PC - Brave or Firefox (or waterfox o librewolf)?

[deleted]

As from title, on the pc I have window 11 and fedora on two other pcs, currently I use Firefox on all three, but lately reading the forum of GrapheneOS, some recommend Brave, instead on other forums some recommend "waterfox or librewolf" which are versions of firefox cleaned and attentive to privacy. I ask for some technical advice to those who are more experienced.
What is the best browser attentive to privacy and security?

NightSky

[deleted]

I prefer 'hardened' Brave. Librewolf will break some sites and doesn't support auto updates.

User2288

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Assuming that by saying privacy, you mean "not being tracked and identified uniquely", then you should know there are two elements to this and both are really important. The fingerprint and the IP. To have privacy you have to eliminate both vectors. One alone is not enough. The fingerprint is technically more important, but still the IP is an extreme isolator. So, both essentially have to be addressed or the effort is mostly futile.

Secondly, know that one browser is generally not enough. No matter which privacy browser you use you will eventually run into that website that just doesn't wanna work with privacy features enabled. Detecting what to turn off can be tricky, time consuming, and sometimes futile. Long story short, to have less headache you always need an extra vanilla browser at hand just in case.

IMO, best browsers for privacy in order of effectiveness are:

Tor
Mullvad
librewolf
and brave

However again, without the IP solution they really don't help you.

Tor i dont recommend for general use for the average person cuz you can run into compatibility issues often and just doesnt work for all uses. However it does address the IP issue by default without the need for a vpn. Brave is more compatible and "comfortable" with websites than the other three but its really not as good against fingerprinting. And again you still need a totally vanilla one cuz even with brave I have run into problems.

So i personally stick to Mullvad as my primary private browser (for a multitude of reasons), Brave as an intermediary, and vanilla Firefox as my vanilla (though you could pick whatever you want). With a vpn. Each have their use case, and together they offer what you need.

Remember, the IP problem has to to be solved too otherwise you're still strongly isolated and identified.

Hb1hf

On a PC I use Mullvad Browser (Tor browser without Tor Network) for general browsing and temporary logged accounts (when I have to log into a legacy big tech account then log out), FF for logged accounts & stuff that rely on cookies (libreddit & new pipe) and Brave just as a backup.

alci

Brave ils nothing but Chrome, as most browsers are now, except Safari and Firefox. This quasi monopoly of Google's web engine is threatening us all, and google is pushing hard to break the web as we know it. See https://adguard.com/en/blog/google-api-open-web-adblocking.html for example. So I would say go for Firefox or a derivative.

AlanZ

alci
Amen to that.

[deleted]

alci But no one gives enough attention to Firefox, and also Mozilla Corporation (subsidary of Mozilla Foundation) kicked out its 250 employees just to give more salary to its CEO. Also do note that Chrome is proprietary freeware software, but Chromium is not. We really need a new non-profit org creating a new browser to stop the monopoly of Chromium.

MoonshineMidnight

User2288 Brave is more compatible and "comfortable" with websites than the other three but its really not as good against fingerprinting.

Seems to me Brave has the answer.....

This approach is fundamentally different from existing fingerprinting defense approaches; current approaches attempt to make all browsers look identical to websites (an impossible goal). Brave’s new approach aims to make every browser look completely unique, both between websites and between browsing sessions. By making your browser constantly appear different when browsing, websites are unable to link your browsing behavior, and are thus unable to track you on the Web.

This has been fully implemented with Brave for a while now.
https://brave.com/privacy-updates/3-fingerprint-randomization/

MoonshineMidnight

Hardened Brave as primary and Mullvad as secondary. Primary reason is speed. Brave is fast, and I like how they handle fingerprints by randomizing your fingerprint for each website you visit. Go back to a website - different fingerprint.

[deleted]

Thanks, i try librewolf and brave.

bluegrass

For primary I use Firefox with VPN + uBlock+ NoScript. Once finished I use CCleaner.

On sites that have issues with the above setup I use Mullvad + VPN.

Is this a good combination for both Privacy & Fingerprinting?

User2288

bluegrass

Your first combination is not good. Firefox is always fingerprinted and therefore you are always unique. Firefox ALWAYS has a unique fingerprint, even with addons.

You'd be better off using brave as your primary with vpn.
Even better would be mullvad with vpn. You can add ublock to mullvad for a clutter free experience.

Just look at the list I made. That's the order of protection. And if you run into compatibility issues with websites then fallback in order of precedence.

