cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/68754751
There was a time I chose Firefox over the Chromium browser without a second thought. But nowadays, installing and opening Firefox seems like a time-consuming, very bloated experience.
Too many unnecessary features, promotions, sponsored links, and widgets are filled on the homepage. All the settings are now more complex, and there is a lot to set up after a fresh install.
When I compare modern Firefox with Firefox ESR, I feel like I am using browsers like Vivaldi or Opera instead of Firefox. Seriously, Firefox must consider releasing a browser like Brave Origin (Firefox Origin or something).
Isn’t anybody else frustrated with the new Firefox changes? If yes, what practical solutions exist? Debloat using any script or install any forks (no forks seem to be good; some are outdated, some are too much hardened, some are just not for daily browsing, etc.).
I’m just looking for a browser like Ungoogled Chromium but for Firefox (Unmozillaed Firefox).
Can anybody tell if iceraven is still a good alternative?
I really like Mullvad browser. Some people say it has too many privacy features which make it unusable for daily browsing but for me it works just fine.
I’ll never switch to Chromium no matter what happens, not on an ideological basis, but because Firefox is the only browser that allows me to create duplicate bookmarks without manually copying and pasting it.
Zen Browser? It’s great.
CachyOS also has some nice opinionated configurations of the Firefox builds in their repos.
At the moment, I use both, with different configurations for different purposes.
I think the sponsored links, promotions and Ai efforts come from their crisis trying to make money and to depend less on Googles money. While trying to focus on privacy and not sell user data. That’s a tricky situation to be in, if the browser isn’t making money. I wouldn’t call Firefox bloatware, as it is bloated like any other modern browser.
And it’s not like I wouldn’t have an issue with Firefox either. For long time I am looking for an alternative, and almost switched over to Librewolf. But unfortunately Librewolf have removed the internal password manager of Firefox, and they recommend to use an external manager. Which is the deal breaker for me. So even if Firefox is flawed, I’ll stay with it and do the customization and settings myself, which is a lot.
My firefox is set to restore my last session, so I never see the homepage.
You can set the homepage to be whatever you want. No chance of unexpected porn popping up at inopportune times that way.
At first I thought you meant the homepage was offering unexpected porn, and I was considering going back. (I live in a repressed state.)
So do I. But there’s ways around that shit lol.
gemini protocol
oh man its been a while since I last used it, how active is it nowdays? there used to be a BBS which was like Reddit but for Gemini.
time to install a Gemini client :D
Is Firefox Focus not a thing anymore?
apparently its only available for mobile devices
Most people aren’t doing fresh installs often enough to get annoyed. There’s also an understanding that Mozilla will need to do things we don’t necessarily like to generate revenue and stay viable. Google isn’t going to fund them forever. As long as we can turn those things off and configure firefox to our liking, we can tolerate such changes.
Also, the browser engine needs to be maintained anyhow. Moving to something like Waterfox or Librewolf doesn’t change the necessity to support Mozilla.
This.
Librewolf, Waterfox and GNU IceCat are all Firefox forks.
For what you’re asking for, GNU IceCat is probably the best fit - the project syncs up with Firefox ESR but removes all proprietary stuff and maintains it’s own extensions. It has some privacy improvements too but is otherwise set up as a standard browser. It’s basically Ungoogled Chromium for Firefox. The downside is the project doesn’t release project binaries; you have to look for binaries in your distro (and many don’t provide them) or use GNU Guix - the package manager from the GNU project (which can be installed on any system; it’s a bit like NIX). Or build them yourself from Github. Details are here: https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/
Librewolf and Waterfox are both excellent but by default are very privacy focused and locked down, so you may need to make config changes to get them back to a more “standard” default browser set up (sacrificing the privacy benefits in the process).
Personally I use Firefox; I understand what you’re saying but the steps you talk about are at first install and that’s not something I do often so can tolerate it.
EDIT: Just checked, IceCat isn’t in OpenSuSE’s default repos (disappointingly) but I did find it in Fedora’s repos (both standard and it’s Flatpak store). So it’s a bit hit and miss. Guix is universal but it’s a bit of a bloaty way to do it if you only want one item from it’s repos. Fedora Flatpaks can of course be installed on pretty much any X86/AMD64 system by adding registry.fedoraproject.org as a flatpak remote (alongside Flathub).
I would say this is most browsers from what i’ve seen. Just let me do my searches, stop trying to advertise to me, stop trying to get my data…and get the fuck out of the way.
that’s why you use librewolf or waterfox (though waterfox isn’t completely anti ai which is a detriment)
I look at Waterfox as the “backup” option because of things like that. It’s not nearly as strong, but if a site’s broken or I’m setting up a device where I don’t nearly care as much, it’s a decent choice that’s better than base Firefox or anything Chromium-based
Kinda like Ironfox vs Fennec on Android, the former is my go-to, the latter is the backup
Librewolf is a good browser. Not bloated with features and doesn’t have AI installed by default.
