LibreWolf is a great privacy oriented Browser for desktop. But there is no version for android or IOS . There are some like mull but they have their own problems. Mobile phones stay with us most of the day. So we need extra privacy for it.
Just to mention, Fennec’s F-droid page does list the following as an anti-feature:
This app tracks and reports your activity
Connects to various Mozilla services that can track users.
It does say that telemetry has been removed, but that it still connects to services (like Firefox Sync, for example) which could still potentially be used to track you.
That’s not a dealbreaker for me personally, but if it bothers anyone else, it seems like Mull might be the more privacy conscious choice, at the cost of some convenience features.
I recommend a combo of Mull and Mulch or Cromite instead. Configure one of them to delete cookies and history on exit. Use URLCheck as your default browser. Then you can see the actual link when you click on one, you can remove tracking parameters, and then choose which browser to open it in.
Oh, cool. I hadn’t heard of this one before. I use Fennec. I wonder what the main differences are. I noticed Mull mentions fennec in their F-droid page:
I just swapped to mull today. Fennec is only on fdroid or build it yourself. Fdroid updates take a week for official repo. Mull can get faster updates through DivestOS repo. Firefox just had a huge 0day and fennec is currently vulnerable.
Ahh, cool! Good to know. I just checked that 0day, and they’re both JS exploits (which I imagine most probably are), so NoScript will probably protect me unless some of my trusted domains get compromised. It’s not ideal, but it’s within my comfort tolerance.
ok but like… telemetry is not automatically bad. a vast majority of users never report bugs in software, and are trained to just click through popups. this means the bugs don’t get fixed, and the crash reports don’t get sent.
scrutinizing what actually gets sent from your browser is how you keep yourself safe, blocking all telemetry is how you get unpatched security holes.
Like today i tested Firefox nightly (to see new changes on official Firefox). After changing bunch of setting and dns i compared it with mull. Somehow mull was slow and it was taking longer to load the same page.
( good thing is mull has no telemetry)
Mull might feel slow because of the resist fingerprinting locks the refresh rate at 60hz and if your device goes higher (90/120) then it won’t take full advantage of the screen.
My thing against Firefox/Librewolf is lack of security…unless it’s improved?
Avoid Gecko-based browsers like Firefox as they’re currently much more vulnerable to exploitation and inherently add a huge amount of attack surface. Gecko doesn’t have a WebView implementation (GeckoView is not a WebView implementation), so it has to be used alongside the Chromium-based WebView rather than instead of Chromium, which means having the remote attack surface of two separate browser engines instead of only one. Firefox / Gecko also bypass or cripple a fair bit of the upstream and GrapheneOS hardening work for apps. Worst of all, Firefox does not have internal sandboxing on Android. This is despite the fact that Chromium semantic sandbox layer on Android is implemented via the OS isolatedProcess feature, which is a very easy to use boolean property for app service processes to provide strong isolation with only the ability to communicate with the app running them via the standard service API. Even in the desktop version, Firefox’s sandbox is still substantially weaker (especially on Linux) and lacks full support for isolating sites from each other rather than only containing content as a whole. The sandbox has been gradually improving on the desktop but it isn’t happening for their Android browser yet.
This always gets downvoted, because it’s a painful truth, but Chromium on Android is significantly more secure than Firefox.
There is a reason why the default included browser on GrapheneOS, Vanadium, is a Chromium fork.
So I’m sorry, until Firefox on Android catches up to Chromium, another Firefox fork isn’t going to make the impact on the ecosystem that you think it is.
I’m not saying you can’t or shouldn’t use Firefox forks on Android, I’m saying do so being aware of their limitations relative to Chromium forks, such as
Cromite, or Mulch, the latter being the same dev as Mull. That same dev also has a lengthy write-up going over the technical details of why Chromium is more secure than Firefox on Android.
This has nothing to do with desktop browser engines, this is specifically and exclusively in regards to Android browsers
While DivestOS includes a Gecko based browser for privacy reasons, Chromium based browsers have many security advantages. It is up to the user to choose their preference.
Pretty sure I told you where you could find more information, as well as pointing out that the default browser on Graphene is a hardened Chromium browser, not Firefox Gecko.
