Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

LibreWolf – Custom version of Firefox, focused on privacy, security and freedom

librewolf.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 178 posts

Re: LibreWolf – Custom version of Firefox, focused on privacy, security and freedom

#71

Post by hn8305823 »

snowram wrote: post #44
extr0pian wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I get the concept of using different browsers for different things to compartmentalize, and I've tried it, but to me it just seems like I'm making my life more complicated switching back and forth, and I feel like it's cluttering up my system. I love how Librewolf takes privacy to another level, but honestly, all I want is Firefox without all the BS and the ability to disable things I don't want (and not having…

A custom user.js will do the job

It used to be really easy to search about:config for 'http' and just delete all URL's to quiet things down. More recently the about:config search only searches attributes not values so you have to "show all" and it's quite tedious to find them all. Even then there are some things you have to block with a hosts file entry.

That said it is possible to have firefox start cleanly with absolutely no network traffic except for sites you visit.

Re: LibreWolf – Custom version of Firefox, focused on privacy, security and freedom

#72

Post by gsich »

sneak wrote: post #53
westpfelia wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your general thesis is that software that tracks errors and problems the software might have, and software that deliberately slows down the machine to make you buy new hardware A LA Apple is 100% the same thing?

The Apple throttling thing was specifically to extend the life of the device. When a battery is old, if the CPU is not throttled, the device will instantly power off when the draw is too high. Apple was throttling the CPU when the battery was old and could not sustain such power draw peaks in an effort to make the device remain usable for a longer period with a mostly-consumed battery pack. Had they not done so, the…

Propaganda. Even if, a user toggle would have worked wonders.

Re: LibreWolf – Custom version of Firefox, focused on privacy, security and freedom

#73

Post by toastal »

extr0pian wrote: post #10

Just yesterday I had noticed that, "Suggestions from sponsors" in the address bar had been turned back on after a recent Firefox update, and then installed Librewolf. I really want to use it as my main browser, but certain use cases such as online banking (at least with my credit union) doesn't seem to work properly, so I re-disabled "Suggestions from sponsors" in Firefox and went on with my day. Seriously, changing…

I’ve had problems with e-commerce as well. Recently I tried this with Nike & the checkout phase was trying to read all my sensors, canvas, etc. were all being hit & failing according to the console. Disabling fingerprinting let me get ‘further’ but even disabling uBlock, something on my network was blocking some other piece of tracking spyware & I couldn’t complete the checkout. I reported it to customer service & later got an no-reply email response from their technical teams saying I should “disable your anti-virus, then proceed with the checkout, and reenable when the purchase was complete”. Funny since I don’t run an anti-virus on Linux just being careful but already having a lot of malware blocked by my system/router/DNS. What’s also funny is that you don’t need to fingerprint me to prove its me since I’m already on an authenticated account, so what are they doing with that fingerprint? Ultimately, I traded a Hong Kong pie to a friend to do the purchase on my behalf as he doesn’t care about his online privacy—and I got to add noise to his purchase history with my own.

When are we going to get e-commerce & e-banking to stop being so hostile towards consumers?

Re: LibreWolf – Custom version of Firefox, focused on privacy, security and freedom

#74

Post by uconnectlol »

itvision wrote: post #26

The biggest problem with all these "privacy" oriented web browsers is that you have to trust their creators explicitly and I just cannot. Most often the developers are some random anonymous Joes without CVs or anything proving they have reputation at stake. Thank you, but no thank you. Even if the official Firefox "leaks" something it's well controlled and well known. What do these browsers do? I've no idea.

and we wouldn't need any trust if banks just used a real protocol that we could implement in 5 minutes, instead of a thing made for rendering magazines in real time.

> but the poor non programmer user wouldn't be able to do this

we are on a programmer forum.

Re: LibreWolf – Custom version of Firefox, focused on privacy, security and freedom

#75

Post by ploum »

Macha wrote: post #25
teddyh wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Librewolf has been requested since 2021, but no Debian Developer has volunteered to be responsible for the package: https://bugs.debian.org/981291 > Since the Librewolf developers are providing a .deb package themselves, they could apply to become a Debian Maintainer; i.e. be able to upload that package (and no other packages) directly to Debian.

Browsers are complicated to package and so maintainers may not feel it's worth the time to package a fork of Firefox. Especially as pale moon's drama in the past may have led to a general skepticism about the whole ecosystem.

Never heard about this drama. Any link to share?

Re: LibreWolf – Custom version of Firefox, focused on privacy, security and freedom

#76

Post by quesera »

kornhole wrote: post #14
extr0pian wrote: post #10

Just yesterday I had noticed that, "Suggestions from sponsors" in the address bar had been turned back on after a recent Firefox update, and then installed Librewolf. I really want to use it as my main browser, but certain use cases such as online banking (at least with my credit union) doesn't seem to work properly, so I re-disabled "Suggestions from sponsors" in Firefox and went on with my day. Seriously, changing…

I use both Firefox and Librewolf to achieve browser isolation. Librewolf is my default browser for all anonymous browsing such as news sites. I use Firefox for all my real name ID account logins such as banking. This way your Librewolf browser fingerprint is never associated to your real ID.

Browser isolation is smart, and Firefox+Librewolf is better than Firefox+somethingelse.

Don't forget about Firefox profiles though. You can have unlimited, 100% isolated browsers with profiles. I use a few dozen Firefox profiles.

For isolation of cookies but not preferences, you can use Multi-Account Containers within a single Firefox profile. I use this for admin-vs-user accounts at AWS, GitHub, etc.

Re: LibreWolf – Custom version of Firefox, focused on privacy, security and freedom

#77

Post by bragr »

archargelod wrote: post #57
Astronaut3315 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like that North Korean symbol downloader on GitHub, which had a malware downloader hidden in plain sight for nearly a year with no one noticing?

There are far more eyes on firefox and it's hardened forks, then on a random/obscure piece of software (sorry, I have no idea what exact malware you're referencing).

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37420831

Re: LibreWolf – Custom version of Firefox, focused on privacy, security and freedom

#78

Post by _a_a_a_ »

danjoredd wrote: post #51
extr0pian wrote: post #10

Just yesterday I had noticed that, "Suggestions from sponsors" in the address bar had been turned back on after a recent Firefox update, and then installed Librewolf. I really want to use it as my main browser, but certain use cases such as online banking (at least with my credit union) doesn't seem to work properly, so I re-disabled "Suggestions from sponsors" in Firefox and went on with my day. Seriously, changing…

Mozilla has been frustrating, at least to me lately. I want to support them, but very little of the money given to them goes to the browser itself or even their research projects, and the "phoning home" aspect also annoys me. On top of that they are also heavily funded by Google. My personal theory on why they do that is so they don't get hit with an antitrust. Its concerning to me though because that means Google ha…

> but very little of the money given to them goes to the browser itself or even their research projects

hi, do you have a breakdown or some stats for this?

Re: LibreWolf – Custom version of Firefox, focused on privacy, security and freedom

#80

Post by tiffanyh »

mangecoeur wrote: post #30
tiffanyh wrote: post #6

I like the idea of LibreWolf, but never understand why it isn’t just a FF profile setting (Eg “Max Privacy = on/off”)

There pretty much is https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/telemetry-clientid Settings -> Firefox Data Collection and Use -> turn off telemetry.

Isn't it way more than that.

Like all of the settings detailed at the link below:

https://librewolf.net/docs/settings/

Post reply on HN