y_Y 2y ago

Fireforks

nonrandomstring 2y ago
Fireworks: Emphasis on colour, animation, bells, whistles and bangs. Liarfox: Even more corporate shitfuckery and deception. Firefux: Porn optimised browser. endless possibilities.....

RVuRnvbM2e 2y ago

It is an indictment on the state of the web that regardless of Mozilla's missteps, Firefox remains the best choice for a secure, open-source web browser that isn't another chromium reskin.

ramon156 2y ago
I don't get the public "step down" that people are taking from using Firefox. How many users are actually switching? I doubt it's much. Many are audible about it, though. Yes browsers share your data, it's a browser... Firefox is not doing much worse than chromium browsers
- neurobashing 2y ago
  the point is not that firefox is "not doing much worse than chromium browsers". the point is that they were founded upon principles of not doing that
- mfro 2y ago
  I switched. I have been on the fence for some time now, what with the pocket nagware and the various 'sponsored' features showing up in FF. Very easy for me to start using librewolf. It even seems to be faster.
- sshine 2y ago
  I switched on mobile and on MacOS. I intend to switch on Linux soon. > Yes browsers share your data, it's a browser... No, my software does not betray me. If money could buy better software, I’d spend it. Unfortunately, commercial end-user software (and SaaSS) almost always has deep ties with advertising. I don’t mind crash reporting. I don’t mind opt-in telemetry for QA. There is no justification for telemetry by default, not informing of the extent, using it for advertisement, and selling your data as payment for use of software. Companies that figured out that a steady source of ad revenue beats subscription money will always compromise their customers. I don’t want that. And Firefox is now in the category of software that cannot be trusted until a worthy steward of a fork steps up. In the meantime, I’m using Orion by Kagi until I have a non-WebKit alternative.
- chneu 2y ago
  I switched after years of annoyances with mozilla.
- spudlyo 2y ago
  I also switched from Firefox to LibreWolf, both on Linux and on macOS. I'll likely use the latest Chrome just for banking and other high security tasks, but for my normal browsing LibreWolf seems to work fine.
- mimasama 2y ago
  > Yes browsers share your data, it's a browser... That's not the problem people have with Firefox. One of the issues right now is that there are people who have intentionally opted-in to sharing "technical data" to Mozilla for the sole purpose of improving the browser, when in fact, it's not just for that but also for improving ad-tech which was never an intent those power users had in mind: https://www.quippd.com/writing/2025/03/12/mozilla-has-been-sharing-aggregated-firefox-data-with-advertisers-since-2017-when-it-enabled-telemetry-by-default.html https://www.quippd.com/writing/2025/03/12/mozilla-has-been-s...
jimbob45 2y ago
You can’t get an OSS team to fix vulns in a meaningful amount of time, let alone research them. Waterfox/Palemoon stay months behind the official branch and are always vulnerable.
- deleted 2y ago
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- MrAlex94 2y ago
  Waterfox is not months behind? We follow ESR releases fairly promptly.
INTPenis 2y ago
Big corporations on the w3c board, and their control of the largest platforms, have contributed to the enshitification of the web by making web standards move just as fast as Windows APIs or Office formats. Making it much harder for open source volunteer driven projects to keep up. I compare an open source project trying to make a browser to an open source project trying to keep up with MS Office formats or Windows graphics APIs. It requires a lot of resources. And there is no global resolution to this as long as certain nations allow rampant unchecked capitalism and innovation under the sole supervision of the profit driven corporations themselves. Because they will forever keep inventing new standards that they launch on their platforms and become ubiquitous to end users.
- sshine 2y ago
  Netscape / Firefox once broke the browser market. We need a hero.
  - astrobe_ 2y ago
    Modern bad guys kill heroes in the womb. We need a safe harbor outside of the WWW for things that actually need nothing more than HTML 1.0. And be prepared to do without the wonderful services and contents that are "offered" by big corps "for free".
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
paulryanrogers 2y ago
Perhaps more an indictment of failed regulators who have allowed these mega corporations to entrench a single browser engine, steer web standards, and consolidate so many of the social destinations on the web.
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xnx 2y ago

Microsoft, a company that competes directly with Google, thought it was a good idea to use Chromium as a base for Edge. Why doesn't Firefox switch its efforts into improving Chromium for users instead of reimplementing so many pieces?

vasachi 2y ago
Microsoft doesn't compete with Google.
- inglor 2y ago
  Sure it does, it competes on many fronts like Office (vs docs), Sharepoint (vs Google Drive), Azure (vs GCP) and many others. Most of these have a direct relationship to Chrome vs. Edge - for example the Google workspace suite (docs, sheets etc) comes pre-bundled with Chrome whereas Office Online needs to be downloaded like any other website by the user.
  - notRobot 2y ago
    > for example the Google workspace suite (docs, sheets etc) comes pre-bundled with Chrome This is not true
    - xnx 2y ago
      Doesn't a fresh Chrome install add those shortcuts to Windows' desktop?
    - inglor 2y ago
      Lol they just hide it very well - go to chrome://apps and check what's there :)
- andix 2y ago
  Azure vs GCP Microsoft 365 (Office, Exchange) vs. Google Workspace (Gmail, Office Apps) Windows/Surface vs. ChromeOS/Chromebooks Bing vs Google Search ...?