But okay, here, I can even do that little bit of searching for you:
Avoid Gecko-based browsers like Firefox as they’re currently much more vulnerable to exploitation and inherently add a huge amount of attack surface. Gecko doesn’t have a WebView implementation (GeckoView is not a WebView implementation), so it has to be used alongside the Chromium-based WebView rather than instead of Chromium, which means having the remote attack surface of two separate browser engines instead of only one. Firefox / Gecko also bypass or cripple a fair bit of the upstream and GrapheneOS hardening work for apps. Worst of all, Firefox does not have internal sandboxing on Android.
That sounds like the exposed attack surface is a lot more than just whatever sites are running under your Firefox process.
But what do I know, I’m not a developer of security-hardened Android forks, so I just have to pick which randos on the internet I choose to believe. When the developers of DivestOS and GrapheneOS both have lengthy write-ups on why chromium base browsers are significantly more secure, I’m going to believe them because I don’t have the low level technical knowledge to refute what they’re saying.
Per-site process isolation is a powerful security feature that seeks to limit exposure of a malicious website/script abusing a security vulnerability.
Firefox calls per-site process isolation Fission and is enabled by default on desktop. Fission is not yet enabled by default on Android, and when manually enabled it results in a severely degraded/broken experience. Furthermore Firefox on Android does not take advantage of Android’s isolatedProcess flag for completely confining application services.
Standalone Chromium based browsers strictly isolate websites to their own process.
Personally I would argue that allowing users to install extensions, mostly adblockers, you remove what’s probably the single most common real world vector for attackers, ads. So while chromium browsers may be more secure I would say you’re probably less likely to run into a problem with a firefox based browser with ublock origin on it, mobile or desktop.
Cromite a Bromite fork with ad blocking and privacy enhancements; take back your browser!
Also, Mulch lets you pick your DNS provider. So even if you don’t already have system, or network, wide ad blocking, it’s not like you’re deluged in ads.
Again, I’m not saying no one should use Gecko based browsers, I’m just repeating what developers of respected hardened security ROMs have written about. Actually, that’s not true, I’m taking a softer approach as the GrapheneOS wiki/FAQ says NOT to use Gecko based browsers.
it really sucks tho, because most chromium forks still force you to use a google account in order to sync, and thats if they don’t strip google entirely. there’s brave, but I haven’t had the best of experiences with that browser.
I can still self host something like floccus to “sync” bookmarks, and use kde connect to send browser tabs from one device to another, but I still wish it was as convenient as firefox; which iirc, let’s you self host their sync service
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True. For now I got a combo of Firefox and Firefox focus. Set focus as default browser, and if you do need cookies, copy the link.
The problem is that they both have telemetry.
Firefox Klar has telemetry disabled to comply with stricter German regulation
Fennec, maybe?
Just to mention, Fennec’s F-droid page does list the following as an anti-feature:
It does say that telemetry has been removed, but that it still connects to services (like Firefox Sync, for example) which could still potentially be used to track you.
That’s not a dealbreaker for me personally, but if it bothers anyone else, it seems like Mull might be the more privacy conscious choice, at the cost of some convenience features.
You can disable FF Sync from
about:configI recommend a combo of Mull and Mulch or Cromite instead. Configure one of them to delete cookies and history on exit. Use URLCheck as your default browser. Then you can see the actual link when you click on one, you can remove tracking parameters, and then choose which browser to open it in.
Mull is a good choice for android at the moment
Oh, cool. I hadn’t heard of this one before. I use Fennec. I wonder what the main differences are. I noticed Mull mentions fennec in their F-droid page:
It seems like Mull is more privacy focused?
I just swapped to mull today. Fennec is only on fdroid or build it yourself. Fdroid updates take a week for official repo. Mull can get faster updates through DivestOS repo. Firefox just had a huge 0day and fennec is currently vulnerable.
Ahh, cool! Good to know. I just checked that 0day, and they’re both JS exploits (which I imagine most probably are), so NoScript will probably protect me unless some of my trusted domains get compromised. It’s not ideal, but it’s within my comfort tolerance.
If I’m not mistaken, Fennec is deprecated.
this is a fenix softfork named “Fennec F-Droid”, not the pre-fenix firefox <=68 based fennec browser you’re thinking of.
It’s not LibreWolf, but how about IceRaven?
https://github.com/fork-maintainers/iceraven-browser
Has been my goto FireFox fork for Android for years.
