How my Firefox became a LibreWolf
How my Firefox became a LibreWolf
How my Firefox became a LibreWolf
New blog-post: https://www.davidrevoy.com/article1065/how-my-firefox-became-a-librewolf
#firefox #librewolf #tos #webcomic
@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org Thank you! Putting the Firefox dilemma in pictures makes it less academic and more approachable issue. I hope many people realize how empowering it is to use free software that can be replaced easily.
It is not always so easy:
Holy crap thank you for sharing that. Spectacular. Also, the last minute of that had the kind of inspirational vibes that I last got in the 90s reading things on cult of the dead cow.
cDc is still at it!
@mray@social.tchncs.de Thanks! Oh yes it's not easy to find the time and do a change and walk the path of frustration of changing habit and studying settings.
Thanks for the video, I'm already subscribed to this animator artist, James Lee.
He recently announced moving to GNU/Linux. It's not the best period to do this for artists, with Wayland, all container war etc...I don't remember I saw an update of them about how they succeed to make it. Certainly hard time ^ ^ I hope he found my blog post about it.
@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org
For me, it is, honestly, sad. I've been using Firefox since... it was Firebird. Twenty+ years.Great art, as always!
From the blog post...
You won't be pampered with a one-click installation for all. Instead, you'll need to take the time to review the documentation and set up the security and privacy features that you're willing to trade off for comfort and convenience.
Yeah, ouch, thats not going to sell with the Plebs, and limit buy-in from them, and market share.
They really should try to fix that, and not just hand wave it away as a problem.
Market share is the lifeblood of the browser wars.
Pleb here
You are correct
Everything is on by default. So is actually quite easy.
It's very nice because you don't really have to worry about which add-ons you need.
It's about the most simple browser I've ever used.
@CosmicCleric@lemmy.world "[...] not going to sell with the Plebs"
😆 I don't think LibreWolf has view for market share and plebs. As far as I know it's a community initiative, not a company. Yes, it require time to install and setup, and understand the implication of what security and privacy setting one decide to lower. But I'm happy I took this time, I feel I understand even more how the web of 2025 is broken and how web browser interacts with it to try to ease the experience.
@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org @CosmicCleric@lemmy.world I mean I don't hate for-profit companies that much unless they have done questionable/nefarious things repeatedly; but I really don't like for-profit companies hiding behind non-profits/benefit corporations/co-ops especially to do questionable things.
😆 I don’t think LibreWolf has view for market share and plebs.
I've never met a software developer yet who wouldn't want their program to be popular and widely used.
Also, when it comes to browsers, the name of the game is to get support from the big websites, which is done by having major/popular usage of their browser.
For android, there's also fennec on fdroid
i have ironfox for android.
Gorgeous artwork friend!
@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org Excellent art, as always.
I switched this week too. It was very simple on Linux Mint, but I worry about the future of the Firefox code base.
@darkbeth @davidrevoy hopefully we have to worry about that only a few years until independent engines become usable. #Verso and #Ladybird are candidates if #mozilla codebase rots. GNOME Web / #epiphany is another browser that has an engine not depending on Google (Apple webkit engine though, but at it it will be a real competition and even though they are bad to their own usets, they are not as powerful on the web like Google).
@praveen @darkbeth Thank you Elizabeth.
LibreWolf is just a layer of community reviewing in case Mozilla pushes something bad to their audience. My metaphor about the layer of ash on top of a fox works for this reason.
I also worry for the future of Firefox. I hope their executives will see larger community forming around forks, and it will make them find back their focus to privacy, and security. I'll be back to Firefox if they do that.
@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org
I'm hooked on the Wolf, been using it for over a year.Once in a while I use furryfox for some fussy-ass site that I have to do one thing on once in a blueish moon.
@matera@mastodon.sdf.org Haha, I typed in a search engine for "furryfox" before realizing it was your way of naming Firefox. 😆
Catchy name.
Yes, I'll keep my Firefox too in background. Right now mainly to compare when I have an issue with LibreWolf, and also to test my blog and peppercarrot website. 😉@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org LOL Yeah, I get too cute sometimes.
It's good to have a few different browsers for website testing. I have an assortment of different browser profiles too. I use dedicated profiles mostly to keep Gahoogle and Zuckland noses out of my business.
@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org
For those coming here in search of Firefox alternatives, I just want to point out https://zen-browser.app/ that is also a fork of Firefox though perhaps a more customised fork... Check it out if you are in the mood for trying a different layout from the default Firefox experience...i also have floorp./
Hows your experience so far?
