this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2024
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Privacy

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I want to switch to a more privacy focused browser, would like to hear what yall use currently and why.

Edit: I’m currently using edge.

Edit: Thanks everyone for your input. I have decided to go with floorp (a firefox fork) with betterfox. Here's my decision process,

  1. Firefox based browser
    • To help with browser monopoly
    • I really like the sidebery extension
  2. I chose floorp instead of ff or other ff forks because of the ease of customization
    • I also tried zen browser but experienced a bug just from my short usage so I think it's not mature enough for me currently, but I do like the project.
  3. Betterfox + extensions for better privacy settings
    • Ublock Origin
    • ClearURLs
    • Decentraleyes

Did not choose to go with LibreWolf, Mullvad etc because I'm worried about site breakages.

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[–] [email protected] 124 points 1 month ago (3 children)

I swear this question comes up everyday in Lemmy πŸ˜….

Firefox, I just use Firefox because, it works, it has enough privacy measures, and everyone is looking at the codebase, something that cannot be said about most (if not all) forks.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (10 children)

Any issue with websites breaking? Since sites only care about chromium support nowadays

[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

Not op, but I've yet to encounter a website that doesn't work with Firefox. (In the last 5 years)

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago (1 children)

there are plenty, you just don't happen to use them

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

Technically true

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago

I've had a couple sites break but idk if that's because of Firefox or because of my privacy add ons.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

The only broken thing is very specific stuff like Slack calls. In fact, it's the only broken thing I've seen in a long while. Also fuck Slack.

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[–] [email protected] 59 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (12 children)

more privacy focused browser

Librewolf is the best, Mullvad Browser is cool, if you use their VPN, ungoogled-chromium is good, if you need a chromium based browser. Despite its popularity among privacy-enthusiasts Brave is virtually a spyware.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago (2 children)

How up to date is that info about Brave? Because their default search is brave-search, not Google as claimed.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Not 100% up to date, of course, but for the most part, it still applies. And furthermore, trusting a company with that kind of reputation is definetely not a good idea.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

What is their reputation? Genuinely asking, I’ve been ignoring Brave since ever, but lately I thought I should evaluate it for broken sites that depend on chromium.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago (2 children)

[Brendan Eich, founder of Brave made a] 2008 donation of $1,000 toΒ California Proposition 8, which called for the banning ofΒ same-sex marriage in California,[18]and donations in the amount of $2,100 to Proposition 8 supporterΒ Tom McClintockbetween 2008 and 2010.

It also has optional ads to pay you in crypto. I view 99% of crypto as a scam btw

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago

I saw crypto from home screen to settings. While anecdotal, that made them very difficult to trust.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

I think Mullvad is great even if you don't use their VPN :)

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 month ago

Firefox with a handful of extensions, same on phone.

Last time a site "needed" chromium based a user agent switch did the miracle...

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Just Firefox, I like the way it looks, and it's open source.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago

firefox on desktop: to keep away a browser monopoly for another day.

iceraven on mobile: more extensions.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago

Librewolf is pretty good, i like having privacy features out of the box

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Zen browser. Its a browser that looks like arc browser but its based on Firefox and has tracking removed. Its really nice. They also have their own theme system to change how the browser looks and acts

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Zen Browser, love the split view feature, and native vertical tabs !

https://zen-browser.app/

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Firefox for most things, but I keep a copy of Vivaldi installed because sometimes my firefox setup breaks capcha.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago

Firefox here

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Zen Browser since last week. Is a Firefox fork.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

I love the split-screen feature.

For the unfamiliar, here's their home page: LINK

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Firefox because of extensions on mobile, literally the only browser capable of that

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago

Mullvad Browser when I'm on my Desktop, which is basically the Tor Browser but without the Tor network. The Mullvad Browser is instead designed to be used with a VPN.

Vanadium when I'm on my phone, which is is a hardened variant of Chromium providing enhanced privacy and security, similar to how GrapheneOS compares to AOSP.

And when I'm at work or using any other computer I try to mainly use Firefox.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago
[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago
[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (8 children)

Librewolf. whatever you end up choosing, don't install brave

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (7 children)

Librewolf for anything that does work, Brave for anything that works only on Chromium based, and Mullvad for all the crazy.

On Android it's Mull and Mulch.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (6 children)

Instead of Mulch I would recommend Cromite. It is fully open source (free of proprietary dependencies unlike Brave and Mulch), has anti-fingerprinting (unlike Mulch), and has built-in ad-blocking. Browser comparison table made by the Developer of Mulch: https://divestos.org/pages/browsers

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago

Mull on mobile, mullvad and Firefox on desktop

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Firefox with ublock origin for both desktop and mobile.

Those two programs alone block out like 75% of the annoyances and dangers of the modern internet. Near-complete removal of ads and a couple nice healthy adware and malware guards on top of that.

Add on a VPN and a few more Firefox extensions and I feel that I can browse the net anxiety-free.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

Edge isn't private so you have plenty of ways to improve

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

Firefox then additional hardening through arkenfox.js, minimal extensions - uBlock + Bitwarden.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Librewolf + uBlock Origin on desktop. Mull + uBlock Origin on mobile.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

Firefox with Betterfox user script. Then from there is a bunch privacy focused/oriented extensions. I also harden my DNS with custom host files from StevenBlack. I also point all my devices to NextDNS as another catch and also to standardize things as I use NextDNS to manage my kids access to the world.

I do need to create a private VPN (of my own) still so my mobile devices can be setup behind StevenBlack host entries.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

If you want to stick with Chromium-based browsers, you could try Vivaldi. I am a Firefox user myself but Vivaldi is my backup browser for those rare occasions where I have issues. 95% of the browser is open source, with the remaining 5% being comprised of the closed source UI. Vivaldi has a pretty reasonable privacy policy, an inbuilt ad-blocker and is a 100% employee owned company. It supports all major operating systems and has a sync feature so you could use it as your main browser across all devices if you wanted.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

Hardened Firefox on my PC and Waterfox on my phone. Reason: mostly because I have been using Firefox for a long time and I want to stay away from Chromioum-based browsers (but not out of privacy concerns :) ).

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

Firefox with plugins. If we want there to be anything but Chromium and Safari in the future it's simply what needs to be done. Forks of Firefox will disappear when Firefox does ...

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Currently using Firefox but I'm also keeping an eye on Ladybird.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (2 children)

The founder of Ladybird said some questionable stuff that he walked back. You be the judge: https://text.tchncs.de/latenightblog/ladybird-browser-and-drama

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago
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