My problem with librewolf is that, despite having RFP (Resist Fingerprint) off, it doesn’t allow me typing accents from my ABNT2 (Brazilian) keyboard (I cannot type words such as “ração”, “óbvio”, “maltês”, etc, I have to type them using kde plasma then copy and paste inside the browser), as if librewolf were US-centric. The devs didn’t point me a solution when I opened an issue ticket, so I went with Waterfox instead. Waterfox allows me to type accents the way I’m accustomed as a Brazilian.
Literally not a problem to me, I can type ração, óbvio and maltês without a problem. Maybe you messed up something on your machine?
I don’t have a big opinion on it, but my preference is on Librewolf over Waterfox simply for the lack of AI being shoved down my throat.
To me, it has definitely nothing to do with system (KDE Plasma on Arch Linux) because Librewolf is the only piece of software in which accents don’t work. Even AppImage programs, which often lack a better integration with the X Session, have no problem with accents.
Also, ABNT2 accents are correctly parsed by Waterfox, even by Basilisk and Pale Moon which I also got here, as well as by the original Firefox (which I keep for things such as internet banking), even though they all share the similar “under-the-hood” Gecko (Goanna in case of Pale Moon and Basilisk), so this problem is part of the Librewolf hardening.
In fact, the very Librewolf FAQ mentions this:
Other common problems brought by RFP include:
[…]
- suppressed keyboard modifier events using alt-keys.These annoyances are intended to protect your privacy […]
Problem is, even if RFP is turned off, this hardening keeps occurring, and it’s PITA having to spin up a KDE Kate just to type something I can type directly in all the other browsers (including in the Geminispace’s Lagrange browser and the TUI-based Lynx, both places in which accents wouldn’t be even expected to begin with). So while I still have Librewolf among my browser installations, I only use it for things such as news outlets and certain websites because this is where it thrives, keeping some resemblance of private navigation.
I don’t know for Brazilian but for me in french, I use a variant of the french keyboard that include all necessary accents on the keyboard and not as alt-codes. Maybe there is something similar in the settings.
Seconded. Yay for librewolf! That’s my go-to browser now too.
Tho I also agree with blackbeans@lemmy.zip, we still need moz to maintain the engine. There are only 2 (?) cross platform browsers engines left.
This is the prob with the web becoming a highly complex app engine. The technical reqs to make a browser engine are so high, only a few huge companies can do it. Even MS gave up. G now has a lock on desktop browsers, esp if you count all the rest like Edge that use G’s engine. That gives G monopoly power to dictate web standards. And pull hostile acts like HW attestation that could lock out open OSs like Linux unless you “authenticate” with Android or IOS.
I’d recommend Mullvad Browser. It has Tor’s anti-fingerprinting features without the Tor part. Designed to use with a VPN to get anonymity from sharing IP addresses. But even if you don’t do that it is still a stripped down private by default Firefox fork. I use it for general searches and some anonymous accounts, and Brave or Zen for signing into personal accounts. Brave is controversial but their controversies are at least understandable, quickly rectified, haven’t happened in a while, and are generally best in class on features. Zen is a little slower due to being based in Firefox and not Chrome, but not much, and is much more clean and customizable than Firefox.
Recommending mullvad, in this economy ? That’s a bold strategy , if nothing else.
I suppose if you’re going to do that then following up with handwaving brave’s historic shenanigans and current CEO is consistent.
“They previous did and continue to do some shit i don’t care about , i like their products” at least shows some backbone.
The corporate defense version of the narcissists prayer is weaksauce.
What a strange comment. Can’t say I’ve ever been called a narcissist for recommending privacy browsers before.
Mullvad is pretty much the most trusted VPN provider. If you don’t want to pay for a VPN, don’t. I explicitly mentioned it is still a good privacy by default Firefox based browser without the bloat of Firefox.
Sure, let’s go through your list, why not.
2016: Brave announces a feature, then are laughed at because it’s a bad idea. They don’t do it. Ok then?
2018: for some reason they allow users to donate in someone else’s name that Brave is not affiliated with. They give them the money after $100 is reached, which is clearly stated. They don’t clearly state which is affiliated and who isnt, confusing the website owners into thinking someone impersonated them. They then label it after someone contacts them about this, and don’t use a dumb ass fundraising system like this again. At no point are they being misleading about where money is going, and this does not affect Brave users in any way.
