this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2023
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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (6 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

Firefox + uBlock Origin + arkenfox user.js gives you privacy, security and anti-tracking. The only way to fly IMO.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

And a Pi Hole for good measure.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

A dns blocker cannot do anything more than ublock. It is nice for other apps though.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

A DNS blocker is great for other devices on your network!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Or Adguard Home, that I think is superior than Pi-Hole. It runs as a single instance and you can easily upgrade it from the web UI.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

White list firewall. Because this is the real reason everyone has a right to ad block. Ads are hidden links to other websites. It's like walking through a gauntlet of pick pockets bribing the credit card company just to make it to the checkout at your local grocery store, or some asshole you invite into your home that goes to the bathroom, opens a window, and lets a dozen random people in your home if they pay a dollar for the access. The entire system is based on stalking people. It is criminal.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)
[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What does Arkenfox do? I'll definitely add it if it's beneficial.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

It changes many default Firefox preferences in about:config to be as private as possible. The main selling point is resist fingerprinting (RFP). I highly suggest reading the wiki. It can break some websites, but you can configure it to fit your needs.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I am using Brave on iOS mainly because of its superb YouTube support - It has a built in ad block, can download videos offline and play minimized. Is there any way I can achieve this with any other browser? I would switch immediately.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I bounced between the two for years, i guess i am going back to Firefox full time.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I used Brave for a few years but recently switched to LibreFox. I really enjoyed Brave as a browser but couldn't handle all the sketchy shit that seems to keep coming up

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I really enjoy the chromium grouping of tabs. So much so that's it's almost a deciding factor for which browser I choose. I hope Firefox adds that feature soon, so the switch back feels easier

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Try the Simple Tab Groups addon for Firefox. I’ve been using it for years and prefer it to any other tab grouping now.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The only reason I haven't switched to Firefox from Chrome fully is because for some reason Firefox for Android still doesn't have tabs for large screen devices. Mozilla says it's not a priority. 🤷

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Firefox for Android removing the ability to open local html files killed it for me. Currently on Vivaldi.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If that's your only gripe with it, you can still access them by using one of the simple web servers available running inside Termux, that will also allow you to avoid CORS related problems, in fact it is the currently suggested method on MDN

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yeah, nah. I've already got enough unnecessary apps and services with Android.

Thanks for the workaround, though.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Why did they remove it though? I was surprised too when I found out I needed to run local webserver to access local html files

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It was because of 'security', which was never explained. And it doesn't make much sense when other browsers can and do alow it. I'll see if I can dig up some historical links if I remember tomorrow.

Last time I checked,there was still no acknowledgement of it and appeared to be no intention of ever addressing it. The fact that they're now telling people to run a webserver suggests that nothing has changed ☹️

[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

So use edge

Its chrome-based.. but at least its not brave, and the adblocker(which is off by default...) is decent enough

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

If you think the things brave has done are bad, go read through the list of things microsoft has done. You really don't want them to ever have a browser again, and certainly don't want to personally use it.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

With brave I never see any pc or YouTube ads. With Firefox even with ublock origin I can’t get rid of those damn ads. That’s what keeps me on brave

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

No ads on YT with Firefox + uBlock, not sure why your setup isn't working.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Doesn't Firefox do telemetry and other shady shit out of the box? Ofc you can turn it off but I don't get the fanaticism over this browser.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Every now and then, you'll see some journalist uncovering the great revelation that Mozilla is doing unthinkable things, but I have never these stories actually being relevant, if you do more research on the topic.

Some examples:

And telemetry by itself is not evil either. It depends entirely on what data is actually being sent. You can look at what Mozilla sends by typing "about:telemetry" into the URL bar. In my opinion, that is perfectly fine.

Ultimately, though, they enjoy so much trust, because they have no profit motive. The Mozilla Foundation is legally a non-profit and the Mozilla Corporation is a 100% subsidiary of the Foundation, so cannot pay out profits to anyone either.

Any 'evil' shit they do to make money, they do it to pay wages and to invest further into Firefox & their other projects.

You can criticize that the CEO takes a salary she can't possibly spend (yet is below industry-standard, to my knowledge). And you can argue whether they should be taking so much money from Google rather than other sources.

But all in all, that still leaves them far above companies who need to exploit users as much as justifiable, to make the maximum amount of profit.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Firefox and mozilla aren't your friend.

They like to play the "user and privacy friendly" company. Meanwhile they are hemoraging users, and laying off staff needed to actually build a great browser.

Mozilla ceo pay increase + layoffs in 2020:

In 2018 she received a total of $2,458,350 in compensation from Mozilla, which represents a 400% payrise since 2008. On the same period, Firefox marketshare was down 85%. When asked about her salary she stated "I learned that my pay was about an 80% discount to market. Meaning that competitive roles elsewhere were paying about 5 times as much. That's too big a discount to ask people and their families to commit to."

In 2020, after returning to the position of CEO, her salary had risen to over $3 million. In the same year the Mozilla Corporation laid off approximately 250 employees due to shrinking revenues. Baker blamed this on the Coronavirus pandemic.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

They don't need to be my friend to be better than the chromium browsers though, so I don't know what this has to do with anything

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

What's the alternative though, we have Chrome and Firefox as choices. Chrome is far worse than some issues with Firefox around CEO pay.