It still has telemetry. Devs also mentioned it in the github repo
ok but like… telemetry is not automatically bad. a vast majority of users never report bugs in software, and are trained to just click through popups. this means the bugs don’t get fixed, and the crash reports don’t get sent.
scrutinizing what actually gets sent from your browser is how you keep yourself safe, blocking all telemetry is how you get unpatched security holes.
But not everyone likes it. And people who use these foeked versions instead of the play store version are smart enough to do bug reports
they are probably also smart enough to know how to toggle the telemetry off with the setting exposed by the browser.
Turning off telemetry in setting doesn’t always work. If you see dns logs you can find bunch of domains that your Browser is connecting
does that apply to iceraven? if not i don’t really see the relevance
Yep i used it for a month . it has telemetry from Mozilla. Like it inherited from it’s parent Firefox
https://github.com/fork-maintainers/iceraven-browser
Soo, what “own problems” does mull have? I mean, pretty much fennec with some tor patches
Like today i tested Firefox nightly (to see new changes on official Firefox). After changing bunch of setting and dns i compared it with mull. Somehow mull was slow and it was taking longer to load the same page. ( good thing is mull has no telemetry)
Mull might feel slow because of the resist fingerprinting locks the refresh rate at 60hz and if your device goes higher (90/120) then it won’t take full advantage of the screen.
My thing against Firefox/Librewolf is lack of security…unless it’s improved?
Ref: https://grapheneos.org/usage#web-browsing
This always gets downvoted, because it’s a painful truth, but Chromium on Android is significantly more secure than Firefox.
There is a reason why the default included browser on GrapheneOS, Vanadium, is a Chromium fork.
So I’m sorry, until Firefox on Android catches up to Chromium, another Firefox fork isn’t going to make the impact on the ecosystem that you think it is.
I’m not saying you can’t or shouldn’t use Firefox forks on Android, I’m saying do so being aware of their limitations relative to Chromium forks, such as Cromite, or Mulch, the latter being the same dev as Mull. That same dev also has a lengthy write-up going over the technical details of why Chromium is more secure than Firefox on Android.
This has nothing to do with desktop browser engines, this is specifically and exclusively in regards to Android browsers
It’s because you are making extreme claims without any sources.
what divestOS is actually saying:
https://divestos.org/pages/browsers
Pretty sure I told you where you could find more information, as well as pointing out that the default browser on Graphene is a hardened Chromium browser, not Firefox Gecko.
But okay, here, I can even do that little bit of searching for you:
https://divestos.org/pages/browsers
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See the replies below regarding per-site process isolation.
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Project_Fission
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It means that one malicious site can compromise your entire phone.
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https://grapheneos.org/usage#web-browsing
That sounds like the exposed attack surface is a lot more than just whatever sites are running under your Firefox process.
But what do I know, I’m not a developer of security-hardened Android forks, so I just have to pick which randos on the internet I choose to believe. When the developers of DivestOS and GrapheneOS both have lengthy write-ups on why chromium base browsers are significantly more secure, I’m going to believe them because I don’t have the low level technical knowledge to refute what they’re saying.
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You’re wrong
Source: same as yours. My butt.
Source: The developer of Mull, Mulch, & DivestOS
Personally I would argue that allowing users to install extensions, mostly adblockers, you remove what’s probably the single most common real world vector for attackers, ads. So while chromium browsers may be more secure I would say you’re probably less likely to run into a problem with a firefox based browser with ublock origin on it, mobile or desktop.
Extensions are another vector. But putting that aside, because I agree ads are a much larger threat:
Also, Mulch lets you pick your DNS provider. So even if you don’t already have system, or network, wide ad blocking, it’s not like you’re deluged in ads.
Again, I’m not saying no one should use Gecko based browsers, I’m just repeating what developers of respected hardened security ROMs have written about. Actually, that’s not true, I’m taking a softer approach as the GrapheneOS wiki/FAQ says NOT to use Gecko based browsers.
Corrected. Firefox is less secure than Chromium-based browsers.
And if you had that in your butt the whole time, you should’ve gotten it out earlier.
it really sucks tho, because most chromium forks still force you to use a google account in order to sync, and thats if they don’t strip google entirely. there’s brave, but I haven’t had the best of experiences with that browser.
I can still self host something like floccus to “sync” bookmarks, and use kde connect to send browser tabs from one device to another, but I still wish it was as convenient as firefox; which iirc, let’s you self host their sync service
Surprisingly, I thought about the same thing a few days ago … but we have mull browser