How my Firefox became a LibreWolf
New blog-post: https://www.davidrevoy.com/article1065/how-my-firefox-became-a-librewolf
#firefox #librewolf #tos #webcomic
from davidrevoy@framapiaf.org to firefox@fedia.io on 01 Mar 2025 18:44
https://framapiaf.org/users/davidrevoy/statuses/114088651187467058
from davidrevoy@framapiaf.org to firefox@fedia.io on 01 Mar 2025 18:44
https://framapiaf.org/users/davidrevoy/statuses/114088651187467058
How my Firefox became a LibreWolf
New blog-post: https://www.davidrevoy.com/article1065/how-my-firefox-became-a-librewolf
#firefox #librewolf #tos #webcomic
#firefox #librewolf #tos #webcomic
threaded - newest
@davidrevoy yippiee
@davidrevoy cute and sad
@davidrevoy
Excellent, as usual.
I am going to ladybird it bro
@rony4102 Well, I visited their webpage and read their Wikipedia. But only checking they are still active on X was a red flag to me so far to get interested in.
@davidrevoy
@protonprivacy also flounced off Mastodon after they received well deserved criticism.
Is @mozillaofficial doing the same? 🫤🤷♂️
The ceo gravy train keeps going.
@simonzerafa @protonprivacy @mozillaofficial I'm not sure how official the account you linked here is, the branding feels off and it's not really noted in the bio this is their official new account.
Before December, Mozilla had their instance, and decided to remove it ( src. https://techcrunch.com/2024/09/17/mozilla-exits-the-fediverse-and-will-shutter-its-mastodon-server-in-december/ )
Proton also really manage their PR like rotten potatoes imo ( https://theintercept.com/2025/01/28/proton-mail-andy-yen-trump-republicans/ )
... both company also abuse marketing bs wording and praise AI. Not surprising they are criticized here.
@davidrevoy @simonzerafa @protonprivacy @mozillaofficial I mean something as simple like text-to-speech or OCR or machine translation models (like Google Translate/DeepL) can be considered "AI" technically. I'm a student and many courses involving creating our own models from scratch and many of my projects involving use models like tesseract-ocr, turtle-tts, YOLO, LLaMA,... for some tasks and this is painful for me as many outputs don't even make sense and I had to tweak a lot.
@davidrevoy
I'm hooked on the Wolf, been using it for over a year.
Once in a while I use furryfox for some fussy-ass site that I have to do one thing on once in a blueish moon.
@matera Haha, I typed in a search engine for "furryfox" before realizing it was your way of naming Firefox. 😆
Catchy name.
Yes, I'll keep my Firefox too in background. Right now mainly to compare when I have an issue with LibreWolf, and also to test my blog and peppercarrot website. 😉
@davidrevoy LOL Yeah, I get too cute sometimes.
It's good to have a few different browsers for website testing. I have an assortment of different browser profiles too. I use dedicated profiles mostly to keep Gahoogle and Zuckland noses out of my business.
@davidrevoy Thank you! Putting the Firefox dilemma in pictures makes it less academic and more approachable issue. I hope many people realize how empowering it is to use free software that can be replaced easily.
It is not always so easy:
https://video.1146.nohost.me/w/ij3qHTrc55t9izuk6hP7HF
Holy crap thank you for sharing that. Spectacular. Also, the last minute of that had the kind of inspirational vibes that I last got in the 90s reading things on cult of the dead cow.
cDc is still at it!
https://veilid.com/
@mray Thanks! Oh yes it's not easy to find the time and do a change and walk the path of frustration of changing habit and studying settings.
Thanks for the video, I'm already subscribed to this animator artist, James Lee.
He recently announced moving to GNU/Linux. It's not the best period to do this for artists, with Wayland, all container war etc...I don't remember I saw an update of them about how they succeed to make it. Certainly hard time ^ ^ I hope he found my blog post about it.
@davidrevoy Excellent art, as always.
I switched this week too. It was very simple on Linux Mint, but I worry about the future of the Firefox code base.
@darkbeth @davidrevoy hopefully we have to worry about that only a few years until independent engines become usable. #Verso and #Ladybird are candidates if #mozilla codebase rots. GNOME Web / #epiphany is another browser that has an engine not depending on Google (Apple webkit engine though, but at it it will be a real competition and even though they are bad to their own usets, they are not as powerful on the web like Google).
