A little admiration of how easy UI customization is on Firefox, and how shitty Chromium looks.
I have no idea why people use #Chrome. #Firefox looks so much better,
Reason n1: Firefox’s font rending sucks; Reasons n2: Chrome dev tools are better and way more supported by whatever ecosystem you develop in.
Try these settings on Firefox in about:config
gfx.font_rendering.cleartype_params.enhanced_contrast = 100
gfx.font_rendering.cleartype_params.pixel_structure = 5
gfx.font_rendering.cleartype_params.rendering_mode = 5
gfx.font_rendering.fallback.always_use_cmaps = trueI cannot use Firefox without them. They adjust the text rendering to be more… normal, I don’t understand why they aren’t default, but maybe things change at higher resolutions (but I don’t own a 2160p monitor to test).
Cleartype is not there on my Fedora Firefox on KDE?
I’ve accidentally fell into a Linux space, my bad! This will work on Windows, I’m not sure of alternatives on Linux, I gave up using it before I could play around with Firefox.
Try looking for aliasing options under gfx.font_rendering and trying them out.
Sooo you mean “Windows has horrible font rendering” ;D I think on KDE its fine, some say GNOME is better but idk.
No, Windows has good font rendering actually. It’s very much just a Firefox issue on Windows.
No offence, but I used to think Windows had good font rendering while I was using it. That was until I started using Linux distros. Now every time I boot into Windows, I again remember how awful Windows looks in comparison - washed out, pixelated, gives me eye strain…
Linux’s looks more blurry to me, Window’s is much sharper. Maybe at different resolutions it changes though, you need less aliasing at higher res.
never in my years of using Linux have I ever thought that it was rendered clearer. let’s be honest with ourselves, no need to lie.
That’s interesting… it makes a difference indeed.
For frameworks treating Chromium as app development platform like Android. Firefox dev tools are much better for typical web development.
Firefox dev tools are much better for typical web development.
Not true, not even close. That was true like 15-20 years ago, but nowadays, especially when I’m debugging Angular (yes the extension for chrome is better) and developing stuff that will be used by people who go for Chrome.
You say Angular. But what else can we expect for a framework for making WebKit/Chromium apps. Angular working in Firefox is an afterthought because it has very much similar featureset.
Chrome dev tools are better and way more supported by whatever ecosystem you develop in.
But what if you’re not a web dev?
That’s fair, but I still wouldn’t trade the amazing font rendering that chromium offers.
Chrome dev tools are better for JS debugging, but Firefox wins with everything else, IMO. Especially their flexbox, grid and font visualizations and debug tools are amazing.
They both use hundreds megabytes of RAM just to render my static page. But for hydrogen web chromium use ~35M. This is shitty.
(w3m use 10M and in most case for searching we only need text-based browser)
Except Firefox’s bookmark system on android is absolute crap and looks hideous.
Mobile browsers all suck.
What is your alternative? I want E2EE sync. Is vivaldi better? But honestly I wouldnt use their browser.
Use iceraven, it’s a 🍴 of 🦊
Iceraven is a mess. Their extension list is totally random, has tons of duplicates and fundamentally incompatible ones. I went through all of them and tested them and reported what was broken and what was missing.
That alone is enough to convince me not to use their browser. Mull is based.
Firefox has E2EE sync??
Yup
Do you have a link to that info? Would that also work with Mullvad browser?
Yeah
Brave
Full of nonremovable crypto stuff, and it comes from a very shady company and CEO
It’s also running on Chromium
Nah its free software
Not really, they sued a group of students because they forked it.
So, no, not really.
Their building docs seem way easier than Firefoxes.
homophobic
Never heard of LibreWolf but they say on their website that features like DRM are disabled, what does that mean if I want to view DRM content in my browser? I may be confused but currently with Firefox I already have problems with DRM sometimes. For example on Dell’s website I had difficulties viewing product videos on there, will they simply not play on LibreWolf or how does that work?
There is a toggle for DRM in both Firefox and LibreWolf that is off by default. It will prompt you when site would like to use it, so you can happily say no and launch your favourite file sharing software.
Create a second profile that you only use for DRM crap and enable DRM in the settings. Firefox also doesnt have DRM pre-enabled so that claim of them makes no sense.
See my post on konsole on how to make a desktop entry in Linux, where you can put profiles on the right click actions with icons and all.
Yeah it would be nice if there was a way to completely remove the DRM.
It means that any website which using drm for playing content will not work by default,but u can enable it a again by modyfing config file.
from my experience there will be a popup asking to enable drm for this site when it requests it. no need to modify a file.
