Which browser do you use and why?
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I just don't care for downstream projects on browsers, with software so critical I want to get the updates in as fast as possible. I know some of those mentioned in OP had issues with that in the past. And not much reason to anyway for me to switch, Firefox works perfectly fine for me, so there's not much added benefit.
I've been using the Firefox mod Zen Browser on Linux Mint. When Firefox released an update in February, my Zen had it the next day. People depending on the "official" Firefox were left waiting over a week, with multiple threads in the forums asking "when is it coming?"
Also when I looked into mods updates for a critical security fix in November, practically all the mods had updated within 24 hours of FF's update. (Exceptions: Midori and Mercury.)
https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?p=2554267&sid=4f140800c5d62939af8e6394514b9aab#p2554267 -
I've been using the Firefox mod Zen Browser on Linux Mint. When Firefox released an update in February, my Zen had it the next day. People depending on the "official" Firefox were left waiting over a week, with multiple threads in the forums asking "when is it coming?"
Also when I looked into mods updates for a critical security fix in November, practically all the mods had updated within 24 hours of FF's update. (Exceptions: Midori and Mercury.)
https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?p=2554267&sid=4f140800c5d62939af8e6394514b9aab#p2554267Did Zen come from flatpak and Firefox from deb?
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Did Zen come from flatpak and Firefox from deb?
Zen: On one machine, Flatpak. On the other, AppImage through AM.
Firefox: Mint-maintained version from Mint repo (deb).I can't remember the exact differences between Firefox upstream and Mint version. But I believe Mint began maintaining their own deb at a time when upstream Ubuntu was only offering Firefox as a snap, which Mint is against, and Mozilla hadn't yet begun offering their own deb repo.
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Zen: On one machine, Flatpak. On the other, AppImage through AM.
Firefox: Mint-maintained version from Mint repo (deb).I can't remember the exact differences between Firefox upstream and Mint version. But I believe Mint began maintaining their own deb at a time when upstream Ubuntu was only offering Firefox as a snap, which Mint is against, and Mozilla hadn't yet begun offering their own deb repo.
That's where the delay comes. Though I guess it does point out that even with just Firefox the differences are small in how quickly you get updates.
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I'm probably not the best person to talk to about Firefox hardening. Because... I don't. I only go as far as using firefox containers.
My threat model is to counter:-
- ISP data logging
- government filters
- region blocking
- hyper-personalised marketing
I use a VPN for the first three, and I use Ublock, and don't use google/meta/twitter/amazon/ebay for last.
I personally believe it is impossible to escape fingerprinting unless you're on Tor Browser, but using Tor paints you as a target in my country per the first item above.
I also work in financial services, and am a user of my company's product. We do significant 'device intelligence' and 'behavioral intelligence' on client devices, auth attempts, and actions taken in sessions. Log in too many times from too many different (seemingly) devices, user agents, IP addresses, regions, etc and it increases our customer risk assessment of you. Tick over a threshold and your account falls under enhanced customer due diligence. Tick over another threshold, and we'll set auto-blocks until we can investigate. I assume that any other financial services provider worth their salt would do the same to counter fraud, money laundering, and meeting sanctions.
I basically use a split tunnel VPN. VPN traffic for general browsing, email, etc. And looking as much as a regular user as possible when accessing financial services, government websites, etc.
And yeah, agree LibreWolf is great. Only downside for the average user is the lack of an auto-updater. So the only tweak i'd do with LibreWolf would be to set up a cron/systemd timer to update it nightly.
Thank you for typing this out!
It was helpful -
"Zen is no good if you care about privacy."
How so?
It doesn’t have good privacy defaults and is easily fingerprintable with all the mods and tweaks it has.. You will have to use a user.js at least but it will probably not get as good as mullvad or librewolf
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It doesn’t have good privacy defaults and is easily fingerprintable with all the mods and tweaks it has.. You will have to use a user.js at least but it will probably not get as good as mullvad or librewolf
Thanks for the info.
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Read the post above mine... "Privacy respecting options" are almost always downstream forks of firefox. Abandon/kill the source, and downstream dries up
I suspect Tor Browser would fork and soldier on if Firefox became an unsuitable base.
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Using firefox but concerned now
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Do you mean IronFox or is there another fork I didn't know yet
Ah yes, Ironfox on mobile of course, thanks.
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