@praveen @darkbeth Thank you Elizabeth.
LibreWolf is just a layer of community reviewing in case Mozilla pushes something bad to their audience. My metaphor about the layer of ash on top of a fox works for this reason.
I also worry for the future of Firefox. I hope their executives will see larger community forming around forks, and it will make them find back their focus to privacy, and security. I'll be back to Firefox if they do that.
@davidrevoy @praveen @darkbeth I mean this is one of the benefits of open source and free/libre software, is that it help users to have alternative in case the original went bad and have a voice to push back harmful changes.
Gorgeous artwork friend!
@davidrevoy
Vivaldi right now and it works great.
@BluesHarp But Vivaldi is not free/libre and open source software... This is even not an option on my operating system as it is really impossible to know what Vivaldi dev are doing with your data.
@davidrevoy @BluesHarp Unfortunately, what fork of Chromium do you recommend then? Brave is a shady crypto project run by a less than nice person, Chrome & Edge I hope I don't have to explain, and Opera? I really hope I don't have to go any further.
Also, when Mozilla eventually goes, so does Librewolf, Waterfox, and the rest. There's no way that the Firefox forks will be able to pick up the pieces in time.
Unfortunately, I am stuck on Vivaldi because it has PWAs and isn't going to die.
Cute
@davidrevoy Ce projet LibreWolf semble sympathique mais pas compatible avec firefox syncs, ce qui est sans doute logique, mais sans alternative.
Je teste également Floorp...
J'ai utilisé LibreWolf et il a bien fonctionné avec Firefox sync. Si je me souvenir bien, il faut activer (permettre) Firefox sync dans les options. Maintenant, j'utilise Floorp. Il, également, bien fonctionne avec Firefox sync.
(Désolé pour mon mauvais français.)
I have used LibreWolf and it works well with Firefox sync. If I am remembering correctly, it must be enabled in the options. Right now, I use Floorp. It also works well with Firefox sync.
(Sorry for my poor French.)
@yalle tu peux facilement activer firefox sync dans la configuration de librewolf. 100% compatible.
@ilumium
J'trouve pas !
@yalle @ilumium Je n'ai pas testé LibreWolf, mais Waterfox a été l'alternative parfaite pour mon vieux laptop sous MX-Linux. Tout ce qui est synchro est natif, et en plus il tourne mieux que Firefox.
@zulo @yalle @ilumium Yalle: https://librewolf.net/docs/settings/#enable-firefox-sync pour l'avoir en permanent (ou dans about:config , identity.fxaccounts.enabled to true )
Zulo: La partie "vulnerabilities" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterfox#Vulnerabilities ) m'a refroidi lors de mes recherches, et j'ai trouver pas ouf leur business modèle basé sur les revenues de la vente de data pour les recherches.
@davidrevoy Arf, good catch.
@davidrevoy Yep, I switched on my main machine when Mozilla merged with an advertising company, which is to say the new combined entity is an advertising company.
@pre Right. I was badly surprised to see my Firefox homepage receiving an unsolicited "Temu" shortcut icon recently. Especially after that https://framapiaf.org/@davidrevoy/113317960766927868 ... 😔
@davidrevoy 😞
There aren't any good browsers 💔
Is it worth running LibreWolf without fingerprinting disabled? It's kind of a dealbreaker that it doesn't save zoom options on websites. At least I could handle having to run another browser to use Netflix...
@Yingwu That's exactly where I found it educative to have to be personally facing this dilemma and having to choose.
Here I decided to allow fingerprinting, because mainly I really like when a blog or website switch to dark mode automatically. Without that, all website were in light theme, and it felt very difficult to me to browse the web like that now...
@davidrevoy @Yingwu I mean LibreWolf recommends using CanvasBlocker in case of you turned off Resist Fingerprinting
@davidrevoy I just switched to librewolf as well.
@davidrevoy @categulario
Great art, so cute!
@davidrevoy
I wonder what the Linux distros that have Firefox in the default install are going to do going forward?
#linuxmint #linux
From the blog post...
Yeah, ouch, thats not going to sell with the Plebs, and limit buy-in from them, and market share.
They really should try to fix that, and not just hand wave it away as a problem.
Market share is the lifeblood of the browser wars.
ThiscommentislicensedunderCCBY-NC-SA4.0Pleb here
You are correct
Everything is on by default. So is actually quite easy.