Don’t even have to edit the config file anymore, it’s a checkbox in the options menu now.
Yes, Librewolf is basically a fork of Firefox that makes different trade-offs, where it accepts more breakage than Firefox does, to gain a bit more privacy.
These are not the only two available browsers, you know?
Do you mean Safari?
Name one other browser that is not based on Chromium. If it is based on Chromium, it has to deal with what Google throws at them.
I say this as an enthusiastic Brave user. Brave is great at what it does currently, but the more terrible stuff Google builds into Chromium, the more patches they’ll have to maintain. This can make it harder to maintain their fork.
Worse than that, most Chromium-derivative users aren’t Brave users. Many web apps already don’t work as well with Firefox’ JavaScript Engine (Gecko) as they do with Chromium. This gives Google immense power.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromium_(web_browser)#Browsers_based_on_Chromium
Of course there’s other browsers! There’s Opera…uhh that now based on Chromium. Oh, how about Edge…that’s Chromium based too now. I know, there’s the KHTML engine!..no, that’s been officially discontinued.
Brave is extremely shady. Really, I used it and even created a script to install it on rpm-ostree distros, but damn that is shady.
That’s a solid criticism. Firefox + uBlock Origin or Librewolf are good desktop alternatives. But what’s the alternative on Android? Last time I checked, there wasn’t any on privacyguides.
Btw I do always turn off all their rewards and wallet stuff and follow most of the https://privacyguides.org recommendations.
Thanks for your help in making privacy-focused software available on Linux btw!
Cromite has adblock. Vanadium too but it may break on on-GrapheneOS as it has security patches that break on regular android.
Mull is very fine for me, I use Vanadium and Mull, Vanadium for crappy sites (because mobile hardened firefox doesnt support as much sites as desktop for some reason). Vanadium is very likely more secure, unlike on Desktop where that is not easily said.
Fennec, F-Droids fork with proprietary bits removed. & uBlock of course.
Mull is even better, it’s hardened Fennec. It’s basically like LibreWolf but for Android.
I use Firefox + uBlock Origin on Android. You can still install add-ons for the app the same way you do on desktop.
Cromite is the best recommendation I can give. It is currently under consideration to be added to privacyguides.org (you can find it on their issues page on the GitHub), and it is expected to be added (as was Bromite, which is where Cromite forked from after development on Bromite was stopped). The main developer of Cromite (uazo) has actually asked the evaluation to be paused until the licensing for aac and h264 are figured out, as licenses are very expensive, and a recommendation on the PrivacyGuides website would likely draw many more users to the project, potentially causing legal trouble. You can track progress on this issue here. It’s worth noting that the dev of Cromite was an active dev of Bromite before Bromite’s lead dev abandoned the project.
GNOME Web, qutebrowser, Konquerer and Falkon. While they are pretty obscure, I personally use Falkon regularly on low end systems/RPi
Both qutebrowser and Falkon run on the QtWebEngine, essentially Chromium.
That’s true, but QtWebEngine still is it’s own thing. Essentially everything (except Gecko) is KHTML
qutebrowser uses chromium
GNOME Web technically, based on WebKit. Idk if anyone uses that though.
Both OP and the author of the linked post explicitly say “Chrome”, not “Chromium”, and seem to imply those are the only two choices available to users.
If it is based on Chromium, it has to deal with what Google throws at them.
I wrote Chromiun in the description too. Chrome is simply what people use.
Plain Chromium, even with all GUI settings, all degoogle policy configs and flags enabled, contacts Google like hell.
I tried googeeteller and its scary.
Have not tried Vivaldi for a long time, but its fingerprinting resistance was nonexistent, it is filled with useless features and has no container support, so nah.
Fair point, but the engine is important.
I understand their blog post, and if I were to build a browser today, I’d probably do the same.
But that doesn’t mean this situation isn’t problematic. It’s similar to car-centric infrastructure: in this situation, for any individual, choice X makes sense, but that will make the situation even worse for the whole population. A cumulation of many tiny Prisoner’s Dilemmas.
not using Gnome Web smh /s
Falkon Ultras!
Or just use multiple browsers? If one size fits all for you then good for you but there is no Firefox based browser that can replace Vivaldi for me. So I use both, one for my power user needs and other for private browsing (hardened Firefox, normal FF isn’t great for privacy either)
Havent used Vivaldi in some time. Have a look at floorp but of course they dont have all the addons vivaldi has like notes and stuff.
And yes, regular FF is simply a “just works” browser but with lots of stupid bloat. Librewolf is actually great as they have a modern CI/CD build pipeline and do all the hardening for you, its more sustainable and secure to share effords.