Dwedit 2y ago

I read in a few places that LibreWolf's anti-fingerprinting features are breaking websites. One person complained that their meeting got scheduled incorrectly because the browser was messing with the user's time zone (for privacy reasons).

saintfire 2y ago
It does break many sites. Especially if you disable WebGL. You do get used to it but that's a tall task for most users. It has been complained/asked about to have the ability to enable webgl on whitelisted sites but the devs have a fetish with all or nothing privacy. Unfortunately if I'm using a site that, say, distributes 3D models then I'm likely going to need it enabled, privacy aside. The time zone thing causes confusion with office 365, as well. It displays when meetings are in your time zone which did catch me off guard once.
- pixxel 2y ago
  > devs have a fetish with all or nothing privacy It’s a position, not a fetish.
- mixermachine 2y ago
  You are free to enable WebGl in the settings and install a Plugin that allows for blocking/allowing WebGl. The default should be privacy if you install a browser that focuses on privacy.
  - zamadatix 2y ago
    Would you expect a "privacy focused" browser to offer you networking disabled by default but the ability to enable completely unrestricted networking in the settings (you can install a plugin for CORS and the like if you want) or to natively provide the privacy controls you need to actually use the browser? If the latter, why is it different depending which attack surface you ask about? If the former, why not just make that plugin part of the browser itself?
    - 2y ago

inversetelecine 2y ago

The biggest issue with forks, which is pointed out in the article, is Mozilla still does the heavy lifting. None of the forks have the resources (and probably interest) to fully fork Firefox and make it their own codebase to maintain. Personally, I like LibreWolf and Mullvad browser. Hopefully they can keep up to date well into the future.

pndy 2y ago
These projects to my knowledge do not release patches by themselves but as you said, rely on Mozilla's work - they take Firefox, strip it out of few features - namely one's that raised concerns, toss in additional stuff from other projects and include own branding. So perhaps these are more "customized derivatives" or "spin-offs"? Not that work of these projects isn't good - on contrary. Mozilla has violated the trust of its users in last years with features nobody ask for and those folks pluck that stuff out. Stil, perhaps it's a time for a proper fork that provides own code maintenance, before things will go worse at Mozilla.
j16sdiz 2y ago
Mozilla do more then just the code base -- There are larger eco-system for HTTP, HTML5, CSS, Certificate Authority, etc. The effort for entry is quite high for those...

rrgok 2y ago

The browser engine landscape presents an interesting paradox: we have an open specification, yet multiple implementations with their own quirks and incompatibilities. This seems to undermine the very purpose of standardization. Consider our current situation: - The spec is largely influenced by the same big tech companies that develop the engines - Major engines (Blink, WebKit, Gecko) are all open source - Significant engineering resources are dedicated to maintaining compatibility What's the actual benefit of this redundancy? In other domains, we often consolidate around reference implementations. While I understand the historical and theoretical arguments for implementation diversity (preventing monoculture, fostering innovation, avoiding vendor lock-in), I wonder if these benefits still outweigh the costs in 2025. I'd be interested in hearing perspectives on whether maintaining multiple engines is still the optimal approach for the web ecosystem, or if we're just perpetuating technical debt from an earlier era.

paulryanrogers 2y ago
Because reference implementations are often less efficient. If the standard exists as an abstract interface then future implementors can make different tradeoffs.
- deleted 2y ago
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herrherrmann 2y ago
If there was a group/vendor you could trust to develop such a universal engine to rule them all, that could work out. But, alas, no big tech company could ever be trusted with such a task (they would try to push their agenda, e.g. by preventing ad blockers).
- rrgok 2y ago
  How is that any different from now? Look what happened recently with Mozilla and Firefox...
  - 2y ago

waltbosz 2y ago

This recent Mozilla stuff has got me wondering if one could fork Firefox, strip out the AI/adware code, then sell the binaries. How much would people pay (who would pay for a web browser)? Just Firefox, minus the crap. Would it generate enough revenue to cover the maintenance costs? Etc, etc.

paulryanrogers 2y ago
Arguably that's what Librewolf, Waterfox, and Palemoon are doing, except via donations. Considering how quickly Netscape died once IE appeared, I think the market is so small that sites will never test against them and they'll never get a seat on a standards board.
mmooss 2y ago
If you take enough users from Firefox, who will do the expensive, hard work of updating and maintaining a browser engine?
- pjerem 2y ago
  If you take so much users from Firefox but they are paid users then you basically have the money to do the expensive hard work.
  - mmooss 2y ago
    It costs over $200M per year. That's a lot of paying users.
    - gkbrk 2y ago
      "Mozilla spends $200M on it per year" does not mean it costs $200M per year. Considering Mozilla overspends on everything else, it's not a stretch to think they might be overspending on this too.
      - mmooss 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

tmtvl 2y ago

There's an article about insecurities in Firefox (<https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/firefox-chromium.html https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/firefox-chromium.ht...>), which is a few years old now, but it made me curious as to whether it actually is better to run a Firefox fork, like Librewolf; Firefox itself; or a Chromium fork like Ungoogled Chromium. Unfortunately I don't really understand the implications about the security issues and I don't know whether any of the issues have been solved, so I don't know how to evaluate the security risks versus the privacy risks.