It's very nice because you don't really have to worry about which add-ons you need.
It's about the most simple browser I've ever used.
@CosmicCleric "[...] not going to sell with the Plebs"
😆 I don't think LibreWolf has view for market share and plebs. As far as I know it's a community initiative, not a company. Yes, it require time to install and setup, and understand the implication of what security and privacy setting one decide to lower. But I'm happy I took this time, I feel I understand even more how the web of 2025 is broken and how web browser interacts with it to try to ease the experience.
I've never met a software developer yet who wouldn't want their program to be popular and widely used.
Also, when it comes to browsers, the name of the game is to get support from the big websites, which is done by having major/popular usage of their browser.
ThiscommentislicensedunderCCBY-NC-SA4.0@davidrevoy @CosmicCleric I mean I don't hate for-profit companies that much unless they have done questionable/nefarious things repeatedly; but I really don't like for-profit companies hiding behind non-profits/benefit corporations/co-ops especially to do questionable things.
@davidrevoy Thanks for this post and the fun artwork, you convinced me to finally make the jump!
@davidrevoy That's very nice!
Didn't knew this existed, thx!
@davidrevoy same same.
@davidrevoy
LibreWolf sounds nice.
unfortunately its only available in aur for archlinux, what means i have to build it local. and its veeeeeery big. i started it 90min ago and its still compiling...
@davidrevoy who is behind Librewolf?
@veroandi Have a look at their profile here: https://librewolf.net/#what-is-librewolf
@davidrevoy I did but there are no names there. :(
I may sometimes use open-source tools that I don't know who made them. But I don't feel comfortable using them for a browser. If it's a honeypot created by intelligence agencies or North Korean hackers, I have no idea. 😬
@veroandi It's a community fork. So, you have to meet their community. Scroll down the page to the "Core contributor" section. I see 8 profiles here.
You can check their public activities on Codeberg, and follow links on their profile. You can also discuss with them on their Matrix chat room.
@davidrevoy I've gone Waterfox and in just 1 day returned to Firefox because so many things just didn't work that did and still do in Firefox. Which is weird but still.
@rejzor Yes, changing web browser can be difficult. My first hours with LibreWolf was a real maze. :blob_sweat: I'm really lucky I could speak about my issue on the Pepper&Carrot matrix room and received assistance from a more experienced user.
I updated on their bug tracker the thread that I found with the information I needed, for future users in the same situation as me.
@davidrevoy I've tried and used so many browser in my life, but at the moment I have a priority of not using anything Google and to not deal with issues and BS. Firefox fits that despite all the idiocies Mozilla is doing as I don't have the time and nerves anymore to deal with random issues forks have that Firefox doesn't. Like, literally the first news streaming site for news I use didn't work in Waterfox and does in Firefox. So, there's that.
@rejzor Totally understandable 👍
@davidrevoy
I do not like what firefox mozilla is trying to do but. I like librewolf just... they can not enhance security by delay the code for fixes. It is not good but sometimes takes days. We need to pull togeather and if librewolf fixed this i am fine to change..
@ibrahim_cris For sure, yes, this is something I want to see in the long run: how quick LibreWolf get patched and released to security vulnerabilities.
But so far, this was really educative: I now better understand many Firefox privacy options not activated by default and that I never knew of existence. If I go back to Firefox, I'll be a more advanced user knowing the settings and the about:config options.
@davidrevoy hachz. Das ist sweet und traurig gleichzeitig.
@davidrevoy Might we worth mentioning Epiphany (WebKitGTK) in the article for those who may be satisfied with a simpler browser that is still not based on Blink :blobcatcoffee:
Playing DRMed content with it isn't really an option, though.
@nekohayo Yes, I really like Gnome Web/Epiphany. I had also a look at the Plasma side, the Falkon browser.
And the more I think about my web browsing usage, the more I wonder why I want to keep all my browsing inside a single web browser.
Probably a habit I developed with the early web.
I might start to install more browsers and split up my web browsing habit depending on activities and the level of privacy and security I need for certain website.
@davidrevoy I still use Firefox, but I disabled sending any data to Mozilla.
Thanks for not contributing to Chromium monopoly. :)
@elgregor That's a good solution! My initiation to LibreWolf made me aware of many settings I never thought existing in Firefox (because suddenly all were turned on by default). It was really educative, and I'll probably benefit a lot of it if I'm going back to Firefox.
