Have you tried Firefox's fork Waterfox ?

I've been using it on pretty regular basis, started after some of the noise about firefox being less than stellar about user privacy. There's little difference to my mind. For a bit waterfox seemed to be using the ESR firefox older version and couldn't play h265 encoded videos--I only noticed this when I was sent a video made on an iphone, used ffmpeg to change it from iphone format (I forget, is it mov?) to mp4 and found that waterfox couldn't play it. However, that problem has gone, I don't know when, I wasn't tracking it too carefully. So, I don't have a lot to say about it, because it doesn't get in my way--I have vimium, startpage and ublock orig as extensions, and it works fine. Hope this helps but I realize it's not a lot of information. You can have both firefox and waterfox on your machine, just call whichever one you want to use.
 
I use it. Prefer it to Firefox. No noticeable difference in performance. It seems more private for obvious settings like for advertising.

Some history is treated like new when I start it.
 
I like more-eyes on software being used and web browsing by itself is risky (I trust mainstream browsers with more users to keep-up with security threats quicker) and currently don't use WaterFox.

Firefox has more users and I do a few about:config stuff on-top of general GUI settings. I'm thinking whatever WaterFox is doing can be applied to Firefox or ESR.
 
I don't remember if it was here or on Fedora forums, but there's a few github pages with extra firefox settings for privacy. I would suggest anyone interested do a quick web search firefox privacy github. I saw several, I'm just going to post the first one, no idea how it is in comparision to others.
github.com

GitHub - simeononsecurity/FireFox-Privacy-Script: Implement the privacy oriented configurations for FireFox

Implement the privacy oriented configurations for FireFox - simeononsecurity/FireFox-Privacy-Script
github.com github.com
 
scottro said:
I don't remember if it was here or on Fedora forums, but there's a few github pages with extra firefox settings for privacy. I would suggest anyone interested do a quick web search firefox privacy github. I saw several, I'm just going to post the first one, no idea how it is in comparision to others.
github.com

GitHub - simeononsecurity/FireFox-Privacy-Script: Implement the privacy oriented configurations for FireFox

Implement the privacy oriented configurations for FireFox - simeononsecurity/FireFox-Privacy-Script
github.com github.com
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Yes, arkenfox.js etc. But myself i do use ffprofile.com, it creates a frefox profile for you and it cares about privacy and security.
 
nxjoseph said:
Yes, arkenfox.js etc. But myself i do use ffprofile.com, it creates a frefox profile for you and it cares about privacy and security.
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IMO arkenfox.js is very good and you can tweak it too. But for Waterfox I do not now. Long time ago I use it but not anymore. I like Luakit but I do not use anymore. Now I have Firefox and Qutebrowser.
 
I know it's possible to disable telemetry in about:config for Firefox. But I switched to waterfox I think it's better to support them, than Firefox. What I don't like about Firefox is that they lie, they say they are privacy focus, but they bloat the browser with telemetry. I know about librewolf too, what's the difference between librewolf and waterfox ??

If you compare the two community you see one is active openly, the other you don't know what going on.
github.com

GitHub - BrowserWorks/waterfox: The official Waterfox 💧 source code repository

The official Waterfox 💧 source code repository. Contribute to BrowserWorks/waterfox development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com github.com
github.com

GitHub - mozilla-firefox/firefox: The official repository of Mozilla's Firefox web browser.

The official repository of Mozilla's Firefox web browser. - mozilla-firefox/firefox
github.com github.com

I don't think Firefox is more secure than Waterfox. Since It's build on top of it. ?
 
Charlie Brown said:
What I don't like about Firefox is that they lie, they say they are privacy focus, but they bloat the browser with telemetry.
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Them removing some privacy clause in dev was kind of sketchy. But I feel if privacy was a focus for other browsers, they wouldn't fork from the same nefarious source.

Why can't Waterfox provide what they do to Firefox in plaintext, and allow others to make conscious decisions about their privacy? An entire sponsor-y website looks like extra man-power that could be used to find more about:config privacy tweaks :p Or maybe they're benefiting from people not looking deeper into what they're changing vs Firefox?

Firefox is default in mainstream Linux distros, FreeBSD, and is the largest browser that can compare to other mainstreams like Google Chrome. I feel if there was a serious privacy concern, distros would fork Firefox themselves like IceWeasel/Cat. Debian is what I'd keep eyes on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_IceCat#Origins_of_the_name

Charlie Brown said:
I know about librewolf too, what's the difference between librewolf and waterfox ??
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Librewolf didn't have an Android build; at a bare-minimum I need consistency between desktop and Android browsers :p
 
Espionage724 said:
Why can't Waterfox provide what they do to Firefox in plaintext, and allow others to make conscious decisions about their privacy? An entire sponsor-y website looks like extra man-power that could be used to find more about:config privacy tweaks
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I agree, can't find exactly what they've changed.
 
That's all I have found https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterfox

Waterfox differs from Firefox in several ways:


 
I did try today and it works very good.
waterfox.gif
 
Waterfox is quite good. But a few secure sites connections among others my bank does not work. And I cannot select Waterfox as my default browser in XFCE. So i recently switched back to Firefox.
 
mine dont work and I dont know why, its slow eatup ram and take year to load pages firefox is not doing that so I switched back to ff i have no time at the moment.
 
I have to agree with fernandel's implication that waterfox is fine, speed wise. I've been using it for awhile now, I think after firefox started doing something that got me nervous, don't even remember what, and it's been quite solid, and definitely as fast as firefox. So, I would say you should definitely give it another try.
 
Firefox's fork Waterfox
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To be clear: this is not Firefox's fork and I'm unclear that it's a fork of Firefox.

First, it was created by an individual, not Firefox or Mozilla. Second, it uses the same Gecko engine Firefox uses. How much beyond using the same engine it goes, I'm not clear.
 
drhowarddrfine said:
To be clear: this is not Firefox's fork and I'm unclear that it's a fork of Firefox.

First, it was created by an individual, not Firefox or Mozilla. Second, it uses the same Gecko engine Firefox uses. How much beyond using the same engine it goes, I'm not clear.
Click to expand...
yeah that's true.
 
I would not advise no one the proposal to delete a directory. but to mv it .bak, unless you want to loose your browser is session and config.
Also it did not solve the issue with my waterfox browser.
 
Im not sure but freebsd seems to be abit shaky rigth now, I mean not freebsd but everything based on graphic!
for freebsd itself everything is perfectly fine

edit: ? no in fact freebsd is shaken rigth now.
 
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