sfRattan 2y ago
Browser engines have become so complex that each ultimately represents a massive attack surface. I think, rather than trying to pick the most secure browser (which may change over time) instead: * Stick to one browser engine per device as much as possible. Two at the most. * Isolate installed browser engines as much as possible (i.e. Qubes or mobile operating system levels of sandboxed or virtualized isolation, not just containers or flatpaks for dev-environment tidiness and separation). * Connect end-user devices with browser engines installed to the Internet only while actively using the Internet.
mixermachine 2y ago
Would be great if the article would be updated from time to time. It is a good read but some of the presented problems are already fixed.

smjburton 2y ago

If Mozilla needs additional funding, I'd much rather contribute to the project with an "opt-out" subscription plan (say for $20/year) to help support the project without giving away personal data. The author correctly points out that these forks are dependent on Firefox's continued upstream development; however, having this option would provide people with the choice to support the project without giving up personal data, and Firefox and its forks could continue to be sustainably developed.

MavropaliasG 2y ago
More money is not the problem, Firefox receives 600+ million USD per year. Is how they waste the money and going back on their pledges and what Mozilla stood for

slindsey 2y ago

For years I've thought of creating a "paid" Firefox fork that is _just_ Firefox rebranded, but otherwise the exact codebase. The money brought in would be used to pay an open source developer to work strictly on things intended to be sent upstream to the Mozilla Firefox. If nothing else, it would prove whether or not people are willing to pay for Firefox. The problem with Firefox currently is the organizational structure; the way that they need to monetize; the fact that you can't pay for Firefox development. The problem with forks is that they are all "Firefox plus this" or "Firefox without that".

fresh_geezer 2y ago
I thought it would funny to buy the Netscape brand off AOL and start a fork using that name. Maybe combined with your idea, then when/if there's enough funding coming in it can become the main entity developing the browser.
cosmic_cheese 2y ago
I don’t know that this idea would work for literally just Firefox, but I strongly believe that people would be willing to pay for a Firefox fork that has a laser focus on fit and finish and poweruser features. Think a “Firefox Pro” of sorts. Why do I think this? Three reasons: - It elevates the browser into a higher category of tool, where currently Firefox inhabits the same space as OS-bundled calculators and text editors, making it being paid more justifiable in peoples’ minds. - Firefox has long had issues with rough edges and papercuts, which I believe frustrates users more than Mozilla probably realizes. - Much of Firefox’s original claim to fame came from its highly flexible, power user friendly nature which was abandoned in favor of chasing mass appeal.
- bastawhiz 2y ago
  If someone was building "Arc but for Firefox" I'd gladly pay for that. Firefox is, because of its position in the market, incapable of doing anything broadly interesting that's not "Be as Chrome-like as possible." They sneak in features that are nice, but I simply don't think we'll ever see Mozilla put out something that does anything that really sets Firefox apart. We'll only ever just get marginally better privacy settings or whatever the next Pocket ends up being. Browsers are _user agents_. I want my user agent to serve me by being as frictionless as possible when I use it. I simply can't accept that what Chrome/Firefox/Edge/Safari/Opera have provided as the standard web browsing experience for the last two decades is a global maximum. We use the web in very different ways than we did a generation ago and yet Firefox 136 looks impressively similar to both Firefox 36 and Firefox 3.6. Take the gradients away from Chrome 1.0 and you could convince me a screenshot of it was their next version. If the browser is a tool, it's astounding that the tool has hardly evolved _at all_. I miss the days when Opera did all sorts of weird and wacky shit. Opera 9 was a magical time, and brought us things like tabs and per-tab private browsing and a proper download manager and real developer tools. Firefox should be that, but they're too scared to actually do anything that isn't going to be a totally safe business decision.

pessimizer 2y ago

If you're rich you should consider this a menu. Chrome is about to be split from Google which will be a soft reboot that could go badly or really well, but at the least will lead into an awkward period for them. Alternatively, they won't be split, which will create public anger and likely true accusations of quid pro quo, and possibly a tiny bluesky-sized stampede to alternatives. Chrome will be told they can't pay Firefox for nothing anymore, and Firefox will reply with a not-uninstallable crypto casino or something (why are you complaining, you can turn it off by simply changing 6 unintelligible about:settings, hiding the banner with CSS, and blocking the telemetry and auto-updates at your router...) Grab one of these, and run a TV commercial for a week or two. You'll get 20% market share in a couple months. Hire all of these fork developers, and let them keep running their own projects as forks of yours. Pick up people who get laid off from Firefox. Zen and Floorp look interesting, and librewolf.overrides.cfg is new to me. Making Zen your main sell for marketing purposes, but also distributing LibreWolf for people who prefer a classic setup would make sense. Or if you speak Japanese, replace Zen with Floorp. If you think you can do better than Mozilla, here's your chance! One day we'll be explaining to people that Apache Firefox is unmaintained buggy garbage, and that when old people say "Firefox" they mean Zen.

b0dhimind 2y ago
I'd still take the crypto casino Firefox over Chrome :-D JK. But yeah my main issue is performance. I honestly like the AI features, dunno why people so triggered over that. Don't think it affects performance at all. The privacy invasion I need to look into more, maybe only inasfar as it affects performance as well.

