Hello. I am a Firefox user, and everyone I know tells me that using Firefox on Android is not secure. What are they basing this claim on? I have tried using Chrome, but I always go back to Firefox because it is the only open-source browser that allows me to pin favourites to the home page and because the display of websites adapts very well to the chosen size. Which FOSS browser derived from Chromium allows you to choose your favourite websites on the home page?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/40386879

Mozilla is making it clear that they do not care about users any more.

Firefox is full of ads, with ads being in the homepage shortcuts, the news feed and the omnibox dropdown, as well as various ads for Mozilla services throughout the UI. Their ad network is also marketed to companies as allowing them to reach adblocker users.

Mozilla’s 210M+ global users are typically hard to reach. They're usually hidden behind ad blockers, nearly half avoid dominant social media, and most say no to default platforms. They’re selective, tech savvy, and paying attention. From: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/advertising/

Firefox is also full of tracking, with their mobile app sending data to the tracking company Adjust, and it having options for "personalised extension recommendations" and "Install and run studies". The latter allows them to install what they want into your browser without your consent out of the box.

Their tracking protection also mostly works only in private / incognito mode by default, with tracking scripts being allowed to run in standard windows with just isolated cookies protecting you, which is not a decision that a company who actually cares about privacy would make.

Mozilla is also partnering with Perplexity, an AI search engine who wants to collect as much data as possible even outside of their app to sell "hyper personalized" ads, which is exactly who you shouldn't work with if you claim to care about privacy. From: https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/24/perplexity-ceo-says-its-browser-will-track-everything-users-do-online-to-sell-hyper-personalized-ads/

I recommend switching to Librewolf as it takes Firefox and removes this bullshit. Some other alternatives like Brave are just as bad.

I'm already pretty happy with LibreWolf (Firefox fork), Dillo, and Alhena for my everyday browsing, but i like to have a handful of extras on hand for testing my own website and making sure it displays ok in at least the popular browser engines.

So what are some small browsers for each of these engines? Just something for testing my CSS ideally without using too much of my computer's storage.

Natsumi is a really great UI for Firefox-based browsers (excluding zen). It has a similar UI to Arc and Zen but is far more open and customizable than both Arc and Zen, and is really stable as well. While it does run on top of existing browsers, it adds a lot of actual useful features, and not only what arc provided. I love that it's getting frequent updates and unlike zen it doesn't break every other time it gets updated. It's a really great project and I highly recommend checking it out.

https://github.com/greeeen-dev/natsumi-browser

I'm using Iceraven and I'm wondering what others extensions are useful beside ublock origins. Thinking about privacy and utility

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/53891687

Hello guys, today I wanted to talk about a project I deeply care about and I'm actively contributing to, as I believe its good for everyone, including privacy concerned users

Ladybird Browser

This browser comes from the project "SerenityOS", and has since evolved and separated from it. The founders are Andreas Kling, and Chris Wanstrath. The main goal of this project is to create a browser from scratch, avoiding chromium, gecko, etc. The main keypoints that should be of interest for Privacy Oriented Users are the following:

• Ladybird lead (Andreas Kling) states "We're not monetizing users, in any way. This is uncharted territory for browsers. So we're not going to do any default search deals. We're not going to do cryptocurrencies or try to monetize user data, just sponsorships and donations"

• While** Ladybird will implement current web standards including cookie handling and tracking mechanisms for compatibility**, the browser's philosophy puts the user in control of these decisions, not the company. The browser won't have built-in incentives to encourage data collection since it doesn't profit from it.

• It aims to be "free from advertising's influence" Ladybird, representing a shift away from the current web ecosystem where users like us are the product. This allows the project to implement privacy features without worrying about harming advertising partners or revenue streams.

As of now, the project has hired several developers with money coming from donations, from partners such as FUTO, Shopify, Cloudflare, among many, and is also seeing lots of volunteer activity on github. So well, if you like the web having more diversity and us having another alternative to google, check them out https://ladybird.org/

Would someone please recommend me another chromium based open source browser with fingerprint and crosswebsite cookies and tracking protection, in which I could install uBO, that works on PC and Android (and syncs between), that can make webapps, and it's not maintained by 1 or 2 guys? I would happilly switch from brave to get rid of the bloat!

Is there a firefox extension that disable the web connection of other extensions?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/31887590

Please see the cross-post as it is updated.

What is the difference between Chameleon and JShelter?

• Chameleon – Get this Extension for 🦊 Firefox Android (en-US)
  • Chameleon is a WebExtension port of the popular Firefox addon Random Agent Spoofer.
• JShelter – Get this Extension for 🦊 Firefox Android (en-US)
  • JShelter is a browser extension to give back control over what your browser is doing. A JavaScript-enabled web page can access much of the browser's functionality, with little control over this process available to the user: malicious websites can uniquely identify you through fingerprinting and use other tactics for tracking your activity. JShelter aims to improve the privacy and security of your web browsing.
  • Like a firewall that controls network connections, JShelter controls the APIs provided by the browser, restricting the data that they gather and send out to websites. JShelter adds a safety layer that allows the user to choose if a certain action should be forbidden on a site, or if it should be allowed with restrictions, such as reducing the precision of geolocation to the city area. This layer can also aid as a countermeasure against attacks targeting the browser, operating system or hardware.

