Anyone here use waterfox?
Saw the Firefox changes and looking to move over. I did a look at their privacy policy and seems to be good. But not sure how stable it is in comparison with Firefox.
1 Like
Mullvad Browser ?
Waterfox ?
Ladybird… maybe in a few years.
Blocking domains belonging to Moz could theoretically close down the traffic a bit, but it’s a cat and mouse game and no access to updates.
*.firefox.com
*.mozgcp.net
*.mozaws.net
*.mozilla.org
Already have the telemetry blocked (to the best of my ability at least) via piHole.
1 Like
Blocking updates isn’t ideal. Whitelists are better than blacklists, but not convenient to manage/maintain.
so for firefox forks that’s:
- Mullvad
- LibreWolf
- Waterfox
- Icecat
- PaleMoon
Am I missing any? yay fragmentation!
2 Likes
I also use pihole and a lot of lists but let’s not expect blocking of all Moz on typical lists on principle. It doesn’t happen.
Typical communication is possible because many of these addresses are not classified as negative. And it probably never will be because there is no reason. I’m just talking about an extreme situation and an aluminum hat. 
But such blocking has its negative consequences because it also cuts off the desired traffic and necessary for updates.
1 Like
I agree that the lack of updates is a bigger problem than Moz spying.
You can of course play around with only allowing those domains that are actually responsible for updates, but it’s still not very effective. You can regularly unblock for the time of checking for updates and then block, but again, this will not provide control over whether something extra is not being sent at a given moment.
In addition, at the moment we probably don’t know exactly how Moz collects or will collect data.
1 Like
Maybe Fennec on Android…
1 Like
Apparently there is also Floorp.
dumb name…
1 Like
Well I’ll give waterfox a go. I know I can easily import firefox profile over. Really sucks they’ve decided to change their privacy in such a matter. I’ve pulled all future donations going to them.
I’ve avoided going to heavy handed on the DNS blocking so updates can go through.
I’ll try to find what they are sending in and out with wireshark. Thank you guys for the recommendations. If waterfox has issues I’ll probably give mullvad a shot.
2 Likes
Tor Browser
Pros: using helps hide illegal traffic.
Cons: using helps hide illegal traffic.
Was using it a few years back until it got bought out by a data broker/malware corpo. Think it was the same folks that also bought start page search… Can’t bring myself to trust people like that no matter how privacy focused they say they suddenly are. Two perfectly good utilities ruined. 
1 Like
Palemoon is actually not a fork of firefox, or technically it is, but it’s not based on any recent firefox code. Their engine is a fork of gecko that separated years ago and they are doing their own independent thing. Compatibility is not nearly as good as FF based browsers.
In the Same vane there is Basilisk, which was started by the palemoon team but is a separate project now with it’s own developer.
Garuda ships a fork of Floorp as their browser now (used to be based on librewolf but now floorp), which looks interesting as well, and more usable to me than Floorp itself, who’s website, last I checked, wasn’t even fully translated to english yet (it’s japanese), and there was very sparse info on what the point of the whole project was even supposed to be.
2 Likes
They are no longer owned by system1.
2 Likes
I see that Brave is also terribly talkative:
These domains are blocked by my dns, but of course it’s a matter of the lists that are used…
ads.brave.com
ads-admin.brave.com
ads-help.brave.com
referrals.brave.com
analytics.brave.com
search.anonymous.ads.brave.com
p3a.brave.com
variations.brave.com
star-randsrv.bsg.brave.com
usage-ping.brave.com
And those not blocked…
brave.com
laptop-updates.brave.com
dl.brave.com
go-updater.brave.com
brave-core-ext.s3.brave.com
componentupdater.brave.com
redirector.brave.com
safebrowsing.brave.com
support.brave.com
3 Likes
https://x.com/LundukeJournal/status/1895967597176525082
I absolutely do not know the story behind it. But if the lead dev is making strange moves it does not bode well for the project’s future stability.
An example was “Why I deleted GrapheneOS - Louis Rossmann” where it was only after the negative buzz that the dev resigned so as not to poison the project.
And with such important software as a web browser, there is not much room for crazy situations.
5 Likes
Unfortunately most people seem to be simple enough to be manipulated into politics, so politics are in everything now. I have taken the stance of not caring about it unless it’s in my face in the actual software. I don’t have to interact with the developers of the software I use, or hear about anything they have to say online, that does not relate to the software they produce.
Back to topic: Mozilla has updated their TOS somewhat to “clarify” it, but they fail to explain any of their choices. They also commented on why they removed any reference to selling data from their FAQ and actually said they do share your data for advertising and suggestions, if you have them turned on, which by default, they are on the official binaries from mozilla. They do fail to mention the new AI features that are also turned on by default now, afaik, but at least with that I think you have to choose a provider yourself for it to do anything(?) Anyways they still retain that they do not sell our data, per say.
I’m not sure how we are supposed to think sharing our data for free is any better than selling it, or how we are supposed to believe they are just sharing the data they collect for absolutely no monetary value at all in the first place. 
EDIT: So in the definition they themselves are stating, citing california legislation, they are absolutely, without a question, selling our data. They should just come out and say it. Vague legal language should not protect them in case there is confusion about it, since confusion is the only goal they have when using such vague language in the first place.
1 Like
I think that it makes more sense to use Librewolf than it’s to try to configure Firefox to be closer like Librewolf. In my experience it has been a good fork and that’s what you want anyway. It removes telemetry from the source and also does other good things too. It’s also easier to configure Librewolf to be more permissive than it’s to get FF to be just right.
I use pretty strict settings and these might break some sites:
librewolf.overrides.cfg.txt (10.5 KB)
2 Likes
2 Likes
4 urls just for ads? seems a little noisy for a “private” browser.
Even Windows XP had less traffic…
Is there a comparison list for which browser makes the most noise out of the box?
2 Likes