AdmiralAsshat 2y ago

> The Floorp project is a much newer entrant. It is developed by a community of Japanese students called Ablaze. Development is hosted on GitHub, and the project solicits donations via GitHub donations. According to its donations page, donors who contribute at the $100 level may submit ads to feature in the new tab page—but the ads, which are displayed as shortcuts with a "sponsored" label, can be turned off in the settings. I've been unable to find any information about the project governance or legal structure of Ablaze. So a group of contributors, presumably upset about Mozilla making "user-hostile" changes like displaying ads in the new tab page, create a fork of Firefox, and then solicit donations for their fork using the exact same revenue model?

sedatk 2y ago
Sponsored ads and donations are different revenue models. Mozilla has always been collecting donations and nobody had a problem with it.
- charcircuit 2y ago
  >Mozilla has always been collecting donations and nobody had a problem with it. There are a ton of people who complain about Mozilla taking donations. It shows up in most HN threads about the mismanagement of Firefox.
  - mimasama 2y ago
    I think the issue is that the donations Mozilla receive don't go to Firefox's development. This is not the case with Floorp, Ladybird and Pale Moon where donations and sponsorship money (PM used to accept sponsors but they don't now) do go to development.
mimasama 2y ago
It's not the exact same revenue model. Floorp doesn't use tracking whatsoever for sponsored ads in the home page. And donations to Floorp directly goes to development, unlike in Mozilla.

tcfunk 2y ago

I've been using zen lately mostly for the combination of "essentials" + "workspace" tab management scheme. I love having a space for tabs while also having a spot to pin stuff like email and bluesky which doesn't necessarily fit into one category or other. Admittedly I haven't tried many other options, except sidebery which was good but not quite there for me.

atulvi 2y ago
OK, this is it. The perfect firefox fork. The last thing I need is the ability to self host a ff sync server so my bookmarks are synced with my phone.
- Propelloni 2y ago
  Lucky us, you can do this today, because, of course, it is Mozilla, so it is open source: https://github.com/mozilla-services/syncstorage-rs https://github.com/mozilla-services/syncstorage-rs
jofzar 2y ago
These are arc features (which were copied/ported to zen) and are the main reason I use ARC atm on my Mac. On PC I use zen because arc sucks on PC. It's hard to lose these features imo.
- nicoty 2y ago
  In case you didn't know, Arc isn't being developed since 5 months now. The company has moved on to another project called Dia.
TranquilMarmot 2y ago
Firefox has vertical tabs and tab groups now; those aren't specific to Zen
- paldepind2 2y ago
  Correct me if I'm wrong, but neither vertical tabs nor tab groups are fully ready and shipped. From a quick search, it seems that you need to make edits in `about:config` to enable tab groups and use nightly to access vertical tabs.

impalallama 2y ago

Zen seems interesting but their website crashes when I try and visit which is a bit of deal breaker when it comes to a web browser

heraldgeezer 2y ago

IMO no real need for anything but Firefox Beta and Nightly now. A bit faster, faster features. Finally, native vertical tabs. Fully functioning Ublock origin. Browsing life is good.

chasil 2y ago

Are the rhel RPM distributions of Firefox considered forks at all? They are maintained for a very long time.

mixmastamyk 2y ago
Probably not. However, I do believe Fedora and Debian configure and patch out the most egregious Mozilla-isms that infect Firefox already.
jzb 2y ago
IIRC Red Hat now just ships the Firefox ESRs and does not support a single version for the entire life of a RHEL release. You probably wouldn’t want a 10-year old browser anyway. And, in RHEL 10, they have stopped packaging Firefox in favor of a Flatpak.

nathabonfim59 2y ago

I've been using Zen since it's first public release and I must say, the development peace is simply incredible! It's rough around the edges sometimes, but the quality of life features are chef's kiss: <Ctrl + Shift + C> to copy the current webpage, workspaces, even an easier profile manager (just like chrome's).

lucb1e 2y ago
How does one "copy a webpage"? Do you mean taking a screenshot or the equivalent of Ctrl+AC?
- nguyenkien 2y ago
  No, just copy url
  - lucb1e 2y ago
    Same number of keys in any other browser: Ctrl+LC
    - spectre3d 2y ago
      Focusing on the number of “keys” is an attempt to deceive. Yes, moving focus to the location bar and then copying the URL gives you the same result. It’s not the same number of steps as copying the URL without changing focus. Ctrl-L, then while still holding Ctrl, hitting C is not the same number of steps as chording Ctrl-Shift and hitting C. Two steps vs one step.

amelius 2y ago

If we can't even trust Firefox anymore, how can we trust these other browsers?