JShelter seems to spoof info by controls the APIs provided by the browser? and Chameleon spoofs user agent and many other information.

To me both seems to serves the same purpose of spoofing. Is Chameleon spoofing without interfering with js and JShelter spoofing with interfering with js the main difference between them? In addition JShelter seems to be able to block malicious js

How JShelter and Chameleon achieves spoofing differently?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/31887590

Please see the cross-post as it is updated.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/31884410

Please see the cross-post as it is updated.

How can a site see what extensions you have?

One of the things I've seen mentioned before is that installing too many extensions can make you more unique, and thus have a negative influence on your fingerprint. This got me curious, how exactly do sites detect which extensions you have anyway? Can they outright read your list of extensions?

Furthermore, do all extensions make you more unique? I guess the answer would depend on the answer to the first question (surely, if they can just outright see your list, then the answer would be yes), but lets say you install something that seems rather innocuous, like Transparent Standalone Images, for example. Can a site see that this is installed / does it make your fingerprint more unique?

explanation

Web sites do not have any way to enumerate or query your installed extensions, and they cannot directly "see" the content scripts injected by extensions. However, some extensions do modify pages in a way that scripts in the page could recognize as being the work of a particular extension, assuming the owners of the site care to research and check for such things.

One particular issue is that an extension may insert a path into the document to a page or image in the extension itself. Firefox assigns a randomized UUID to the extension at install time, and the path uses this UUID. On the plus side, this may prevent the site from associating the URL with a specific extension. On the minus side, at least in theory, a site could detect this weird URL in the page and use that for fingerprinting. See: How to prevent fingerprinting via Add-on UUID?.

is there anything else that I should notice?

Thank you!

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/31884410

Please see the cross-post as it is updated.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/31859998

Please see the cross-post as it is updated.

As a security-conscious user, I've used NoScript since Firefox's early days, but its restrictive nature has become frustrating. I'm often forced to go unprotected just to access websites with multiple scripts running on different domains, which defeats the purpose of using NoScript and balances security and usability that it once provided.

Is there a way to block browser JavaScript from executing commands that retrieve sensitive information from my local machine, while still allowing JavaScript that is only used for rendering web pages?

greatly appreciate any insight

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/31859998

Please see the cross-post as it is updated.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/31796865

Should I Disable WebSocket Connection on My Web Browser (in terms of privacy)?

Considering disabling WebSocket connections for security reasons. Any experience or thoughts? Have you disabled WebSockets? Any notable issues or performance changes?

Please see the cross-post as it is updated.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/31789847

Browser Timezone & Privacy Concerns

How can I hide my "timezone" from sniffing sites?

From my understanding, websites can access both the timezone of my browser (without using javascript) and the timezone of my local machine (using javascript). my question being

• If a website has access to my local machine's timezone, does it mean it has access to other information on/about my local machine?
• According to Privacy - How can I hide my "timezone" from sniffing sites? - Super User, we must disable JavaScript to block timezone access. However disabling javascript is not really feasible as it breaks most of websites. Is there a workaround that allows us to block JavaScript from running specific commands?
• Maybe my understanding of JavaScript is incorrect, but if a website has the privilege of running any program on my computer through the web browser, it can retrieve all the information it needs. If I don't disable JavaScript while using the browser, I don't see the point in resisting fingerprinting, like spoofing my device info.

appreciate any help!

Please see the cross-post as it is updated.

Hi guys! In my notebook I've been noticing that Edge it's consuming a lot of battery in the background. Without being open, it's consuming almost 25 per cent. Changed the settings, but I'm pretty much in the same amount. Any clues?

Hey people.

i recently heard rumors that Fennec is not updated properly anymore/not secure.

I don't really know what's going on (since the last update on f-droid is from 9.4.25) but am now unsure if its still the right choice.

What I like about fennec:

• -tuned version of firefox
• -not based on chrome
• -supports ad ons
• -possible to play YouTube while phone locked.

Just wanted to hear if someone can confirm the rumors of not being as privacy friendly / safe anymore and if so suggest privacy friendly alternatives, preferable not loosing the things I like.

Haven't seen a list as exhaustive as this anywhere else, so I thought I'd share.

It was the only feature keeping me from migrating. Bye Google!

Loving this browser!

I miss Dark Reader, UBO is pre-installed, but the only way I can see to install Dark Reader is through firefox add-ons page. I'm hoping that simply going to that page to install the add-on is relatively safe, I wouldn't feel too worried visiting the mozilla website generally, but given I'm installing extensions the browser I wonder if I'm somehow undoing the good that's done switching to LibreWolf.