Using a Firefox fork makes any difference?
Using a Firefox fork makes any difference?
Well, Mozilla seems to be making some pretty questionable decisions, So I'm considering switching browsers for the third (Is it the third?) time. The thing is, I really like the way Firefox works, so I've been trying out the more famous Forks like Waterfox and Librewolf, although I'm going for Floorp. However, I'm wondering: is using a fork enough? I mean, they are Forks maintained by other people, but is there a chance that whatever Mozilla does to Firefox could affect those Forks? Should I jump to a totally different browser like Vivaldi?
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Using a Firefox clone saves you the hassle of manually remove all the stupid annoyances and user tracking Mozilla enables by default. But that’s basically it. Except a preconfigured setup and a new name and logo pretty much nothing is different.
Vivaldi is just Chromium with a non-free UI.
Can you give an example for this user tracking? I'm using firefox and I can't think of anything that isn't opt-in.
Nothing of this is opt-in:
By default, Mozilla collects […] information about the number of open tabs and windows or number of webpages visited. […] The data collected is associated with a randomly generated identifier that is unique to each Firefox client.
and
Firefox by default sends data about what features you use in Firefox to Leanplum, our mobile marketing vendor […] Leanplum tracks events such as when a user loads bookmarks, opens new tab, opens a pocket trending story, clears data, saves a password and login, takes a screenshot, downloads media, interacts with search URL or signs into a Firefox Account.
and
[Leanplum collects] certain information, which may include your browser’s Internet Protocol (IP) address, your browser type, the nature of the device from which you are visiting the Service[…], the identifier for any handheld or mobile device that you may be using, the Web site that you visited immediately prior to accessing any Web-based Service, the actions you take on our Service, […] We also may collect information regarding your interaction with e-mail messages, such as whether you opened, clicked on, or forwarded a message.
Thanks, I didn't know that all this stuff is enabled by default. They don't even care to inform their users when you install firefox...
You can’t even turn all of this off via UI, but need to use
about:configoruser.js(the later needs to be explicitly enabled viaabout:configfirst).Here’s my setup (except some specific settings based on my personal preferences that are not related to privacy).
// Do not leak URLs, IPs, etc. to external services user_pref('browser.safebrowsing.malware.enabled', false); user_pref('browser.safebrowsing.phishing.enabled', false); user_pref('network.trr.mode', 5); // DoH explicitly off user_pref('security.OCSP.enabled', 0); user_pref('browser.contentblocking.category', 'custom'); user_pref('app.shield.optoutstudies.enabled', false); user_pref('browser.urlbar.trending.featureGate', false); // Disable hidden extensions user_pref('extensions.pocket.enabled', false); user_pref('extensions.screenshots.disabled', true); // Remove new tab spam user_pref('browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.showSponsoredTopSites', false); user_pref('browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.feeds.section.topstories', false); user_pref('browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.feeds.topsites', false); // Disable telemetry user_pref('datareporting.policy.dataSubmissionEnabled', false); user_pref('datareporting.healthreport.uploadEnabled', false); user_pref('toolkit.telemetry.unified', false); user_pref('toolkit.telemetry.enabled', false); user_pref('toolkit.telemetry.server', 'data:,'); user_pref('toolkit.telemetry.archive.enabled', false); user_pref('toolkit.telemetry.newProfilePing.enabled', false); user_pref('toolkit.telemetry.shutdownPingSender.enabled', false); user_pref('toolkit.telemetry.updatePing.enabled', false); user_pref('toolkit.telemetry.bhrPing.enabled', false); user_pref('toolkit.telemetry.firstShutdownPing.enabled', false); user_pref('toolkit.telemetry.coverage.opt-out', true); user_pref('toolkit.coverage.opt-out', true); user_pref('toolkit.coverage.endpoint.base', ''); user_pref('browser.ping-centre.telemetry', false); user_pref('browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.feeds.telemetry', false); user_pref('browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.telemetry', false); user_pref('breakpad.reportURL', ''); user_pref('browser.tabs.crashReporting.sendReport', false); user_pref('browser.crashReports.unsubmittedCheck.autoSubmit2', false); user_pref('app.shield.optoutstudies.enabled', false); user_pref('app.normandy.enabled', false); user_pref('app.normandy.api_url', ''); // Disable AI bullshit user_pref('browser.ml.enable', false); user_pref('browser.ml.chat.enabled', false); user_pref('browser.ml.chat.shortcuts', false); user_pref('browser.ml.chat.sidebar', false); user_pref('pdfjs.enableAltText', false); user_pref('pdfjs.enableUpdatedAddImage', false);