HEXN3T ( @HEXN3T@lemmy.blahaj.zone ) 6•4 days agoLibrewolf is Firefox on crack. Mullvad is Librewolf on crack.
downhomechunk [chicago] ( @downhomechunk@midwest.social ) English2•3 days agoCrack cocaine use is nothing to joke about.
Chakravanti ( @Chakravanti@lemmy.ml ) 4•3 days agoIt is if you’ve been to Europe and touched your serotonin the way you thought dopamine was the shit and found out completely otherwise.
kyub ( @kyub@discuss.tchncs.de ) English17•4 days agoBoth are good. Librewolf is more like vanilla Firefox, just configured way better by default. Mullvad Browser is like a port of the Tor Browser (also based on Firefox) for the clear web (or for use with Mullvad’s VPN, or whatever). Also configured very well by default. Mullvad Browser has better anti fingerprinting stuff built-in but as a result of its unusual configuration some sites might be broken. Librewolf is kind of the opposite in that regard - sites won’t be broken but you’ll be easier to fingerprint. In any case, they both are at the top of the best Firefox variants I’d say.
boredsquirrel ( @boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net ) 12•4 days agoLibrewolf and Torbrowser both include hardening and privacy optimizations.
Kind of separately, but Librewolf, Mull (Android) often take the configs of Torbrowser.
So calling them opposite makes no sense. They may just leave out some settings.
Fonzie! ( @lord_ryvan@ttrpg.network ) 2•4 days agoYeah, they’re like 80% the same idea at the very least
kyub ( @kyub@discuss.tchncs.de ) English1•4 days agoThe “opposite” was just referring to those 2 aspects - Mullvad has stronger anti-fingerprinting which leads to more breakage. Librewolf has that aspect reversed. Of course, both browsers are similar overall. That’s just one detail where they prioritize differently.
boredsquirrel ( @boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net ) 1•4 days agoI think “reversed” and “opposite” makes no sense here.
Librewolf copies the Torbrowser or Arkenfox patches, maybe adding their own ones, maybe not. Arkenfox is a 1:1 copy of Torbrowser to my knowledge, without using private browsing.
As you dont have Cookie Containers, the “being more private” or “anti fingerprinting” is a very vague statement. If you use your browser for a single website then yes maybe.
TYSM for this info!
boredsquirrel ( @boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net ) 14•4 days agoLibrewolf uses Torbrowser configs, Mull uses the Torbrowser repo and entire config.
Torbrowser always uses the private browsing mode, which is really restrictive. Tabgroups do not work, cookies cannot be saved etc.
This makes MullvadBrowser way worse for daily browsing.
Torbrowser cannot use normal browsing mode, because they want to avoid saving data on the disk. Everything is in RAM.
Great info! Was just noticing this abt mullvad browser earlier today.
Telorand ( @Telorand@reddthat.com ) 12•5 days agoI like LibreWolf, but I don’t like that it wipes cookies and session tokens each time you launch it. I understand why they do it, but it’s a consideration outside my threat model, so it just annoys me.
ftbd ( @ftbd@feddit.de ) 27•5 days agoThen just turn those specific settings off?
Telorand ( @Telorand@reddthat.com ) 4•5 days agoBut then aren’t you basically back to Firefox?
sunglocto ( @sunglocto@lemmy.zip ) English19•5 days agoNo, because Librewolf also adds fingerprint resisting which is stronger than Firefox’s and has ublock origin installed by default. It also has the ability to block stuff like WebGL and JS canvases by default
Also, Librewolf strips out telemetry and allows for some good about:config flags to be used via simple toggles in settings
Telorand ( @Telorand@reddthat.com ) 5•5 days agoOh, okay. That is quite a bit different. I guess those QoL tweaks can still be worth it, then!
helenslunch ( @helenslunch@feddit.nl ) 4•5 days ago…do you really think they’ve spent all this time creating a new browser that just has a setting enabled?