I didnt comment on waterfox cuz i dont know it.

Dumdum

[deleted] We really need a new non-profit org creating a new browser to stop the monopoly of Chromium.

That's easier said than done. As numerous people have pointed out in various places across the web, browsers are complex and difficult to operate/maintain. A big(?) part of the reason that Firefox is even still around is because of the funding they receive from Google.

Also, scummy behaviour from the CEO aside, its not fair to the employees to act like there isn't a decent amount of work still being done on Firefox or that it isn't a suitable (not necessarily the best) browser to use. As far as I'm concerned, I'll stick to the fact that Firefox is good enough for Tor / Mullvad (lets not forget these are FF-based) so its fine for me. Arkenfox / Librewolf are also options for people wanting Better Firefox(TM).

[deleted]

Dumdum Firefox is good enough for Tor / Mullvad

Its not. Firefox lacks many security features, as described here. Tor browser literally uses the Extended Support releases of Firefox, and misses all Medium / Low vulnurebilities, You can read more here.

Dumdum

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Its not

They're using it. So yes it is. I think you failed to realise I said "good enough". Don't really see why you're acting like I said FF is perfect (quite the opposite since I actually said its not the best).

I know of security problems and never said otherwise. I've also seen that madaidan post FYI (at least three dozen times).

Point still remains it IS " good enough" for them to use, and people here need to stop having some hyper idealistic notion that a non profit org can somehow create a Super Good Browser(TM) that can compete with a browser from a for-profit Big Tech company. Especially when most of the other "alternatives" are from other Big Tech companies who don't even really bother to make their own genuinely separate browser, and just use Chromium anyway. Only one Big Tech company does bother and thats obviously Apple with Safari (and its not like they're really good / trustworthy either).

But by all means, keep up your bizarre fantasy pipe dream. If an alternative somehow comes along that is genuinely better than FF, then I'm happy to use them (especially if Tor / Mullvad switch to them as well). Until then, I'm happy to keep using (desktop) Firefox.

[deleted]

Dumdum people here need to stop having some hyper idealistic notion that a non profit org can somehow create a Super Good Browser(TM) that can compete with a browser from a for-profit Big Tech company.

Its not my fantasy and your point is valid.

kyub

My current strategy is:

Desktop/Notebook:

Use Tor Browser for casual browsing where you don't need to be logged in, or for logging into "anonymous" accounts which you only use via Tor. This allows you to browse anonymously (most likely).
Use Mullvad Browser (Flatpak/sandboxed version). It's a Firefox fork with very good default settings (see also here: https://www.kuketz-blog.de/mullvad-browser-datensendeverhalten-desktop-version-browser-check-teil22/ -- as well as his other detailled browser tests. You might have to translate the sites from German to English). Acceptable substitutions could be: a well-configured Brave or Firefox. I'd try to avoid Chromium-based browsers because of the web engine monopoly and the issues it causes for content blockers, but I can relate to people who still want to use it because it's the overall best engine currently. I'd usually avoid forks of browsers and prefer the original versions for security reasons. I make an exception for the Mullvad Browser here because a) it's VERY good right out of the box, b) Mullvad is quite trustworthy in general, c) configuring Firefox well can be a pain (same goes for Brave). Out of the box these browsers are configured badly, maybe less bad than the proprietary browsers Edge/Chrome/Opera but still bad. One always has to keep in mind the speed of program updates when using forks. They must not lag behind too much behind upstream, or it's a security issue.
Use a third browser for user-identifiable logins to various sites. For example when shopping on Amazon I use a completely separate sandboxed Chromium. This is just to be sure that those sites store their cookies, data and stuff on a designated "trash" browser and not on my main browsers. And they won't be able to fingerprint my main browser(s). But you'll still leak your real current IP address to those sites, of course (and by extension, also to numerous data brokers collecting it in the background).

Mobile:

Use Tor Browser for casual browsing where you don't need to be logged in, or for logging into "anonymous" accounts which you only use via Tor. This allows you to browse anonymously (most likely).
Use Vanadium and/or Bromite for everything else. On mobile, the Chromium-based browsers are unfortunately significantly more secure than Firefox-based browsers.

If you can, further sandbox/isolate your browsers (in addition to the process sandbox they provide out of the box) from the rest of the system.

kyub

Another tip is to make use of alternative frontends or proxy sites for visiting known privacy-violating sites (Piped instead of YouTube, Nitter instead of Twitter/X (if it still works), etc.).