@technikhil @davidrevoy I just gave #Librewolf and #Zenbrowser a try. Both seem to work perfectly fine, and reimporting my date from #Firefox was easy (which seems logical since they're both based on Firefox).
I'm not switching now though. I took a minute to check my Firefox settings and opt out from everything that seemed not to be data privacy friendly.I'm wondering if those forks are actually viable if Firefox dies one day... So for now I'd rather not cut the branch I've been sitting on for 2 decades, wait and see.
I like the look of Zen browser though, looks like arc!
@louischance @davidrevoy Yep, perfectly rational... I too have not (yet) given up on Firefox, I have just started compartmentalizing what I use it for. The Firefox sync allows me to still keep parity between the 2 browsers, though given the direction Mozilla is going I am probably going to delete that account quite soon.
The similarity with Arc is what drew me to the Zen browser initially. I also like the amount of space it provides for the content in it's "compact mode" layout.
@protonprivacy@mastodon.social also flounced off Mastodon after they received well deserved criticism.
Is @mozillaofficial@mastodon.social doing the same? 🫤🤷♂️
The ceo gravy train keeps going.
@simonzerafa@infosec.exchange @protonprivacy@mastodon.social @mozillaofficial@mastodon.social I'm not sure how official the account you linked here is, the branding feels off and it's not really noted in the bio this is their official new account.
Before December, Mozilla had their instance, and decided to remove it ( src. https://techcrunch.com/2024/09/17/mozilla-exits-the-fediverse-and-will-shutter-its-mastodon-server-in-december/ )
Proton also really manage their PR like rotten potatoes imo ( https://theintercept.com/2025/01/28/proton-mail-andy-yen-trump-republicans/ )
... both company also abuse marketing bs wording and praise AI. Not surprising they are criticized here.
@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org @simonzerafa@infosec.exchange @protonprivacy@mastodon.social @mozillaofficial@mastodon.social I mean something as simple like text-to-speech or OCR or machine translation models (like Google Translate/DeepL) can be considered "AI" technically. I'm a student and many courses involving creating our own models from scratch and many of my projects involving use models like tesseract-ocr, turtle-tts, YOLO, LLaMA,... for some tasks and this is painful for me as many outputs don't even make sense and I had to tweak a lot.
@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org
Excellent, as usual.@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org yippiee
@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org Thanks for this post and the fun artwork, you convinced me to finally make the jump!
@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org I switched to LibreWolf two month ago and it works nicely.
@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org Ce projet LibreWolf semble sympathique mais pas compatible avec firefox syncs, ce qui est sans doute logique, mais sans alternative.
Je teste également Floorp...J'ai utilisé LibreWolf et il a bien fonctionné avec Firefox sync. Si je me souvenir bien, il faut activer (permettre) Firefox sync dans les options. Maintenant, j'utilise Floorp. Il, également, bien fonctionne avec Firefox sync.
(Désolé pour mon mauvais français.)
I have used LibreWolf and it works well with Firefox sync. If I am remembering correctly, it must be enabled in the options. Right now, I use Floorp. It also works well with Firefox sync.
(Sorry for my poor French.)
LibreWolf needs to adopt a Foxkeh like mascot since Mozilla refuses to do it even though it would make them so much bank and popularity. <3
@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org I still use Firefox, but I disabled sending any data to Mozilla.
Thanks for not contributing to Chromium monopoly. :)
@elgregor@librem.one That's a good solution! My initiation to LibreWolf made me aware of many settings I never thought existing in Firefox (because suddenly all were turned on by default). It was really educative, and I'll probably benefit a lot of it if I'm going back to Firefox.
@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org good luck getting sec patches in time
Honestly. The biggest dilemma browsers seem to have isn't just funding but how to maintain they're absolutely massive code bases.
Either we really do a very large and robust org like the Linux kernel group, or we need to find a way to massive reduce the complexity of the browser.
Servo is exciting and ladybird too. Maybe their fresher starts can bring in the opportunity to do that.
@fruitycoder the group exists and is called blink, managed by google who got tired of working with apple on khtml and forked it to do what they wanted.
@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org somehow, my #librewolf makes weird alignment in some sites... is there a way to make the text align left?
It's not a big deal but it can be annoying sometimes@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org
I wonder what the Linux distros that have Firefox in the default install are going to do going forward?#linuxmint #linux
Cute
I am going to ladybird it bro
@rony4102@programming.dev Well, I visited their webpage and read their Wikipedia. But only checking they are still active on X was a red flag to me so far to get interested in.