@davidrevoy
For those coming here in search of Firefox alternatives, I just want to point out https://zen-browser.app/ that is also a fork of Firefox though perhaps a more customised fork... Check it out if you are in the mood for trying a different layout from the default Firefox experience...
Hows your experience so far?
i also have floorp./
@technikhil @davidrevoy I just gave #Librewolf and #Zenbrowser a try. Both seem to work perfectly fine, and reimporting my date from #Firefox was easy (which seems logical since they're both based on Firefox).
I'm not switching now though. I took a minute to check my Firefox settings and opt out from everything that seemed not to be data privacy friendly.
I'm wondering if those forks are actually viable if Firefox dies one day... So for now I'd rather not cut the branch I've been sitting on for 2 decades, wait and see.
I like the look of Zen browser though, looks like arc!
@louischance @davidrevoy Yep, perfectly rational... I too have not (yet) given up on Firefox, I have just started compartmentalizing what I use it for. The Firefox sync allows me to still keep parity between the 2 browsers, though given the direction Mozilla is going I am probably going to delete that account quite soon.
The similarity with Arc is what drew me to the Zen browser initially. I also like the amount of space it provides for the content in it's "compact mode" layout.
@technikhil @louischance Yes, Zen Browser was on my list when I tested, beautiful interface and screenshot on their website.
> I'm wondering if those forks are actually viable if Firefox dies one day...
Louis: yes, this THE central real question about all these forks. I personally don't think any forks around could survive that.
@davidrevoy @technikhil @louischance
forks can survive if the maintainer team is 'for the people'. Look at "Jellyfin", a fork of " emby". Still surviving.
For android, there's also fennec on fdroid
i have ironfox for android.
@davidrevoy
For me, it is, honestly, sad. I've been using Firefox since... it was Firebird. Twenty+ years.
Great art, as always!
@davidrevoy
Merci pour la découverte.
Mais le souci sera le même que Chrome au final, dépendre de l'évolution de FF pour le code principal.
@marnic Totalement! C'est même pour ça que dans ma métaphore, je voulais vraiment montrer que le petit renard reste un renard , tant bien même recouvert de cendre. Ca ressemble donc plutôt a une "community curated edition" de Firefox, mais je crois que c'est ce que je cherche là. Je commence à me méfier de Mozilla. Ils dérapent trop souvent ces derniers temps, et ça c'est que la partie publique...
@davidrevoy
Faut créer une nouvelle fondation type de LibreOffice 😅
@marnic Oui 😁 Mais faudrait commencer cette fondation avec un sacré budget pour avoir déjà une grosse poignée de dev à plein temps dessus.
Je verrai bien la Wikipedia fondation dessus. Il me semble que leur trésorerie et leur moyen technique et leur familiarité avec le publique ferait que si ils entraient dans ce game, ça ferait un acteur de poids très rapidement.
@davidrevoy
tiens ben justement, il s'était passé quoi pour openoffice à l'époque ? j'avais suivi que de loin mais il a bien fallu passer la main à libreoffice à ce moment là aussi ?
@marnic
@couscous @marnic Les premiers paragraphes "Histoire" de https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/LibreOffice te donneront une version bien plus détaillé que ce que j'avais en tête pour te répondre. 😆
C'était un sacré truc !
@davidrevoy
oh wow en effet 😅
@marnic
@davidrevoy Long time LibreWolf user. I have recently installed "Floorp" on one of my machine, also a fork of Firefox. It has the added advantage of being non-US based (Japan). Seems good, but too early to be definitive.
@Fat_Farang Nice, that the first web browser suggestion in all the comments I received that I didn't know of existence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floorp , very interesting. Thanks for sharing!
@davidrevoy Thank you for this. I had forgotten about LibreWolf and now is a great time to remember it again. I appreciate your introduction as well. It helps to know what I'm getting into and what I should warn others about before sending them to it.
@davidrevoy Got rid of Chrome for Chromium I guess Firefox will have to be replaced with an alternative as well since they decided to follow in Google's footsteps.
@davidrevoy Thank you for being on the right side of history, like … always 😊
@bigTanuki :blobcatheart: Thank you, but don't worry, I'm making many errors too, and I'll keep doing them as I often experiment with many new things.
I just hope I'll get comments helping me if I go accidentally on questionable territories and I'll have the brightness of mind to study them and readjust.
@davidrevoy
The catoon also works for MoonWolf.