bamboo ( @bamboo@lemm.ee ) 6•5 days agoI do genuinely believe that these Firefox forks are mostly pointless rebrands of Firefox to satisfy a small crowd of people who are fine with Firefox but don’t want Firefox or Mozilla branding. Other than branding, they tweak the default config, pre-install ublock origin, and that’s about it. I guess this one exposes some already existing about:config flags in the settings UI. The best part is they are managed by small teams that run a few versions behind Firefox persistently, leaving 0-days unpatched and thus their users vulnerable. Their small userbase also opens their users up to tracking that wouldn’t be possible with larger browsers.
kixik ( @kixik@lemmy.ml ) 4•4 days agoNot true, FF comes with few binary blobs which are removed from Librewolf. Also there are some things disabled entirely at build time, so they are removed from being an option. So it’s not just the settings, and it’s not plain re-branding. Some distros has gotten it wrong, believing that it’s just a matter of settings, but at least on the case of Librewolf and the Tor browser that’s not the case.
That hey depend on FF continuous development to exist is true, that doesn’t mean they just rebrand.
bamboo ( @bamboo@lemm.ee ) 2•4 days agoTor browser is something else, I don’t group it in with stuff like Librewolf.
For librewolf, I just took a look to try and figure out what binary blobs are being talked about. This is the repository I was looking at, I think its the right place: https://codeberg.org/librewolf/source/src/branch/main. There isn’t much documentation on the patches besides the file names for the most part, but do you have any idea which of these relates to binary blobs? Or is it in the settings file? Really nothing I see here convinces me that this project is worth anybody’s time over regular firefox, it just changes some defaults, disables pocket (they patch it out, but there’s already a setting), and changes the branding. I don’t disagree with most of their changes, I just don’t see the point of maintaining and marketing an entire derivative browser for what could just be a settings hardening guide on a wiki somewhere.
kixik ( @kixik@lemmy.ml ) 1•4 days agoThere are several patches under its patches source directory, and there are different sort of packages, one example is the
sed
patch to avoid includingpocket
in the build. The DRM widevine is not included either on the build, though it can be installed if you want it installed (probably there’s a patch for that somewhere).But I no longer see removing binary blobs being advertised by Librewolf, it’s been a while since I don’t check on their site…
Telorand ( @Telorand@reddthat.com ) 1•5 days agoNo, which is why I added the qualifier “basically,” which implies a fundamental sameness while still having technical differences.
😅😂
Fonzie! ( @lord_ryvan@ttrpg.network ) 4•4 days agoYou can also easily set specific sites’ cookies not to be wiped, I use this to have websites I trust to store my data for convenience, but any random tracker-infested blog to forget me as soon as the browser closes!
And also, Mullvad Browser does this by default, as well. I think theirs can’t even be configured on a per-site basis.
Telorand ( @Telorand@reddthat.com ) 2•4 days agoThat’s a good idea.
BurningTurtle ( @BurningTurtle@feddit.org ) 9•5 days agoBoth are good
thingsiplay ( @thingsiplay@beehaw.org ) 9•5 days ago- trust: The biggest trust factor difference to me is, who manages the package and how it is installed. Both are not packaged by my distribution maintainers, therefore I have trust issues with a program that important. However both are available as Flatpak. So I would recommend to install it this way.
- updates: Another big factor is how often these are updated, especially security patches. In example for any Firefox based browser, I would not want to wait longer than 1 day before the fork is on the same version as the mainline Firefox.
I personally would prefer LibreWolf over Mullvad, because it is based off Firefox.
davel [he/him] ( @davel@lemmy.ml ) English18•5 days agoI personally would prefer LibreWolf over Mullvad, because it is based off Firefox.
They both are.
cerement ( @cerement@slrpnk.net ) 10•5 days ago- LibreWolf ← Firefox
- Mullvad ← Tor ← Firefox
737 ( @737@lemmy.blahaj.zone ) 7•4 days agoI use Firefox since all distros package it.
Captain Beyond ( @beyond@linkage.ds8.zone ) 6•4 days agoLibrewolf comes packaged by my distro (GNU Guix) so that’s what I use. I’m sure most “privacy” or “hardened” Firefoxes are more or less interchangeable. The only one that’s really noteworthy is GNU IceCat, because it’s more focused on software-freedom and includes the LibreJS addon, but I switched to Librewolf once it was packaged for Guix.