Is it worth running LibreWolf without fingerprinting disabled? It's kind of a dealbreaker that it doesn't save zoom options on websites. At least I could handle having to run another browser to use Netflix...
@Yingwu@lemmy.dbzer0.com That's exactly where I found it educative to have to be personally facing this dilemma and having to choose.
Here I decided to allow fingerprinting, because mainly I really like when a blog or website switch to dark mode automatically. Without that, all website were in light theme, and it felt very difficult to me to browse the web like that now...
@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org @Yingwu@lemmy.dbzer0.com I mean LibreWolf recommends using CanvasBlocker in case of you turned off Resist Fingerprinting
@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org je te suis et pas que pour la qualité de ton travail ! je vais l'installer de suite sur mon portable Frame.Work Fedora. Et pour ton mobile, tu as choisi quoi ?
@scaro@mamot.fr Merci. Sur mobile jusque là c'était Firefox sur un Android dégooglisé... enfin au mieu possible car c'est quasi impossible de faire un 100%.
Mais là je teste la semaine prochaine https://iode.tech/ , c'est du https://lineageos.org/ mélangé avec de la revente de matos reconditionné. Je donnerai des news sur le blog si ça fait bien le taf, surtout si au niveau photo/video ça arrive à suivre. ☺️
@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org alors je serai attentif à tes futures publications. Sur mon Fairphone avec Murena OS, je testerai le navigateur par défaut pour désinstaller dès que possible Firefox aussi. Iels verront vite la baisse de leur utilisation, sans doute lors des prochaines mises à jour...
@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org ah mais c'est un OS complet... je cherchais juste un navigateur pour mon Fairphone qui tourne sous Murena OS... mais je suis curieux de lire ton retour d'expérience qd même. En commençant par le navigateur inclus ;-)
@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org i deleted firefox litllery just today from my distro, and replaced it with librewolf
its working great!@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org Thank you for being on the right side of history, like … always 😊
@bigTanuki :blobcatheart: Thank you, but don't worry, I'm making many errors too, and I'll keep doing them as I often experiment with many new things.
I just hope I'll get comments helping me if I go accidentally on questionable territories and I'll have the brightness of mind to study them and readjust.
Didn't knew this existed, thx!
@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org That's very nice!
@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org
Vivaldi right now and it works great.@BluesHarp@musicians.today But Vivaldi is not free/libre and open source software... This is even not an option on my operating system as it is really impossible to know what Vivaldi dev are doing with your data.
@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org same same.
Great art, so cute!
@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org
Merci pour la découverte.
Mais le souci sera le même que Chrome au final, dépendre de l'évolution de FF pour le code principal.@marnic@framapiaf.org Totalement! C'est même pour ça que dans ma métaphore, je voulais vraiment montrer que le petit renard reste un renard , tant bien même recouvert de cendre. Ca ressemble donc plutôt a une "community curated edition" de Firefox, mais je crois que c'est ce que je cherche là. Je commence à me méfier de Mozilla. Ils dérapent trop souvent ces derniers temps, et ça c'est que la partie publique...
@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org
Faut créer une nouvelle fondation type de LibreOffice 😅
@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org
The catoon also works for MoonWolf.
🤭@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org Got rid of Chrome for Chromium I guess Firefox will have to be replaced with an alternative as well since they decided to follow in Google's footsteps.
@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org The artwork and the alt text describing it are both poignant and touching.
I'm about to migrate from Firefox (which I've been using since it was Netscape 3.04) to Librewolf as well. It's nice to feel welcomed.
@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org how do you compare waterfox? Thanks.
@prakasc@chaos.social For Waterfox, I read their webpage, and the Wikipedia page only. The chapter about vulnerabilities was enough for me to not get motivated to explore more. Also a business model based on search result. Meh. But cool name.
@davidrevoy
Il y aussi floorp, un "fork" également du renard. Pas d'avis définitif (en phase test) mais je n'ai pas eu le besoin de me plonger dans la doc et de soulever le capot pour l'intant.
@Khrys@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org Librewolf sur FreeBSD ici👍
#RunBSD
@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org Note that if you are concerning about security, you may want to enable Google Safe Browsing as well (I know this is from Google, but implementation from Mozilla is making sense and even Librewolf devs are considering enabling it if it wasn't for user self-compiling issues). I'm a CS student myself but I don't think I'm that savvy for checking every site I go though.
@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org Oh, I am considering moving to LibreWolf currently too