🤭
LibreWolf needs to adopt a Foxkeh like mascot since Mozilla refuses to do it even though it would make them so much bank and popularity. <3
@davidrevoy how do you compare waterfox? Thanks.
@prakasc For Waterfox, I read their webpage, and the Wikipedia page only. The chapter about vulnerabilities was enough for me to not get motivated to explore more. Also a business model based on search result. Meh. But cool name.
@davidrevoy The artwork and the alt text describing it are both poignant and touching.
I'm about to migrate from Firefox (which I've been using since it was Netscape 3.04) to Librewolf as well. It's nice to feel welcomed.
@davidrevoy I switched to LibreWolf two month ago and it works nicely.
@davidrevoy i deleted firefox litllery just today from my distro, and replaced it with librewolf
its working great!
@davidrevoy somehow, my #librewolf makes weird alignment in some sites... is there a way to make the text align left?
It's not a big deal but it can be annoying sometimes
@davidrevoy
Il y aussi floorp, un "fork" également du renard. Pas d'avis définitif (en phase test) mais je n'ai pas eu le besoin de me plonger dans la doc et de soulever le capot pour l'intant.
@Khrys
@davidrevoy « Installing #LibreWolf on my Debian was surprisingly simple » Coucou 👋 Tu aurais un conseil pour jouir de cette facilité ? Je suis sur Ubuntu et je galère comme pas possible pour l'installer 😭
@batistecarpinetty @davidrevoy
Je te conseillerais de passer par flatpak/Flathub.
https://flathub.org/setup/Ubuntu
https://flathub.org/apps/io.gitlab.librewolf-community
@nicolagaffe Merci, je vais essayer par là : celui que j'ai téléchargéi via le site de #librewolf ne voulait pas s'installer 😶
@davidrevoy
@batistecarpinetty @nicolagaffe J'éspère que l’installation sera facile sous Ubuntu. Ici aucune idée de comment ça se passe sous les système 'buntu-based. Pour moi sous Debian 12 KDE avec la doc c'était vraiment trois lignes de commandes à copier/coller et c'était fait.
Pour comparaison: déloger le Firefox-ESR de Debian stable et le remplacer par la repo officielle de Firefox au moment de mon install avait été un processus plus complex.
@davidrevoy good luck getting sec patches in time
Honestly. The biggest dilemma browsers seem to have isn't just funding but how to maintain they're absolutely massive code bases.
Either we really do a very large and robust org like the Linux kernel group, or we need to find a way to massive reduce the complexity of the browser.
Servo is exciting and ladybird too. Maybe their fresher starts can bring in the opportunity to do that.
@davidrevoy je te suis et pas que pour la qualité de ton travail ! je vais l'installer de suite sur mon portable Frame.Work Fedora. Et pour ton mobile, tu as choisi quoi ?
@scaro Merci. Sur mobile jusque là c'était Firefox sur un Android dégooglisé... enfin au mieu possible car c'est quasi impossible de faire un 100%.
Mais là je teste la semaine prochaine https://iode.tech/ , c'est du https://lineageos.org/ mélangé avec de la revente de matos reconditionné. Je donnerai des news sur le blog si ça fait bien le taf, surtout si au niveau photo/video ça arrive à suivre. ☺️
@davidrevoy alors je serai attentif à tes futures publications. Sur mon Fairphone avec Murena OS, je testerai le navigateur par défaut pour désinstaller dès que possible Firefox aussi. Iels verront vite la baisse de leur utilisation, sans doute lors des prochaines mises à jour...
@davidrevoy ah mais c'est un OS complet... je cherchais juste un navigateur pour mon Fairphone qui tourne sous Murena OS... mais je suis curieux de lire ton retour d'expérience qd même. En commençant par le navigateur inclus ;-)
@davidrevoy Librewolf sur FreeBSD ici👍
#RunBSD
@davidrevoy I've been using LibreWolf for several years. I usually use different browsers for different tasks and for general privacy and security if I'm not using Tor it's my browser of choice.
@davidrevoy Note that if you are concerning about security, you may want to enable Google Safe Browsing as well (I know this is from Google, but implementation from Mozilla is making sense and even Librewolf devs are considering enabling it if it wasn't for user self-compiling issues). I'm a CS student myself but I don't think I'm that savvy for checking every site I go though.
@davidrevoy Oh, I am considering moving to LibreWolf currently too