Eyck_of_denesle ( @Eyck_of_denesle@lemmy.zip ) 4•4 days agoWait. Mull browser is mullvad browser?
isolatedscotch ( @isolatedscotch@discuss.tchncs.de ) 10•4 days agoNo, mull is a fork of Firefox meant for android and developed by the divestOS team, while mullvad is a completely different fork, only for desktop atm and developed by mullvad (the VPN company)
they both focus on privacy and integrate Tor patches and modify some configs to better resist fingerprinting, but mullvad browser goes a step further with the tor integration, going as far as storing all data in RAM, so it deletes every cookie, history etc on restart. Could be an advantage, could be a disadvantage, up to you
Eyck_of_denesle ( @Eyck_of_denesle@lemmy.zip ) 2•3 days agoThanks for such a detailed response. Saw someone commenting it as mull and in thought I relied to them. Once again thanks a lot.
jaxiiruff ( @jaxiiruff@lemmy.zip ) 3•4 days agoHonestly at this point, normal firefox with ublock and custom user agent switched to chrome.
geoma ( @geoma@lemmy.ml ) 4•3 days agoThe thing is youre telking websites you are using chrome so theyll look at their stats and say "everybody ises chrome, lets just design for chrome "
jaxiiruff ( @jaxiiruff@lemmy.zip ) 1•3 days agoI know im just tired of stuff breaking on purpose just because of the stupid
fingerprintinguser agent
some_guy ( @some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org ) 3•4 days agoI’ve had Mullvad installed for around a year or more. I turn to it from time to time when I wanna keep things separate from my regular browser, like if I’m looking into items on Amazon that I only need once and don’t want recommendations to get polluted. For example, I was looking at the price of spinning platter HDs after one failed in a NAS. I don’t want Amazon trying to sell me more old-tech drives once I replace it.
Has worked well so far. Haven’t tried the other one.
toastal ( @toastal@lemmy.ml ) 2•3 days agoHardening aside, I like that LibreWolf actually lets you turn on JPEG XL.
tun ( @tun@lemm.ee ) 1•3 days agoHow can I do that?
toastal ( @toastal@lemmy.ml ) 2•3 days agoIIRC it might be on by default (tho this would hurt anonymity if you can request JXL files & stock Fx cannot), else open
about:config
& search for “jxl”. Upstream has kept this flag—toggle on or off—only working in Fx Nightly.
dino ( @dino@discuss.tchncs.de ) English2•4 days agoFirefox + Arkenfox … :P Using Mullvad as a backup before having to use chromium for any dirty stuff. Librewolf seems to be like a good recommendation for non-technical people. Although I am not sure which browser has less breakage Mullvad or Libre.
sunzu ( @sunzu@kbin.run ) 4•5 days agoJust uses the one that works best for you.
They are about the same, ie good.
Paradox ( @Paradox@lor.sh ) 2•5 days ago@c0smokram3r
https://privacytests.org/I didn’t like the #Mullvad browser. For some reason extensions don’t work there, I couldn’t add them there from AMO.
Tundra ( @Tundra@lemmy.ml ) 6•4 days agoadding extensions would alter the fingerprint - removing the ability to blend in with the herd which is the whole goal of mullvad browser.
Sounds like librewolf is for you!
Paradox ( @Paradox@lor.sh ) 3•4 days ago@Tundra Thank you for the clarification. I will consider using it. But why is there no NoScript?
Paradox ( @Paradox@lor.sh ) 1•4 days ago@Tundra That said, the NoScript and uBOs were also unavailable. Why were their icons not on the panel?
Tundra ( @Tundra@lemmy.ml ) 1•4 days ago-
Launch your browser.
-
Right-click on your toolbar to open toolbar settings.
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Click on Customize Toolbar.
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A new page with a list of items will open that you can drag into the toolbar.
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Click on the Add-on and drag it into your toolbar.
Paradox ( @Paradox@lor.sh ) 1•4 days ago@Tundra I did it right away
-