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Choose the browser that best suits your privacy needs

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Re: Choose the browser that best suits your privacy needs

#711

Post by gitaarik »

ggjkvcxddd wrote: post #165
masfoobar wrote: post #148

I have been a happy Firefox user for 15 years... maybe more. I have seen people use and complain Internet Explorer in my younger days, from version 6 to 7, etc. Even though I mention Firefox to them, they stay with IE. What amazes me is how quick they transitioned to Google Chrome when it released. This was around 2009. It amazes me how quick people jump to something especially when it has a big company behind advert…

>I just don't understand why people would use Chrome. Really? That seems hard to believe. I stuck with FF until around 2016 or so before being compelled to switch. The performance was just very clearly worse than Chrome's at the time. Not sure what the state of things is now. This is HN, so another huge reason to use Chrome is for the devtools, which I've always had a very good experience with and know pretty well. I…

Performance? Yeah there was once a time that Chrome was a bit snappier than Firefox, but nothing significant. I think it's mostly the placebo effect of people just thinking they are using a faster/slower browser.

Development of devtools was indeed quite good early on in Chrome. But Firefox already had the Firebug extension, which was basically the first kind of browser devtools as far as I can remember. And then Firefox also eventually implemented the devtools natively, and Firebug eventually disappeared. And that did take some time while Chrome had the devtools already native. But still Firefox with their open plugin system allowed for Firebug to evolve, and Chrome's devtools (and also Firefox's) was for sure inspired by Firebug.

So why do people use Chrome really? Placebo, hype, lack of historical context, and ignorance of privacy, I would say.

Re: Choose the browser that best suits your privacy needs

#712

Post by RunSet »

BHSPitMonkey wrote: post #605
RunSet wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox has made it unnecessarily difficult to customize the new tab. You can have it blank or you can have Firefox recommendations. Those are your options. https://i.imgur.com/U13r7pG.png This resembles a dark pattern to push users toward Firefox recommendations, a moneymaker.

You're ignoring the fact that "Firefox Home" itself allows you to customize what it contains. You can remove the recommendations, shortcuts, recent pages, recent bookmarks etc. individually (or strip it all the way down to a search bar).

> You're ignoring the fact that "Firefox Home" itself allows you to customize what it contains.

Correct. I am ignoring that fact because I don't want new tabs to display "Firefox Home" and I am not interested in customizing what it contains.

I want new tabs to display an HTML file that I made myself. Firefox previously allowed doing so.

The replies that suggest using extensions to re-enable the disabled functionality probably have not actually tried doing so. What those extensions do is load the "Firefox Home" content, then (as if on page load) redirect to whatever you set as your custom new tab. Which is just wretched. I could have typed the URL faster than that.

And on the subject of pushing core browser functionality into extensions: Why are things like Pocket, Firefox Sync, Hello, and the like integrated / bundled with Firefox but the ability to set a custom URL for new tabs requires users to install / trust a third party extension?

See also: The deplorable state of "Classic Theme Restorer", another case of "Users who miss the disabled functionality can just install an extension."

Re: Choose the browser that best suits your privacy needs

#713

Post by Beldin »

bad_user wrote: post #100

I keep seeing Edge mentioned as a worthy alternative, and I just don't get it. First, all Chromium-based browsers will eventually block uBlock Origin for the sole reason that they can't maintain Manifest v2 on their own, and they all rely on Chrome's Web Store anyway. This won't happen immediately because Manifest v2 will probably stick around for longer because of enterprise users, but the writing is on the wall. Th…

> In the EU, when you open Edge for the first time, they ask you to agree to sharing your personal data with the entire advertising industry, via an IAB dialog.

I didn't know that.

I do know that the GDPR requires user consent to be revocable....

Re: Choose the browser that best suits your privacy needs

#714

Post by throw10920 »

medo-bear wrote: post #507
throw10920 wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does this have to do with the EU? This just sounds like decent regulation.

EU is pretty much all about regulation

Like eIDAS? That's not very appealing.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38109494

Re: Choose the browser that best suits your privacy needs

#715

Post by MaxBarraclough »

zxt_tzx wrote: post #682
tentacleuno wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (Another example that comes to mind is Warp, the terminal written in Rust.) Sorry, do you mean there's a terminal emulator out there which forces you to login? I'm hoping you mean it provides auxiliary (optional) functionality with a login.

> do you mean there's a terminal emulator out there which forces you to login? Haha yes indeed that's what I meant, I suspect this is only going to become more common whether we like it or not

In proprietary software, perhaps.

