LibreWolf checking in.
technology
On the road to fully automated luxury gay space communism.
Spreading Linux propaganda since 2020
- Ways to run Microsoft/Adobe and more on Linux
- The Ultimate FOSS Guide For Android
- Great libre software on Windows
- Hey you, the lib still using Chrome. Read this post!
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lol, I'll be the one to say I think it's still pretty good. It's fine. They don't always prioritize what I wish they would, and I disable some stuff they introduce in an attempt to keep up with Chrome, but besides that I think they've done a good enough job in maintaining the last existing alternative to the Blink and Webkit rendering engines. The alternate versions of it like LibreWolf, Waterfox, Floorp, Zen, and Ironfox (on Android) are great, but they all 100% dependant on baseline Firefox going on. I feel frustrated with them, sure, but a part of me is also saying "do what you need to do to keep going."
I'm certainly not about to switch to Chrome or suggesting they should stop existing but it does not seem like they do not have the finger on the pulse of the sorts of nerds who actually use Firefox at all
please for the love of god just check the settings menu there is already a 'block all ai enhancements' feature. no other browser has that, firefox at least gives a very easy option to disable it all.

I've already done that on desktop but this is the first time Firefox has tried to make me use an AI "feature" on a phone
It's such a dogshit feature too that it elicited a strong reaction. Shake your phone so you don't need to read and comprehend anything yourself, let a datacenter do it for you
IronFox is basically the mobile equivalent to LibreWolf if you want a replacement and are on Android. Both LibreWolf and IronFox are forks of FF with all the weird shit Mozilla is doing stripped out and with heavy privacy settings.
please for the love of god just check the settings menu

Plot twist: it doesn't disable anything, because none of the AI "features" actually enhance the experience
Or use Waterfox
Remember when Mozilla wasn't controlled opposition?
I recently got a Firefox ad (lol) where the only thing that was shown off was how supposedly easy it is to turn off AI components 
We're officially at the point where companies spend money to convince you that you don't have to use their amazing new feature because it's so shit only the executives like it
hello baby, shake your rattle to get baby speak

