• Off Topic
  • Best privacy-focused browser that allows for adding extensions?

[deleted] Does Firefox for Android provide APK that can update itself or can be downloaded from Github?

    • [deleted]

    PMUSR dunno, look at their website or use aurora or f-droid

    router99

    I'd suggest you read the section on the website about Vanadium: https://grapheneos.org/usage#web-browsing

    This part is especially relevant:

    We recommend against trying to achieve browser privacy and security through piling on browser extensions and modifications. Most privacy features for browsers are privacy theater without a clear threat model and these features often reduce privacy by aiding fingerprinting and adding more state shared between sites. Every change you make results in you standing out from the crowd and generally provides more ways to track you. Enumerating badness via content filtering is not a viable approach to achieving decent privacy, just as AntiVirus isn't a viable way to achieving decent security. These are losing battles, and are at best a stopgap reducing exposure while waiting for real privacy and security features.

    That said, you are obviously free to use whichever browser you want to use. I don't want to give the impression that this kind of discussion isn't accepted here just because it goes against any official recommendation. Just wanted to share this here since it's relevant and it's a good idea to know the pros and cons of the various options.

      other8026

      With that being said, if anyone must have a browser with extensions then I believe Firefox based browsers are the only (best?) option. It is most recommended to use Mull as it is the most "hardened" Android Firefox browser.

      If you don't need to use autofill, hardened Brave is my choice,though doesn't allow extensions on Android. If you need to use autofill, IMO, hardened Firefox works best at the moment.

      • [deleted]

      router99 Its supposed to mean a version of Firefox that is hardened as much as possible by configuration, though Firefox is insecure by design.

      • [deleted]

      • Edited

      router99 Hardening a browser (in this case firefox) means going in and tightening security settings to make it more "secure/private" (hardened). E.g., enabling settings like https only, clearing all browser data on exit (cookies, history, etc), de-selecting all forms of opt in telemetry like anonymous data anaylitics send off, installing some extensions like uBlock, etc. Bassically, tighten your security settings to what you deem is necessary for your purposes.

        router99 If blocking ads is your main goal with this, you might want to look into NextDNS (or DNS based blocking in general). This way you can block ads system-wide and use your preferred browser independently of extensions.

          [deleted] Yes, I am aware of that, but he is using "hardened Firefox" as if it is an app, and I am asking him to explain what he means. I have never seen an app called "hardened Firefox". I have, however, seen Fennec and Mull.

            router99 he explained it, it's when you harden your browser, this case, Firefox. Mull is good but can break some sites.

              • [deleted]

              router99 Then why did you ask to explain "hardened firefox"?

                N1b This is a good suggestion. One could also run a Pi-Hole instance to help with this. There is also dnscrypt-proxy, which lets you block sites at the DNS level.

                  jahway603

                  But all these DNS-level blockers are very weak. For example they can't block first-party ads like those that Youtube serves. You get much better blocking when you use Firefox/Mull with uBlock Origin or Brave with Brave Shields.