Personally I'd never consider using a terminal emulator that isn't Free and Open Source software.

Re: Choose the browser that best suits your privacy needs

#716

Post by ParetoOptimal »

RunSet wrote: post #560
ParetoOptimal wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or https://mullvad.net/en/browser

Librewolf is de branded Firefox to remove all the sponsored crap that Firefox inserted: Pocket, Hello, new tab recommendations, default google search, etc. Mullvad browser exists to advertise a VPN. I would not recommend the latter in lieu of the former.

Mullvad browser certainly exists in part to advertise a VPN, but offers more privacy protections than Librewolf.

See this response from the mullvad-browser developer on exactly this:

> There are two main reasons, one which you preemptively answered:

> - the privacy model is about having a same fingerprint per platform for Mullvad Browser users, so you're not uniquely identifiable (which will be the case by following privacy hardening guides) > - it is much easier to recommend to user a browser pre-configured for an optimal privacy: some users will want to tinker, but if you don't have the time or knowledge, it's hard to do the right thing

> There are also more differences than "just a fork of Firefox", I encourage you to read the following page which goes more into the details: https://mullvad.net/en/browser/hard-facts

source: https://github.com/mullvad/mullvad-browser/issues/1

A librewolf contributor and arkenfox developer chimes in as well stating that it's no competition that mullvad-browser is more secure here:

https://github.com/mullvad/mullvad-browser/issues/1#issuecom...

So as much as I despise companies putting low effort into software rebrands that offer no value, all the facts point towards that very much not being the case here.

Edit: However https://privacytests.org/ shows mullvad-vpn and librewolf as being very similar wrt privacy.

Re: Choose the browser that best suits your privacy needs

#717

Post by flexagoon »

rattray wrote: post #678
volsa wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or if you're on macOS, give Arc a try. Tried it and immediately deleted the app again. Seriously, asking users to create an account which isn't skippable is just plain dumb?

I disagree with this decision by Arc, and had the same reaction you did, but I just want to note that I'm very glad I gave it another shot months later – it really is a fantastic browser, much better than FF or Chrome.

I feel like the only actually cool feature of it is the way tabs are organized, but you can get the same thing (even better, actually) by using the Sidebery extension in Firefox. The only difference is that it doesn't look as pretty by default, but both Sidebery and Firefox support custom CSS so you can make it look like Arc if you really need to.

Re: Choose the browser that best suits your privacy needs

#718

Post by teddyh »

JonathanBeuys wrote: post #108
teddyh wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have very recently begun to see this bug; A workaround is that if you start a new Firefox from a shell on your desktop, then running “firefox” from a shell, even a different shell window, will work fine. I haven’t been able to find out why.

Yes, that is exactly what I am experiencing. You cannot start FF from the Desktop and then start new windows from a shell. Unless that shell was directly started from the desktop. So it must have something to do with the environment or process tree.

I found what I think was the problem for me: From the desktop, I was starting Firefox with the “--no-remote” option. If I remove that option, then it works. I did not use that option when starting in a terminal, but if I do, then the same problem appears.

Re: Choose the browser that best suits your privacy needs

#719

Post by medo-bear »

throw10920 wrote: post #714
medo-bear wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EU is pretty much all about regulation

Like eIDAS? That's not very appealing. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38109494

Regulation can be bad or good. I was stating a fact about what regulations and EU have to do with one another. I believe that EU has big problems however I also believe that it has a much bigger potential. I am also glad that UK left because no one can have preferential treatment.

Re: Choose the browser that best suits your privacy needs

#720

Post by shiroiuma »

jpc0 wrote: post #689
shiroiuma wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, I can simply decline to watch (or even load) the ads, just like I decline to look at the ads in those tissue packs that are given to me on the street. I have no moral obligation to watch any ads on video that is freely shown in response to a normal HTTP GET request.

Just don't join the gaggle complaining about your adblocker randomly no longer working or YouTube randomly blocking the page till you disable it and were all good.

What's to complain about? My adblocker hasn't had any trouble at all yet, and even if it does, it won't be long before the adblocker people update their lists or software to work around whatever attempts YT might make against them. YT's efforts are utterly futile; there's absolutely no way they can stop adblockers without going to really extreme measures (like requiring a special client viewer app, or basically turning into another Netflix). Trying to devise a technical means of stopping ad-blockers requires far more effort than working around those attempts, and it only takes one determined or bored hacker to figure out a workaround and update the ad-blockers so suddenly everyone worldwide is blocking the ads again.
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