You know that famous The Dude meme? Applies here.
Not a chrome fan and I use Librewolf and I like how I’ve customised it. But that’s just, like, my opinion, man.
Why don’t I use Firefox he says? Because Edge is better than both!
It’s objectively worse than Firefox. For example, Firefox recently passed all minimum security requirements by the German Federal Office for Information Security. No other browser meets them.
Where those tab groups at tho? Sounds like your hot dog is objectively small.
they’re working on it https://news.itsfoss.com/mozilla-firefox-tab-grouping/
For the second time
Go back to kindergarten.
Firefox’s extensions actually let developers do stuff, so we have tons of tab groups extensions. My favorite is Simple Tab Groups. But if you dont like that one, you can swap it out for a different one! DO YOU GET THAT KIND OF CUSTOMIZATION IN EDGE?
This is a joke right? There is not a single feature it could have that weights against the fact that its still Chromium-spyware.
lol did you forget to see which sub you walked into here before shouting?
I knew what I was in for lol
Edge is better if you are wanting to always have your data mined by Microsoft, for sure.
If you use Edge than you probably use Windows, which means that Microsoft can already mine your data. I guess it’s better to have your data mined by only Microsoft than to have it mined by both Microsoft and Google?
Not sure of this is still true, it often feels like edge is the main spyware feature of windowless in general, integrated into windows search.
Everytime you search for an app or file it doubles as a edge search query to present in the results. You can try disable all the spyware on windows if you want. Edge still stores it in the microsoft cloud so you can sync.
Copilot is a golden ticket for them now. Its literally an edge based application.
As opposed to your data being mined by Google or sold by Mozilla? Dude you’re cracking me up.
Mozilla literally doesn’t do that. If you’re concerned about them lying about it you can compile the browser yourself.
You can packet inspect and watch them do it in real time. I think you mean Brave.
I can packet inspect and watch them sell data? No lol they collect telemetry but you can use a derivative that doesn’t because it’s open source. That’s not the point though, the point is they don’t sell data. You can look at the finances yourself https://stateof.mozilla.org/
Hmm guess they’re running a charity then. Your tracking is not data? I guess you and I have different definitions of what data is. Sure, you can lock it down if you really want. But so can every other browser.
troll
i love firefox but honestly right now i find edge to be much more aesthetically pleasing, especially with vertical tabs and grouping. if firefox can add these two items, i’d switch to firefox in a heartbeat (and they’re already adding tab groups)
Somewhere in this thread is a userchrome.css file on how to remove the “tree style tabs” header bar.
Install that addon.
Place that file in
~/.mozilla/firefox/XXXX-default-release/chromeasUserChrome.css(create that folder).Enable legacy customization in about:config
aren’t there extensions for this?
there is sidebery but i just like the edge version more. the extension wasn’t as fluid, plus i like how i can have native profiles for work, uni, and personal built in without extensions like profile switcher, which relies on a third party program. nothing against it; and i still donate to mozilla and firefox. i’m looking forward to seeing mozilla’s approach to tab groups though.
yup vertical tabs are the dealbreaker for me, edge got me hooked. Floorp is a fork that has it, haven’t used it a ton yet but i keep hearing more about it. I’ve been using Arc which i’m enjoying.
And Waterfox looks even better also by virtue of preferences to change userChrome.css
Mind sharing screenshots?
I’ll have to get home. https://github.com/WaterfoxCo/Waterfox/blob/0068b0438b9bd6fb9761882154e7a339d96186af/waterfox/browser/locales/en-US/waterfox.ftl#L160 shows all the options, and Waterfox by default uses the older (initial quantum release) look for Firefox tabs. As a TreeStyleTab user, I love hide sidebar headers and auto-hide tabs
I like my Firefox more: https://i.imgur.com/AWO9ss1.png … got rid of the title bar
Did the same thing, though I’m handling the tabs with Sway
#sidebar-box[sidebarcommand="treestyletab_piro_sakura_ne_jp-sidebar-action"] #sidebar-header { display: none; }Add this to your userChrome.css file to hide the “Tree Style Tab” header at the top of the sidebar.
thanks! works great… here is my new userChrome.css:
/* hides the native tabs */ #TabsToolbar { visibility: collapse; }
#sidebar-box[sidebarcommand=“treestyletab_piro_sakura_ne_jp-sidebar-action”] #sidebar-header { display: none; }
Double thanks.
thanks
Source: One person’s opinion on their personal Fediverse account
… Not that I disagree, mind. I’ve been on FF since like. 2007? Which was the moment I figured out that other web browsers besides IE7 existed?