MrAlex94 2y ago

> Waterfox is a browser that began in 2011 as an independent project by Alex Kontos while he was a student. It was acquired and then un-acquired by Internet-advertising company System1. Its site does not, at least at the moment, have enough specifics about the browser's differences and features to compel me to take it for a test drive. Are the others that much more descriptive in their features on their website? IMO Waterfox being around for 14 years warrants a bit of a closer look as to why it’s still around after so long…

broadsidepicnic 2y ago
well, a browser owned (and de-owned) by an internet advertising company is enough for me not to ever touch that. We already have a chrome, which is one of the reasons we're in this mess to start with. And yea, I did use waterfox like a decade ago.
- lolinder 2y ago
  Yeah, I'm pretty uncomfortable with Waterfox because of that episode. In the HN thread the creator responded to complaints about this privacy-unfriendly turn by saying that they "tried to stay away from branding Waterfox as" being about privacy or user control. That's fine, but an immediate turnoff for me even now that the advertising company is apparently out of the picture. If Waterfox isn't about privacy or user control, who knows where it gets sold next or what the dev adds to it next? Edit: I just realized that the dev is the one who wrote the grandparent comment. Maybe you have an explanation that would help? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22343476 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22343476
  - MrAlex94 2y ago
    Well the issue I’ve always found is that privacy is a sliding scale. At the time especially, everyone was after “absolute” privacy - i.e. everything Tor offers. But people were coming in to use Waterfox with that expectation and it wasn’t meeting it - but communicating how “much” privacy you’re being offered is difficult. I did settle on the current terminology and when people ask in user forums I try and make it clear that it’s a balance of usability and privacy - as much as possible without breaking websites. Not sure I agree with your understanding wrt Waterfox not being about user control? Always has been and the feature set matches that and that hasn’t changed.

aucisson_masque 2y ago

> The Floorp project is a much newer entrant.... According to its donations page, donors who contribute at the $100 level may submit ads to feature in the new tab page So if I get it right, people can 'donate' money to floorp project in exchange for service (advertisement). Like when I go to the grocery shop and I make a donation, in exchange I get back home with a pack of beer. I didn't know I was donating so much, my dumb ass thought I was just buying stuff. Got to put that on my Tax sheet.

dv_dt 2y ago
A more insidious aspect of grocery shoppings is that companies can pay for better placement on the store shelves & floor.
- joshuaturner 2y ago
  can donate* for better placement
  - labster 2y ago
    Sounds like a good way to increase donations to shareholders.
- rswail 2y ago
  Our local grocery duopoly (Australia) not only charge for placement, but are now demanding that suppliers pay for transport between the supermarkets central and regional distribution warehouses, but will only take delivery centrally. That's on top of some products (eg bread) being actually stocked on the shelves by the supplier. Basically supermarkets are just local distribution warehouses with everything else either paid for by the supplier or the purchaser (eg shelf picking/checkout).
notpushkin 2y ago
> I didn't know I was donating so much, my dumb ass thought I was just buying stuff. Got to put that on my Tax sheet. It’s not tax deductible, though (and even if you didn’t get anything in return, I don’t think Floorp is a registred charity anyway).

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CaffeineLD50 2y ago

I'm rockin the LibreWolf on my laptop and gosh darnit I kinda like it. Also Waterfox on the surveillance phone. Seems AOK so far.

nialv7 2y ago

Honestly I just wish mozilla can get their act together, fragmentation is usually a bad idea...

rk06 2y ago

Is there any fork which disables firefox's auto upgrade? I am not able disable it on Firefox or zen browser.

418tpot 2y ago
You can do this with vanilla Firefox using policies.json[1]. Check out `DisableAppUpdate` attribute. If you're using Firefox from nixpkgs this is already disabled by default[2]. [1]: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/customizing-firefox-using-policiesjson https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/customizing-firefox-usi... [2]: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/nixos-24.11/pkgs/applications/networking/browsers/firefox/wrapper.nix#L136 https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/nixos-24.11/pkgs/appli...

ksynwa 2y ago

The problem with Firefox forks I have: - you don't know when they are gonna keel over and die. - non-existent support from distro package repositories. Void Linux for example has an understandable policy of not providing Firefox and Chromium forks. I really don't wanna install them from appimages or fatpak. I have found using firefox provided by my distro with something like arkenfox to be a decent medium but it sucks that this is required in the first place. I wonder if distro repository maintainers try to package Firefox with better defaults but I don't know how to look for that.

creesch 2y ago
That, and in many cases they get "stuck" at the firefox version they are based on which means that newer things might not work and more importantly security fixes might not be applied.
criddell 2y ago
> you don't know when they are gonna keel over and die Would it really matter? Browsers are pretty much a commodity item. Of all the big pieces of software in your life, I can't imagine one easier to replace than a browser.
- ksynwa 2y ago
  You have to then go through the trouble of redoing persistent logins, transferring bookmarks, history, plugins, etc. That's a nontrivial amount of effort right there.
  - samtheDamned 2y ago
    At least with firefox based browsers I believe the actual user profile folder is pretty compatible across browsers, copying that should copy every aspect of what makes your browser yours, though it might contain extras that won't be utilized by vanilla firefox.

indulona 2y ago

[dead]

PufPufPuf 2y ago

Zen looks like Arc Browser, but Firefox-based and open-source. Exactly what I'm looking for! The UX pattern for tabs in Arc is amazing. No, it's not just "vertical tabs". It's an innovative blend of the concepts of bookmarks and open tabs. Sort of like files: they can be open or closed, and live in a folder hierarchy. But the development of Arc stopped half a year ago (except security Chromium updates), with a well-working Mac version, but Windows version which is barely usable and no Linux support. The creators decided to focus on some sort of "AI agent" browser. So I came looking for alternatives that would be cross-platform, have working adblockers, and preferably be open-source. There are some "Firefox transformation" projects like ArcFox, but they are clumsy to set up and usually only copy the general look, not the actually useful features like nested folders. There are extensions like "Tree style tabs" but they work a different way than Arc.

