Using a Firefox fork makes any difference?

posted 3 months ago

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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𝘋𝘪𝘳𝘬@lemmy.ml

15 points

3 months ago

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.

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Mia@feddit.org

4 points

3 months ago

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.

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𝘋𝘪𝘳𝘬@lemmy.ml

11 points

3 months ago

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.

https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/the-firefox-browser-is-a-privacy-nightmare-on-desktop-and-mobile/

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Mia@feddit.org

3 points

3 months ago

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…

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𝘋𝘪𝘳𝘬@lemmy.ml

7 points

3 months ago

You can’t even turn all of this off via UI, but need to use about:config or user.js (the later needs to be explicitly enabled via about:config first).

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);

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