LibreWolf Browser

A fork of Firefox, focused on privacy, security and freedom.
https://librewolf-community.gitlab.io/

Sounds interesting to me.

 

I have installed it from:
https://privacyshark.zero-credibility.net/

Worth testing

 

LibreWolf 94.0.1
November 8, 2021
https://www.neowin.net/news/librewolf-9401/

LibreWolf
Website
Addons
Download/Install (The setup.exe releases. / The .dmg releases.)

 

LibreWolf 96.0.2
January 24, 2022

LibreWolf
Website
Addons
Download/Install (The setup.exe releases. / The .dmg releases.)

 

Looks interesting. I can envisage using this on Ubuntu alongside Brave. What's really interesting is that privacy concerns seem to have overtaken 'speed' with many new browser releases.

 

You don't really have to use LibreWolf as you can easily get everything in Firefox as well. Look, e.g., at this comparison (which is maintained by Arthur Edelstein who is a Firefox and Tor Browser developer). LibreWolf is better than Firefox and Brave - but why?

1. State Partitioning Tests: LibreWolf uses the "strict" setting in "about: preferences#privacy" by default which enables Dynamic First Party Isolation aka Total Cookie Protection. This is also available in Firefox, of course, but not yet set as default (but planned - see the results for the nightly builds which match the LibreWolf results).
2. Fingerprinting Resistance Tests: LibreWolf uses Resist Fingerprinting (privacy.resistFingerprinting = true in about:config) as default which is also available in Firefox but not set as default. It's the Firefox implementation of the Cross-Origin Identifier Unlinkability in the Tor Browser.
3. Tracking query parameter tests and Tracking Content blocking: LibreWolf is good in the last category as it comes with uBlock Origin installed by default. It's not so good in the first category as it obviously hasn't the "AdGuard URL Tracking Protection" list enabled. Needless to say that all this is also available in Firefox.

 

Firefox was my default browser on Ubuntu for many years. Now it's Brave. Neither Chrome, Chromium or Vivaldi work properly for me on Ubuntu. I don't even want to talk about the snap Opera . I do like a back-up browser though. When Canonical switch to the snap Firefox basically the way I see it I have five options:

1/ Use the snap.

2/ Use the repo version.

3/ Use the PPA version.

4/ Use a derivative Firefox alternative.

5/ Uninstall Firefox and wave it goodbye.

I'll have to see. LibreWolf seems like a promising alternative though. Especially if it can use Firefox extensions. Thanks for the link.

 

it doesn't support Firefox Account sync though right?

 

Correct. It does not. For that, if you wanted to see a non-telemetry gecko, try Waterfox G4.

 

you mean Waterfox has no telemetry yet supports FireFox sync? and I can also backup the profiles folders of waterfox located in appdata just like I would in Firefox for easy restoration when reinstalling?

 

It doesn't look to offer much you can't already do to Firefox with some tweaking. For security reasons I'll stick with the mainstream browsers. There's no such thing as privacy anymore, might as well be as compatible as possible.

 

Correct, on both statements. It might just be a gimmick, or it might not, but I do see less connections to Mozilla servers with Waterfox than I do with Firefox. I don't see anywhere near the amount of background connection with Waterfox in general. That doesn't necessarily mean Firefox is doing anything wrong, but in my opinion they're going in the wrong direction; with recommended addons, sites, pocket, and in-browser ads. xxJackxx is correct; most of that can be disabled in about:config. But I still don't like it.

 

I have switched to Waterfox since you mentioned this and I feel every site I visit is loading much faster, it's so snappy.

Only issue I have is Captchas don't appear for some reason. Do you have that issue

 

I don't think I do. But, so as to not hijack the topic, lets continue this via PM.

 

LibreWolf 97.0
February 10, 2022

LibreWolf
Website
Addons
Download/Install (The setup.exe releases. / The .dmg releases.)

 

Testing LibreWolf latest version on Linux Mint 19 via AppImage method of install.
Seems to run okay so far on Mint. Comes pre-installed with uBO extension which is nice.
Can enable letterboxing which helps limit fingerprinting by only expanding or shrinking
the inner window size in fixed increments, letting you blend in with a larger number of users.
Also can limit cross-origins referers to send referers only on same-origin.

Version 102.0.1

 

I'd like to mention that all this has also been available in Firefox for some time past - just not enabled by default. See, e.g., here. And regarding referers see here.

 

LW is a crippled and ruined Firefox, not more. it has set some switches by default where firefox has not (read above). it has a reduced default security because it dont use safe-lists, and more. built-in ublock could be a matter for inexperienced users, set and forget is not the best way.

is a damn stupid decision of authors. it sets user agent to latest ESR and it creates a more significant fingerprint as with "false". and it has a lot of (negativ) side effects concerning firefox windows and more.
and also user is not able to install webextensions which need a higher version as ESR, installation on AMO is declined. (this often happend for users in times of change to firefox quantum (v57) or higher when the UA was set to v52 and bam, failure).

trial it out, but for regular usage absolute no-go.

 

IMHO the listed features of LW on the next site don't sound too bad.
https://librewolf.net/docs/features/
I'm not a big fan of anti fingerprinting measures. It's an option that can be disabled. All in all I'm satisfied with this browser (on Windows 11), although it's not my choice for banking and buying.
Edit: perhaps the best FF, Mozilla never made.

 

thank you for the link, the author(s) are much more stupid as i thought. as written above more than once those are already present feature or switches. user can achieve same with user.js or policies.json. the major issue is that LW is a fork an almost all forkes have gone dead in time. its not another "better firefox" - its firefox with used settings. the effort to achieve same is done in minutes and has a future and in-time updates/patches.

 

I've got a soft spot for underdogs. Also for FF itself.

 

I'm aware of the Firefox settings and what you need to do to make it
more private. Some users just won't go to that length of installing Add-ons
or tweaking about:config settings or installing a pre-configured user.js
file in Firefox like arkenfox.

LibreWolf is an alternative, just as Tor browser, Pale Moon and SeaMonkey
are alternatives each having their own Pro's and Con's.

Users should welcome choices and not desire a monopoly on web browsers.
If they go away were stuck with basically only Google Chrome and it's derivatives.

 

agreed. with the demise of presto, all we got is chrome and its derivatives on one side and fox and its derivatives on the other.

 

100% spot on!

 

Could you, please, come off your high horse and relax a bit?

Librewolf is certainly not a crippled and ruined Firefox. Rather, with RFP they implement what the Tor browser is using plus some additional tweaks also used by arkenfox. And the downsides of RFP are openly discussed here with possible alternatives. LW is for privacy-oriented users which are willing to live with those downsides. This browser is certainly not for everybody but that's not a reason to defame its developers which do know what they are doing.