adhamsalama 2y ago
Try Sidebery extension. It has nested tabs, workspaces and much much more.
- majesticmerc 2y ago
  I tried Sidebery for a couple of months off the back of multiple recommendations and while it has some decent features, I found it surprisingly lacking in terms of basic features like "close multiple tabs". I also found it regularly would semi-regularly prevent me from clicking on tabs which was frustrating until I restarted the extension or Firefox. In the end I found good old Tree Style Tabs was better. I just wish it had an easier UX for creating named tab groups.
  - Pesopes 2y ago
    I use Sidebery a lot and I'd like to know what exactly you mean by "close multiple tabs"? I currently drag with right click in Sidebery and then click close tabs in the popup menu, however I don't really like doing this way. How is it done in Tree Style Tabs?

eviks 2y ago

Not a single fork with the basic convenience of changing keybinds?

Mossy9 2y ago
Zen has quite a nice array of keybinds available in their basic settings menu. Just had a conflict of ctrl+shift+l opening some dev tools window instead of BitWarden, and the browser hotkey was easy to change. Speaking of keyboards, Tridactyl (https://docs.zen-browser.app/faq#how-can-i-sync-my-data-across-multiple-devices https://docs.zen-browser.app/faq#how-can-i-sync-my-data-acro...) works out of the box in Zen as well
- eviks 2y ago
  Better than the default, but not a nice one - the basics of tab navigation (previous/next) are missing, and you can't assign multiple shortcuts to a command. And extensions don't cover it since they fail outside of a webpage context, so if you have a key to change tabs, you can't just (reliably) use it - it will break your changing sequence once you switch to a protected Settings tab

jaggs 2y ago

I used LibreWolf for a long time, and Waterfox before that. Had to leave LibreWolf though because the audio quality was so awful (videos etc).

rocketvole 2y ago
huh, I haven't noticed this, although I wasn't actually listening for poor audio quality. What is your OS?
- jaggs 2y ago
  Windows 10. I didn't notice it until I had to switch mid-way through a YouTube video to Chrome, and suddenly the audio was significantly louder and clearer. Shocked me.

deeter72 2y ago

Not released yet, but honorable mention to ladybird: https://ladybird.org/ https://ladybird.org/

kruuuder 2y ago
Unrelated to Firefox though.
jbaber 2y ago
I am a bit confused by their moving from C++ to Swift instead of Rust. It sounds a bit Apple-first. I get that it ports to Linux okay, but will it be hard to make it work with Windows some day?
- whytevuhuni 2y ago
  Rust makes more sense if you were to start from scratch, but the Ladybird devs said that their code is already heavily OOP, so it maps to Swift a lot better. Also, variety is good, we have Servo in Rust (although I wish they'd make an actual browser around it too).
  - slekker 2y ago
    Yeah I guess it's the same story as with the TSC port to Go
- ndiddy 2y ago
  The main reasons were that Swift supports OOP and Rust doesn't (useful because web standards are object-oriented and it's easier to follow the specs when you can model them in your code), and that Swift supports C++ interoperability instead of just C interoperability like Rust (makes it easier to incrementally move to Swift in an existing C++ codebase).

adhamsalama 2y ago

Stock Firefox + Siebery extension is all I need.

immibis 2y ago
Even though Mozilla tracks you and sells your tracking data?
- adhamsalama 2y ago
  I do toggle off all the telemetry settings I can find. But you're talking as if there's a browser company that doesn't do that, or at least less than Mozilla, so can you suggest any of those?
- culi 2y ago
  What browser do you use? You can turn off all Firefox telemetry in the settings.

alok-g 2y ago

In Firefox, you can choose a local html file as your home page, but not as a new tab page. This is allegedly because of some security concerns. Using extentions allows for a limited workaround where the page needs to be re-imported each time it is edited. The surprising part to me is that the same applies to the forks too. If opening a local file for the home page not a security concern, why should it be for the new tab page. I understand that giving local files access to extensions could lead to issues, however, it should not need an extension to use a local file as a new tab page. Note: I maintain my bookmarks in a local html file, which I make into my home page, new tab page, across browsers, and then sync this file across devices using Syncthing.

Xaphiosis 2y ago
These restrictions are super-annoying indeed, especially with no way to override them. Example: I like mouse gestures. People say oh yes, you can have mouse gestures in Firefox, here, there are several extensions. Well, open a new tab with a mouse gesture. Cool. Now try close it. Same goes for any other "special" page.

mediumsmart 2y ago

Gnu IceCat for me with Privacy Badger and libreJS. I would pay 10$ every month for Gnu IceCat, the ONLY firefox fork with no telemetry. the ONLY webkit based zero telemetry browser is Kagis Orion

eudhxhdhsb32 2y ago
> Gnu IceCat, the ONLY firefox fork with no telemetry. Why would you think that? Plenty of other forks like LibreWolf and IronFox have removed all telemetry.
- mediumsmart 2y ago
  You are right. I misread somewhere and declared without really checking. Not the first time either. My apologies.

