librewolf/ff nightly
but i miss netscape and pre version 40 firefox
this post was submitted on 07 Apr 2025
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To me the killer feature is the ability to send my tabs to any device I have. Without it it's impossible for me to ditch Firefox, I rely too much on this feature.
While I use it, I can live without it, especially since it only seems to work 2/3 of the time between my desktop and my iPhone.
There's probably alternatives to this, such as doing a Note to Self on Signal or similar apps, which has a 100% success rate.
I'm wondering how much of a deal breaker it actually is.
I’m really enjoying Orion on iPhone and Mac
I like Zen.
Is there a privacy-centric open source browser that follows web standards and doesn’t come with any unfortunate baggage in the room? It’s time to find out.
...
In the end, I looked for two candidates, one each from the Firefox and Apple/Google orbits. I tried them all, and settled on LibreWolf from the former, and Vivaldi from the latter. LibreWolf because it’s done a fine job of making Firefox without it being Firefox, and Vivaldi because its influence from the early Opera versions gave it a tiny bit of individuality missing in the others. I set up both with my usual Hackaday bookmarks, tabs, and shortcuts, changed the search engine to the EU-based Qwant. I’m ready to go, with a bit more control over how my data is shared with the world once more.
Why Vivaldi though? It's closed source, which should disqualify it from their initial statement of considering open-source browsers.
Yeah Im not sure as well. Vivaldi didnt really impress me when I tried it out.
I put this article up since we still have a lot of people thinking about different browsers as of 2025. Its interesting to see how people use the internet.
Oh don't get me wrong, I think this is absolutely an appropriate article for this community, I just think the article is a bit... lacking. There's also the FUD about Mozilla, which is a bit more complex of a topic than they lead on, so kind of shoddy journalism IMO.
Thats fair. Any good ones that have come out in the last month or so?
Not sure exactly which part you're asking about.
For Mozilla, the best source I've found is Louis Rossmann's wiki on Mozilla's TOS changes (and his breakdown on YT if you don't want to read).
For articles about which browser to pick, idk, I don't really follow that. I use Firefox and Firefox derivatives because I believe engine diversity is of utmost importance, and I only use Chromium forks as a backup for sites that don't work properly on Firefox.
Vivaldi and Librewolf are good recommends. So good call by the author.
I wish I could completely ditch Blink based browsers for Gecko ones, just because I dislike how dominant Blink is thanks to Chrome. But some sites don't render correctly on Gecko. So a fallback is needed.
Edit: I haven't used Vivaldi in a long time, and apparently it's not what I thought it was. Are there really no outstanding open source Blink-based browser out there?
What's wrong with Vivaldi?
If you dont require open-source in your decision, Vivaldi is great. Its what i use most. It has a ton of granular features that i appreciate, but can be a bit too much for folks that want a more minimal experience.
Some people are uncomfortable with it being closed-source. It's more of a philosophical objection than a criticism of the browser's functionality.
We vote with our browser. And you are voting Chromium. It's ok, but you could do something about it.
I'm really not. I use Firefox 99.5% of the time (I need to switch to Librewolf). But there are some rare occasions - usually shitty old billing websites - where Gecko simply does not work due to said shitty old website. Not paying those bills is an impractical solution. Having a fallback for those rare occasions isn't unreasonable.
Sorry, I misunderstood then. I use Librewolf btw, great choice.
Librewolf
/thread
The only "issue" I have with libre is its essentially a full pull of Firefox nightly with some rust patches on top. Its reliant on Firefox, so its not really a "new" browser per-say.
That being said, I use it everyday :) Its an excellent project.
Hard to fault them for that though. It's damn near impossible to build a fully or even mostly functioning browser for the modern internet without a huge team of devs unless you build it on top of chromium or Firefox, and I'd rather the latter
Yep agreed. I guess I just had a misconception at first.
Per se is a Latin phrase meaning "in itself". To see if you're using it properly, replace per se in your sentence with "in itself" and see if it makes sense.
Extremely slow on my PCs, I switched to Zen (same product, different recipe)
I've switched to Floorp which feels like a more modern Firefox/LibreWolf to me
Used to use Floorp, then Zen, now on Firedragon, a mod of Floorp with many features from Librewolf.
I did the same, then switched again to Zen, same reasons
Zen felt way too apple to me
How is it different or better?
Zen has some cool features like being able to split-view two tabs in the same window and preview links without opening them. The colour coded workspaces (should u choose to colour code them) is also useful and aesthetically pleasing
I just like the small aesthetic differencies better (btw: I hate Apple)
Been with Vivaldi even when it was uncool to be with Vivaldi. The recent incorporation of Proton felt really dirty / sketchy ad pushing. I hope Librewolf takes off, I'm guessing that's where I will head when Vivaldi completely jumps the shark.