love the wording and design choice of this stupid feature set. this is ass backwards, I'm not even a programmer or coder but I know its contrary to acceptable user interface convention. you have to toggle enable to block the AI shit nobody asked for, like its inevitable, waiting to embed its tendrils into your every interaction with the browser, but we're giving you the option to not be one of the cool people (for now)
I'm pretty sure they changed the keyboard shortcut to open the extensions page within the last few version, breaking years of muscle memory. now it (Ctrl+Shift+A) opens some tab navigation crap.
also, fuck the new rapid version releases and now weekly patch bumps because of this mindless adherence to a ridiculously short, fixed rolling release window
also also, deleting multiple history entries through the Ctrl-H side menu is now completely broken, and it was already glitched badly for many years (would immediately deselect everything after selecting)
fuck Mozilla, they were the last holdout of sanity and stability in this fucked up devolving internet
To be fair, they probably vibe coded the toggle.
dejected laugh dot png
feels like the whole browser is going that way. and like, everything else in real life is becoming infected with this madness.
Sounds like someone wants to stand in the way of progress 
like, everything else in real life is becoming infected with this madness.
Seriously, I don't know if I'm losing my mind or what, but for example I had to setup a computer for work. I take a new MacBook out of the box and get it going, the next day with nothing changed the trackpad was all fucky and then it crashed and started an endless restart loop, not even letting me go to system recovery or any sort of safe mode. Among other inexplicable problems with tech I had during the last week.
Toggling that only turns off notifications of new features. You still have to go below and disable the features already there.
I'd point technically proficient people to LibreWolf on Desktop, Firefox with all the shit stripped out - AI, inbuilt ads, A/B experiments, telemetry all off (and privacy features enabled).
You do need to tweak a few things as the enabled privacy features mean you might run into issues with a few websites though, however.
I would second this suggestion, even if you don't consider yourself technically proficient, still give LibreWolf a try because it works out of the box just as well as Firefox for 99% of web pages ime. If you're inclined to fine tune it, it walks you through the tweaks you might want to implement at the beginning.
For mobile I've been using Fennec, which has worked fine if not better than Firefox mobile. But there may be better suggestions out there for a mobile browser.
Sounds like the flatpak might have issues with the sandbox? I guess I'd need to use their repos to stay up to date.
To be honest I never use flatpak if I can avoid it, never had an issue using the repo
Don't you understand it's inevitable??? AI has legitimate uses because it can be Chinese. 
wait is sucking balls good or bad
depends on which balls youre sucking
It's also just slow.
The latest version on Linux on my machine will sit there and not open any tabs for a couple dozen seconds. Oh sure, you can type text into the url bar! But pressing enter? Doesn't seemingly do anything at first.
And then BAM! A billion tabs finally open!
Like what the hell? This is a mid 2010's business laptop! Is having a hard drive the thing that causes this shit? Really? What the fuck?
If it's been in use that whole time and that's the original hard drive that's almost certainly part of the problem. That said, I'm on a low-end gaming PC and I also have performance issues with firefox on linux so it's not the only problem.
It's no speed demon but the hard drive is in plenty adequate health, and everything else on the laptop opens in plenty acceptable times.
Cold boots aren't unreasonable too!
But you open firefox and it's just...... UUUUUGH!
Ghidra is second slowest but that's mostly relegated to it being a complicated Java program that creates and accessed multiple gigabyte sized documents. Even still the GUI and things respond plenty quickly. It's only really saving, opening, and fill file analysis that takes time.
Chromium is definitely faster but also no Linux distribution enjoys packaging chromium (the secret to building chromium is to first become a Google engineer).
The Gentoo maintainers finally threw in the towel on Chromium about a week ago.
Portage output / rationale
!!! All ebuilds that could satisfy "chromium" have been masked.
!!! One of the following masked packages is required to complete your request:
- www-client/chromium-151.0.7922.169-r1::gentoo (masked by: package.mask)
/var/db/repos/gentoo/profiles/package.mask:
# Sam James <sam@gentoo.org> (2026-09-24)
# Increasingly challenging to maintain with increased release cadence,
# upstream toolchain changes, and conflicts between trying to provide
# a consistent experience for Gentoo users (avoiding bundled where possible)
# vs. getting updates out in a timely manner. Many unfixed vulnerabilities.
#
# Keeping it in ::gentoo isn't a matter of just supplying an updated ebuild,
# but a commitment to keeping it up to date and finding a compromise between
# users' expectations (like various USE flags & not forcing all bundled
# components) and maintainability.
#
# Still supported packages include:
# www-client/google-chrome variants
# Other chromium-based browsers:
# www-client/microsoft-edge
# www-client/opera
# www-client/vivaldi
# qtwebengine-based browsers (uses chromium's engine):
# kde-apps/konqueror
# www-client/falkon
# www-client/qutebrowser
# Other browsers:
# www-client/firefox and www-client/firefox-bin
# www-client/seamonkey
#
# Removal on 2026-10-24. Bug #982204.
Bug mentioned: https://bugs.gentoo.org/982204
Yeah I can hardly blame them, chromium maintainer rebuilds require high end hardware that still then take weeks and you have to do that every week. Qtwebengine and webkit-gtk still give me nightmares.
Firefox has an established relationship with downstreams and has a consistent release cadence.
Chromium is always stuck at 60fps for me in Linux while Firefox actually uses all of my 144Hz
Sure, I'll take a milkshake 
Web browser requires sensor permissions now?
I stopped using ff just before they started doing this shit. I was running into slight stability issues and was getting concerned about their process security model. I probably would've gone back but their huckster bullshit is so off-putting.
Is there still a cleaned up libre version that is highly on top of updates?
if i'm shaking my device the last thing i want is a summary
I can only assume they did a survey and found that people wanted this...? I mean, I've heard stories about Mozilla, but... dahm.
Aren't they advertising turning off all AI features with one click? I haven't found that setting yet, but I also haven't been prompted to use any AI stuff by FF yet.
it's easy to find the setting to turn off AI slop in FF for desktop, but idk about mobile
The setting on the mobile app is also easy to find, just go to settings, then "AI controls". There's a single toggle at the top to turn off all AI features and notifications about AI features. Firefox's devs at least had the common sense to know their userbase's typical preferences regarding AI.
They made this goofy ass old meme ad recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2AoYIKwJqM
At least the AI shit is easy enough to switch off, like others have said.
This ad looks like AI
Unfortunately, I don't think AI could age "success kid" (or whatever that
meme with the toddler doing the fist is called) without being really fucking weird about it.