A community for Lemmy users interested in privacy
Rules:
In Firefox, type about:config in address bar, search for "sponsored" and "telemetry" and set all the paremeters you see from TRUE to FALSE. Done.
We shouldn't have to do workarounds like that in the first place. It's getting to be like the Stockholm syndrome people have about Windows abuses. I didn't put up that shit, and I'm not gonna put up with this either.
I'd be more worried about how long that flag is going to work. And how long is it going to take us to realize the flag isn't working.
Seems like a much simpler solution is to just use LibreWolf where all these things are removed from the program already for you. That's the point of the fork.
I would still suggest folks to at least go through Librewolf's FAQ and Docs. For example, Librewolf disables DNS over HTTPS by default. See https://librewolf.net/docs/faq/#doh-whats-the-stance-on-doh
If anyone reading this is not configuring their DNS on their routers or on their Linux machines using systemd-resolved or something similar, I suppose they should probably at least configure their browser to use DNS over HTTPS. It should be better than using the default DNS resolver provided by your ISP.
As far as I'm aware, Librewolf's team isn't making significant changes to Firefox's code or "patching out" some spooky telemetry. Librewolf is essentially pre-configuring a bunch of "privacy" and "security" related settings in Firefox for their users. But alternatively any user can configure these things themeselves and make their own choices. Even pre-installing extensions and add-ons on fresh Firefox profiles can be easily done by any user using Firefox policies (which is what Librewolf uses to pre-install Ublock Origin.) But let's say you also want another extension like Bitwarden to be pre-installed on every fresh Firefox profile. Or you don't trust DuckDuckGo and instead want to configure Firefox to use a self-hosted SearXNG instance as your default search engine. Then maintaining your own Firefox policies can help you do all this.
I understand it is far simpler and far more desirable to have "privacy and security" out-of-box without having to configure anything at all. But it is probably not a bad idea to take the time to see what configurations you can make to Firefox yourself, even if you decide to use LibreWolf. You may end up wanting your own configurations in addition to what Librewolf's team decides for you.
That comes with its own problems and slow releases trailing behind Firefoxes. One of things I absolutely hate about forks.
It doesn't seem that slow. A few days normally.
Seems insane that even after disabling all related options in the main settings GUI, there are still like two dozen things enabled in about:config.
said Ajit Varma, veep of Firefox Product
Pack up your shit, and get the FUCK out. You're a fucking disgrace.
Given that this is a privacy community, I would think that it would go without saying, But I just like to point out, We should probably disable Firefox sync if were using it. Log out of Firefox accounts in the browser. Even if you're not giving them telemetry they have all that data.
~~You can use the x bookmarks sync plugin, Don't make an account with them just use the un-logged in plugin to backup and restore your bookmarks between browsers. On the upside it'll even let you copy bookmarks from Firefox derivatives to Chrome derivatives.~~
Go down a comment or two and use Floccus, Just converted it's wonderful
at their location. However the want it
Hey, just wanted to point out that xbrowsersync hasn't seen updates for quite some time. I would suggest folks to read this discussion and to perhaps check out Floccus as an alternative.
Both Floccus and xBrowserSync have Android apps on the F-droid app store as well.
Alternative to FF Sync?
I Iove this shit. Send to devices, multiple devices, bookmarks, passwords..
"Flamed", that's a new one
That's an OLD one. Wow I haven't heard that term in like 20 years
Appropriate callback too given the pun.
Soo... where do we go now? What open source alternative exists that is on the side of its users?
Just keep using Firefox. Nothing in the code has changed, and if it does you can switch to forks. You all are evangelizing about how important FOSS is to prevent this exact scenario and yet you keep switching browsers for no need at all.
Note: I love Foss, I just think this is an overreaction
Oh sure, but browsers are an entirely different beast.
Eventually, they'll take it closed source, now I know what you're thinking "Then one of the forks will just become the dominant one!"
But here's the thing, the browser engine is very complicated just to keep up with. The W3C spec that all engines must follow is thousands of pages long. So all those forks will wither and die once the engine has been cut off from upstream updates.
None of those forks touch the engine as-is