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Use Tor Browser if you want it dialed up to eleven. You'll quickly find that it's way more of a hassle to use, and also still pretty easy to accidentally compromise the security measures.
Of course Firefox isn't perfect; nothing is. But a 180 turn implies it's the opposite of perfect now, and it really isn't - especially in a world where basically every other browser is waaaay closer to that.
From this comment I suppose you never used Librewolf or Arkenfox. The Torbrowser is only a hassle because
- it uses "private browsing" always, which completely hinders people from saving anything. This is not needed, as cache, session etc could simply be deleted via the settings.
- it uses the Tor network, which is a huge thing. Cloudflare and all that BS block you 90% because of that. Its even worse than with VPN
- The real difficulties just come when you use Noscript, or Ublock with hard settings. The hardened browser alone is unproblematic. But if you use Noscript, you dont want to not use it anymore. Sites are so bloated with third party javascript that is simply not needed.
Firefox on Default is not stopping much tracking. It should teach users how to be private. Also work of course, but really. Other browsers will scream out way more data, thats for sure. But Firefox has all these features but nobody knows them.
So, in the end there is no real usecase for Firefox. And people use any other "secure" Browser instead
I mean, you're just saying that if you don't dial it up to eleven, but just to nine, then you'll hit less breakage. Which, sure, but that's kinda my point: a usable browser needs to strike a balance, and that's exactly what Firefox is trying to do - which is really something different from "needing a 180-degree turn". Firefox by default is stopping way more tracking than e.g. Chrome, and guides users to installing e.g. uBO.
Also note that most breakage isn't immediately obvious. For example, if you turn on
privacy.resistFingerprinting, then Google Docs will become blurred. However, by the time you see that, you won't be able to link that to the flipped config. This is the kind of breakage that many "hardening guides" cause, and by that, they eventually lead people to switch to Chrome, which is the opposite of what they're supposed to achieve.And sure, Librewolf draws the line at a slightly different place than Firefox does. But the main difference is not sending data like hardware capabilities, crash stats, etc. to Mozilla - which don't threaten democracy or result in hyper-targeted ads, but do enable Mozilla to optimise the code for real-world use.
Agree. But again, as this hardening is not accessible via GUI, it is mysterious as it is. With a switch similarly places like the brush in torbrowser or the shield in FF this could be easily dealt with.
More fancy would be whitelisting sites via gui.
No, Librewolf doesnt only limit data sent to mozilla, but its basically as hardened as Arkenfox/Torbrowser.
Yes, but as soon as it is accessible via the GUI, more and more people will start getting blurred Google Docs (and similar weird issues) without knowing how that happened - because that's already happening even with people who know enough to make changes in
about:config.Add a long readme, with a "yes I understand possible consequences". If this is so well known, it could be easily integrated. I never used that stuff.
Ah yes, people are indeed known for always reading long readmes and fully grasping the consequences of their actions, especially if those occur long after said actions :P
Okay, so a button in the URL bar with 2 scentences of the possible consequences.