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bovermyer 2y ago

I like the idea of using a Firefox fork, but one thing in particular keeps me tied to Firefox - my Firefox account and the sync feature. I make heavy use of bookmarks and switch between devices frequently. Manually keeping those synced would be a bit of a nightmare. Assuming that Firefox forks can use Firefox extensions, I imagine I could get around this problem by using some kind of bookmark extension. I don't know what options are available for that, though.

eloisius 2y ago
I’m using Sync on LibreWolf just fine. I am interested in self hosting sync, but not there yet. I think it would be cool if someone could set up a sync server and charge a small fee for accounts. It’s all OSS and setting it up doesn’t look impossible. Just tedious.
Croftengea 2y ago
I use two forks on a daily basis - Floorp and Waterfox. Both sync FF accounts just fine.
Mossy9 2y ago
Zen supports FF sync out of the box. Just started trying it out, and it synced at least all the extensions without issue https://docs.zen-browser.app/faq#how-can-i-sync-my-data-across-multiple-devices https://docs.zen-browser.app/faq#how-can-i-sync-my-data-acro...
sfRattan 2y ago
There's an extension called floccus [1] that can sync bookmarks between numerous different browsers (including both Firefox/Gecko and Chromium/Blink based browsers, mobile and desktop) and plug into a user-controlled NextCloud [2] or Linkwarden [3] instance running on a local homelab server for backups. However, I try to minimize the number of installed extensions to reduce my own browser fingerprint. As others have replied, Firefox Sync works across most of today's popular downstream shadow-forks of Firefox (as in, forks that shadow the Firefox releases rather than truly forking the code). If you don't want to give Mozilla's enshittified corpse your email (I don't), just use an email service that supports aliases to sign up for Firefox Sync... Which is in any case a good idea generally: no two of your important online accounts should point to the same email, even if behind the scenes the aliases are all routing emails back to you. [1]: https://floccus.org/ https://floccus.org/ [2]: https://nextcloud.com/ https://nextcloud.com/ [3]: https://linkwarden.app/ https://linkwarden.app/

ddtaylor 2y ago

I held off for a long time and tried to find multiple ways to "make Firefox work" and eventually just gave up on that. There are multiple ways to preserve the rights of web users and Mozilla isn't doing a great job there, so stop trying to save something that isn't working and redirect those efforts into something that will.

voytec 2y ago

I've tried using LibreWolf on MacOS but there's a few annoying bugs. HN has a really small text size for me and I usually read HN at 120-133% text size. LibreWolf does not remember this setting on per-site basis and even opening HN-to-HN link in a new tab doesn't preserve text size and I need to increase text size constantly. In addition, posting images to Bluesky doesn't work. Every attempt results in an image of proper size but consisting of only vertical lines. For this, I need to fall back to Firefox or use Safari. Even if the first of above problems is a "feature", the latter is definitely a bug. I haven't filled a report yet. But for now, I'm planning to test Zen.

Daunk 2y ago
You can use the Stylus extension to get HN to look any way you want. There are some good community made styles for HN as well.
- voytec 2y ago
  I appreciate your suggestion. But I hope not to have to exercise it. My go-to setup is: uBlock Origin, NoScript, Dark Reader.
- culi 2y ago
  Take me back to when user stylesheets were a normal browser feature and not a special extension
saint_yossarian 2y ago
Check `browser.zoom.siteSpecific` in `about:config`, in Firefox it defaults to true.
- voytec 2y ago
  Firefox, LibreWolf and Zen, all have this value set to true by default. This behavior is only present in LibreWolf.

whitehexagon 2y ago

I switched to GNU IceCat about a week ago, following the ToS / privacy changes in FF. I have never used chrome, and never will on principle, in fact I now use zero google services, or best I can. Disabling webfonts / google fonts has been interesting. Anyway, IceCat is growing on me, once I figured out how to gradually enable bits of js for the sites I frequent (not many left at this point). I have a physical aversion to adverts, so I feel better that my limited browsing data is not being sold by mozilla. One thing I havent yet worked out is enabling webGL in IceCat, since I want to get back into my Zig/wasm/WebGL stuff soon. I'm interested if HN has stats for visitor browser-agent, but also for account-holders. Since I wonder how many users actually switched in the last month, or if it was all just huff and puff.

phatfish 2y ago
Huff and puff i hope, considering it was a case of Firefox being nit-picked to death again by the privacy crowd that get a Chrome alternative for free. https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/update-on-terms-of-use/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/update-on-terms... I understand that a donation on the Mozilla Foundation is not a way to fund Firefox development, but i believe that the services that get sold through Firefox like Mozilla VPN do fund development. Maybe you could sign up for one (you don't have to use it) to ensure IceCat continues to exist? Full disclosure, I have a 1 year sub to Mozilla VPN, I even used it once or twice.

uoaei 2y ago

Tangential, but what are folks' opinions on Vivaldi?

odiroot 2y ago

I'm generally happy with the "original" Firefox. Just wished it played better with KDE Plasma, especially on Wayland. It ignores the window decoration settings among other things.

johnkizer 2y ago
Go to Customize Toolbar, check "Title Bar" at the bottom - that gives a Plasma-native title bar with window controls.
- odiroot 2y ago
  Sure but then you lose the screen estate. I guess you can't have it all.