Never saw reason to hop to Chrome(ium) even before I knew/cared about datamining or enshittification or any of that stuff. Back then it just looked like “another browser, that does things a bit different but has no features that entice me that Firefox lacks”. Then as I learned about the political side of things I was like “Huh, guess I’m glad for myself then!”
I used Netscape “back in the day”. With some interim transition attempts including the likes of Opera, I eventually switched to Chrome because it was genuinely more featureful and faster.
I was a happy Chrome user until they decided to deprecate manifest V2 and fuck up my ad blocker, at which point I switched to Firefox and haven’t looked back.
Everything in this industry is circular I guess.
I used Opera when it used Presto instead of becoming a yet another chromium. I miss that one.
What would you consider an authoritative source on if something looks nice?
Me, I’m the certified niceness decider
Can Firefox install websites as web apps?
Well, there’s PWAsForFirefox
Desktop? No
Android? Yes
I use GNOME Web for webapps.
Yes, but in an unsupported manner.
https://github.com/filips123/PWAsForFirefox
Or as an extension:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/pwas-for-firefox/
No and thats not nice. Webapps work really well, I use hardened Chromium for Element until Firefox gets their shit together.
Just use Floorp. Gives you even easier UI customisation by allowing you to switch to the old UI via the settings, and also includes Webapp support and support for Workspaces.
That support sounds very interesting, can you attach screenshots of the webapps and workspaces?
There is a tool called webappmanager or something that I used in the past. Pretty overcomplex but works well.
Mullvad Browser is another good option that is privacy focused. FF based.
Use a few to isolate different activities.
No.
Mullvad Browser is torbrowser without tor. Its basically the same as Librewolf, afaik Librewolf uses arkenfox user.js which is based on torbrowser.
But the Torbrowser has a “disk avoidance” principle, which means they always use “private browsing” mode as that never saves data on your hard drive.
This means it always deletes everything, session, cookies, tabs, searches, …
MullvadBrowser is not more private than Librewolf and ALSO has these things making it basically unusable for daily usage.
This may lead to people using it “for the private stuff” and a shitty browser for the rest. Which makes no sense, as Librewolf is the same.
And also, private browsing doesnt allow containers, meaning “multi account containers” and “temporary container” are nonfunctional. You dont need to run multiple damn browser sessions, just use containers.
And dont use Mullvad Browser its BS.
Tor Browser is based on Firefox-ESR, while Librewolf is based on Firefox-Release. Because of this, they do not have identical features and preferences. Tor Browser and Mullvad Browser are designed for stability and minimal customization for the purpose of blending in with other users. Librewolf is designed to receive new features, better privacy defaults than standard Firefox, and allow users to more easily configure preferences. All of these browsers are valid options for privacy-minded people, depending on personal preferences, including separating activities/identities between different browsers. Container tabs are certainly good for privacy, and hopefully the feature can one day be used in private browsing mode.
All of these browsers are valid options for privacy-minded people
However they are bad options for those looking to switch from chrome. Even to myself it was very annoying that it always deletes everything, to someone who “already makes life hard on the web” for itself as some like to note in real life.
Mullbad Browser is fine for systems like Tails (not sure if they have it) and maybe for environments like libraries and such public places, where everything is our should be volatile anyway.Good points. I guess Librewolf will be a little more unique. ESR is a secure base, just pretty outdated soon.
Different people have different use cases. I am not sure what point you are making beyond that it does not fit your set up.
What I wrote?
- no container support
- no stored session = not a browser normal people will switch to
- not more hardened or privacy optimized than librewolf
- no profile support too I guess, because private browsing.
But sorry your statement is correct, it is a privacy focused version of Firefox.
But not sure what the “use more to separate activities” means, I try to do that with containers and mail aliases and its already complicated. Running and updating 2 browser engines will not help here.
Such as using socials on 1, banking on another.
Also, a browser for your searches. I guess containers could do that but my understanding you still can get finger printed easily plus I could not get to use them consistently. Having different browsers made it easier, at least for me.
Containers are persistent and you can also use 2 profiles of the same browser and add a desktop entry to launch them separately.
Using separate browsers really is no good practice.
Fingerprintability may be already given by your IP.
Also the fingerprint defender addons help with randomizing some identifiers and fool naive scripts
Good VPN for IP issue.
“Using separate browsers really is no good practice.” can someone provide some support for this?
Mullvad Browser lets you reset the finger print with a click of button.
No that clears browser data, the fingerprint is very complex. If you mean cookies, Librewolf and Firefox can delete all but you can add exceptions where you want to stay logged in. Very handy, also not there in private browsing.