2020: injecting affiliate links. According to Brave, this was a coding mistake, and it was fixed before they made any money from it. Even if I don’t believe them, from what I can tell, this is not like the Honey scandal where it stripped out other people’s affiliate links to steal their money, but rather only put an affiliate link into a clean link to make Brave money when there would have been no money involved. Not a privacy issue either from what I can tell. It’s an “if x then y” thing during the search process. There’s not someone sitting in Brave HQ reading everyone’s searches and pressing a button, nor is it recorded. Is it scummy and possibly illegal to get money from a company who is thinking someone advertised on their behalf but are effectively not gaining anything? Yeah, and if they did in fact do it on purpose, that is bad. But I can see their logic of it not hurting anyone. Sorta…and if I’m being honest I’m not going to cry for corpos that heavily push ads.
2020: ads on home screen. Like every browser, including Firefox. OK. I forgot this happened because I turned it off. Like I do for every browser, or at least every browser that allows you to do so. Except in Brave’s case, they will literally pay you to not turn it off.
2021: Brave makes a Tor plugin that they didn’t realize conflicts with their ad blocking in such a way that causes DNS leaks. They fixed it as soon as this was found out. Unlike the affiliate link thing, I don’t believe for a second that this would be intentional. Brave does not stand to benefit from this on any way, unless they are fully a fed psy-op.
2023: certainly the most worrying on the list that they’re even approaching this as a feature. However, Web Discovery Program is opt in. Your data is not being sold or used for Brave’s index unless you tell them to. I think their idea here was to build their own index based on consensually given data rather than solely scraping the internet without consent. However I’d really prefer they just didn’t be a part of data selling at all, obviously. Needless to say, this is a big problem with browsers in general. Firefox has stated that they don’t sell data, but they have definitely been in bed with Ai lately and their telemetry is opt out.
Now far be it from me to even approach being a corporate defender. I am. not here to suck Brave’s dick, I keep up to date with what Brave is doing because I don’t fully trust them. But then again, I don’t trust pretty much any browser creators more than I am forced to. I just think it’s really weird that Brave gets so much hate when it isn’t warranted when compared to what other browsers do.
Ungoogled Chromium, for example, removes some key security features from the Chromium project for absolutely no reason, and relies on a bizarre build system that lacks transparency, relying on third parties binaries instead of just, you know, building from source. Helium is a fork of Ungoogled Chromium, and doesn’t fix either of those issues. Vivaldi is closed source. Why are we even entertaining them being a privacy browser if we don’t know what code they’re running? They could be worse than Google for all we know. Firefox refuses to fix a security flaw on Android where they don’t sandbox by site, which has been known about for years. Every Android Firefox fork has the same issue. As good as it is on desktop, that’s why I ultimately moved away from Firefox, because I need to sync tabs from my PC to my phone.
edit: well shit, i just realised i used a meme/reference that might have been mistaken for me specifically implying an economic reason not to use mullvad.
That’s my bad for assuming universal meme knowledge.
<X>, in this economy? was predominantly used to reference economic reasons to not doing something, it has broadened in scope to encompass the idea that the proceeding statement is nonsensical in general (not just for economic reasons)
So “mullvad, in this economy ?” roughly translates to “mullvad is a questionable choice in this current (specific or general) context”
What a strange comment. Can’t say I’ve ever been called a narcissist for recommending privacy browsers before.
No one was calling you a narcissist, read it again.
Mullvad is pretty much the most trusted VPN provider. If you don’t want to pay for a VPN, don’t. I explicitly mentioned it is still a good privacy by default Firefox based browser without the bloat of Firefox.
And my comment had nothing to do with its technical competence (nor it’s economic impact, see note at the top)
Have you really not seen any stories related to mullvad recently?
Sure, let’s go through your list, why not.
Not my list, a list.
And all of those explanations are the handwaving I mentioned.
Your take on them all seems reasonable if not exactly the same as mine.
In aggregate though they indicate a potential pattern.
My response was specifically to your implication that because their many shenanigans were in the past and nothing was a current problem that we should only judge them on their current technical competence.
I also noticed you didn’t mention the current CEO and why someone might have an issue with them.
I just think it’s really weird that Brave gets so much hate when it isn’t warranted when compared to what other browsers do.
Then you probably aren’t hearing all of what people are actually complaining about.
hint : they aren’t usually complaining about the technical competence.
Also other browsers get plenty of shit, a lot of it justifiable.
Ungoogled Chromium, for example…etc
All valid, and I agree.
I could list some you haven’t mentioned as well.
I personally use a variant of Firefox that has a whole bunch of questionable shit turned off or removed.
Despite almost all of their recent moves having been to announce some bullshit that actively makes them a worse option for me they are still currently , barely, the least worst option (for my preferences)
And only then it’s mostly because of the variants.
What I was getting at is that playing down the continuous bullshit from these companies weakens your arguments.
It also genuinely seems you don’t see why the non-technical aspects of these companies might be a point of contention for some people.
Install, change settings, use.