RKFADU_UOFCCLEL 2y ago

> Mozilla's actions have been rubbing many Firefox fans the wrong way as of late Just wait until they discover that the web doesn't allow arbitrary browsers anymore, due to a certain "security" company doing deep inspection and blocking anything that isn't Safari, Firefox or Chrome.

matheusmoreira 2y ago
Only a matter of time. Remote attestation is one of the most subversive technologies ever invented and they have already tried to make it a web standard, it's only a matter of time before they try again and succeed. We have all this free and open source software and it doesn't matter because they'll refuse us service if we use it. Only corporation owned computers will pass attestation. If you own your machine you will be turned away from every web site.

culi 2y ago

I recently did this exercise as well. There are a lot of browsers not mentioned that you can find here,[0] but there's one big missing one imo. The Tor browser is forked from Firefox to support the Tor Network. On top of the actual tor network it's filled to the brim with novel and unique privacy enhancing features. Mullvad (the VPN company) recently did a partnership with Tor to create the Mullvad Browser.[1] It's exactly the Tor browser but without the onion protocol part. Instead it just has all the anti-fingerprinting and privacy enhancing features. I ended up going with that browser as it's the strongest privacy-focused Firefox fork option [0] https://alternativeto.net/software/firefox/ https://alternativeto.net/software/firefox/ [1] https://support.torproject.org/mullvad-browser/ https://support.torproject.org/mullvad-browser/

wruza 2y ago
Tangent, how does “mullvad” sound to native speakers (and non-natives too)? I can’t tell why, but it feels like such an unfortunate combination of phonemes that I avoid even looking into it subconsciously. Can barely force myself to pronounce it, is that just me?
- pdntspa 2y ago
  It's just another foreign-sounding word in a language full of kidnapped vocabulary
  - nameequalsmain 2y ago
    Mullvad is Swedish for "mole". Mull is a word for soil, and "vad" seems to come from "vada", wade. So translated it would be "soilwade". To me, it sounds like just another word.
- kseistrup 2y ago
  To native Swedish speakers it will look and sound like just another common Swedish word. And in the context it will even sound like a relevant choice of name. /me is Danish, and the Danish equivalent would be ‘muldvarp’.

bizzyb 2y ago

Haven't seen this mentioned yet, not a fork but a suite of configs and mods for Firefox. https://codeberg.org/celenity/Phoenix https://codeberg.org/celenity/Phoenix

quickslowdown 2y ago
This looks cool, am I missing the Windows client, or is it only available on *nix systems?
- bizzyb 2y ago
  To install on Windows you have to manually install the configs on top of an existing Firefox install. Instructions are on the website.

jug 2y ago

The ecosystem of forks is currently healthy but what concerns me is a lack of Firefox browser support leading to lagging in standards support over time as the browser goes out of fashion for ideological or marketing reasons that this article touches upon. All forks depend on a strong Firefox base and no fork seems to do heavy lifting in terms of web standards, or as a prioritized feature. Instead, they focus on enhancing UX or adhering to open source ideals, but this does little to improve the core browser. :-/ It remains to be seen if we’ll have a new Phoenix moment out of Firefox…? Or does that future belong to Ladybird?

dmurray 2y ago
Firefox seems to be good enough - is there anyone who wants to fork Firefox out of a frustration over how it handles some web standard and a feeling that they could do it better? Hard forking a browser and implementing all future features on your own is daunting enough that even Microsoft - a company with more engineering resources than all but a handful of others, and for whom having a branded browser is existentially important - decided not to do it and just to reskin Chrome. So I expect that any truly new browser comes not out of a desire to improve Firefox or Chromium, but from an independent, not economically useful, hacker-driven desire to create something cool. Either Ladybird or someone's RIIR project.
- rainonmoon 2y ago
  Firefox has made a few headlines over the past year for privacy-unfriendly moves. That's the context you're missing, despite it being in some of the first sentences of the linked article.
  - joshuaissac 2y ago
    > privacy-unfriendly moves Which is a UX issue, not a Web standards issue. None of the major forks were made due to a difference opinion about how the standards should be implemented, so they are all dependent on Mozilla to implement the standards.

worewood 2y ago

Seamonkey needs more love. The best one for me, does not try to be "modern" - keeps the interface unchanged and only updates real functionality.

fsfsd43535 2y ago

Interesting discussion! It's true that many Firefox forks focus on UX and privacy, but as some have pointed out, they still rely on Mozilla for core web standard updates. It would be cool to see a fork that really pushes the boundaries of web tech, maybe incorporating some Rust-based engine components for better performance and security. Has anyone experimented with Servo in a fork? Also, the mention of the Tor browser is spot on - it's a privacy powerhouse, but perhaps not for everyday browsing. I wonder if a fork could combine the best of both worlds?

samtheDamned 2y ago
I believe that would be mullvad. Tor browser without the tor.

rurban 2y ago

It's also missing Fennec, the most well-known Android browser fork. I'm using it for years