Firefox alternatives comparison - asking for advice/opinion - Lemmy.World
Meta note : am not sure if this is on topic for this community, please tell me
if it is not. I could not find rules, so I assume it’s okay, but i’ll remove it
if its not. (Also, please consider the info given here with precaution, for they
are only based on people feedback and media report, not any technical
certainty). So, after the recent Mozilla privacy drama, I saw multiple
recommendations of alternative browsers, each one with their pros and cons. I
was trying to get a better understanding of which one was good/bad for which
reasons, and I thought i might share it here so people with more knowledge can
correct my takes. Here is what I could get so far, based mostly on Lemmy
comments and Wikipedia pages. This is aimed at browser that share some of
Firefox values (foss, independency, (maybe) privacy, etc), so I excluded Chrome,
Edge, and others. I’m open to any feedback/infos/browser suggestions to get a
more accurate summary ! | Browser | FOSS | Privacy | Features | Browser Family
[^browserfamily] | Platforms | Notes | |-:|:-:|:-:|:-:|:-:|:-:|:-| | Firefox
[https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/] | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | Firefox | WMLAI | AI
interest | | Brave [https://brave.com/] | ✅ | 🟠[^braveprivacy] | ✅ | Chromium |
WMLAI | Crypto interest[^bravecrypto], bigot CEO[^braveceo] | | Vivaldi
[https://vivaldi.com/] | 🟠[^vivaldifoss] | 🟠[^vivaldiprivacy] | ✅ | Chromium |
WMLAI | Aims to be a better Opera | | Ungoogled Chromium
[https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium] | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
Chromium | WMLA | Removes Google tracking and specific components | | Cromite
[https://github.com/uazo/cromite] | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | Chromium | WLA | Removes most
Google tracking and keeps some specific components | | DuckDuckGo Browser
[https://duckduckgo.com/app] | ❌ | ❓[^ddgprivacy] | ✅ |
Chromium/Independent[^ddgfamily] | WMAI | | | Zen Browser
[https://zen-browser.app/] | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | Firefox | WML | | | Librewolf
[https://librewolf.net/] | ✅ | ✅ | 🟠[^lwfeatures] | Firefox | WML |
[^lwsecurity]| | Waterfox [https://www.waterfox.net/] | ✅ | 🟠[^wfprivacy] | ✅ |
Firefox | WMLA | | | Floorp [https://floorp.app/en] | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | Firefox | WML
| | | GNU IceCat [https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/] | ✅ | ❓ | ✅ | Firefox
| WML | Firefox without copyrighted content and with a bit more privacy| | Tor
Browser [https://torproject.org/] | ✅ | ✅ | 🟠[^torfeatures] | Firefox | WMLA |
| | Mullvad Browser [https://mullvad.net/browser] | ✅ | ✅ | ❌[^mullvadfeatures]
| Firefox | WML | Made by the Tor team and Mullvad (VPN providers)| | IronFox
[https://github.com/ironfox-oss/IronFox] | ✅ | ✅ | ❓ | Firefox | A | | |
Ladybird [https://ladybird.org/] | ✅ | ❓[^lbprivacy] | 🟠 | Independent | ML |
Very early development stage, bigot devs[^lbdev] | | Orion Browser
[https://kagi.com/orion/] | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | Independent | MAI | In beta, claims to
be top browser in terms of tracker blocking, considers making a Windows version,
AI interest[^\orionai] | >Notes : Privacy is based on Firefox level, which I
considered “bad” for the sake of the comparison. Browser family is the browser
on which each is browser is based, mostly Chromium, Firefox or none. I first
called it Engine and it was unclear. Features is to identify barebones browsers
and how much risk there is to find websites not compatible with those browsers.
Question mark is for when there is a debate or I could not find infos. Platforms
is for the platforms on which the browser is available. To keep it tight, only
one letter per platform : W for Windows, M for macOS, L for GNU/Linux, A for
Android, I for iOS. contributors : [email protected], [email protected],
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected],
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
[^browserfamily]: most browsers are fork of or rely on another browser. The two
main “source” browsers are Chromium and Firefox, resulting here in three main
categories : Chromium-based, Firefox-based and Independent. This is sometimes
called the engine, though technically the engine is different (engines are Gecko
(used by Firefox), Blink (used by Chromium), Webkit (used by Safari and Orion),
and also Ladybird and Servo which are in development). [^braveprivacy]: they
have a lot of optional data collecting, from their Privacy Policy
[https://brave.com/privacy/browser/] [^bravecrypto]: from Brave’s Wikipedia page
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_(web_browser)]. [^braveceo]: from his
personal Wikipedia page [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich].
[^vivaldifoss]: some parts are open source [https://vivaldi.com/source/], but
the UI is proprietary
[https://vivaldi.com/blog/technology/why-isnt-vivaldi-browser-open-source/]
[^vivaldiprivacy]: they collect data for statistics, from their Privacy Policy
[https://vivaldi.com/privacy/browser/] [^ddgprivacy]: they let Microsoft
trackers active
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DuckDuckGo_Private_Browser#Controversies] because
of legal bounds due to their use of Bing. They recognized that but now claim
that these legal bounds are no more and that they started blocking Microsoft
trackers along others. [^ddgfamily]: technically, it seems that DuckDuckGo
browser is not a fork from Chromium, but they use the Chromium engine Blink for
their Windows and Android edition, and the WebKit engine (used by Safari and
most “Independent” labelled browsers) for their macOS and iOS editions,
according to the Wikipedia page
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DuckDuckGo_Private_Browser]. [^lwfeatures]: some
websites may be blocked due to stricter privacy setups, according to
LinuxSecurity’s article [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LibreWolf#cite_note-:0-6]
cited on Wikipedia. [^lwsecurity]: some users seemed to fear
[https://lemmy.world/comment/15373725] that having a small team, Librewolf would
be late on security patches, but their FAQ
[https://librewolf.net/docs/faq/#how-often-do-you-update-librewolf] seems to say
it’s ok. [^wfprivacy]: from Waterfox’s Wikipedia page
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterfox#Privacy], linking to Exodus report
stating that android version of Waterfox uses same trackers as Firefox.
[^torfeatures]: some websites might block tor network [^mullvadfeatures]: lemmy
users said it is barebones [https://lemmy.world/comment/15374249] and their FAQ
[https://mullvad.net/en/help/tag/mullvad-browser] says it has little features by
design to prevent fingerprinting. [^lbprivacy]: could not find infos on their
website or wikipedia page. Probably not that bad, but since it is in early
development, it may evolve in better ways than other. [^lbdev]: from their
github [https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/pull/6814], considering gender
neutral wording is politics and does not belong in ladybird. [^\orionai]: from
the Kagi Wikipedia page
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kagi_(search_engine)#Kagi] and lemmy comments
[https://lemmy.world/comment/15388734]. Edit 1 : added Vivaldi, Floorp and
Ironfox, clarify ‘Engine dependency’ column, add ‘Platforms’ column, add bigot
warning for ladybird.
Edit 2 : added [email protected] table (Tor, Ungoogled chromium, Cromite) and IceCat,
updated info on Vivaldi
Edit 3 : add Orion Browser, corrects lines to group browser together by engine,
added users whose infos I used via edits
Edit 4 : corrected Brave and Opera Privacy rating.
Edit 5 : removed Opera since both Privacy and FOSS would be bad. Updated Vivaldi
Privacy rating.
Edit 6 : changing Engine category to Browser Family and adding explanation.
Edit 7 : added DuckDuckGo Browser and a warning about the reliability of this
summary.
Edit 8 : added link to Orion Browser and corrected Mullvad’s family.
