Just pick one - All the Fox functionality without bloatware
Librewolf - https://librewolf.net/
Waterfox - https://www.waterfox.com/
Zen Browser - https://zen-browser.app/
More browsers here - https://alternativeto.net/category/browsers/firefox-based/
You can also use this add to disable the shitload ai function in many search engines in one go
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/disable-ai/
GitHub page - https://github.com/jruns/disable-ai
You can find all the links on Mastodon<
Why do so many people push changing browsers over using something like arkenfox? As far as I know, librewolf is essentially firefox with arkenfox preconfigured.
While I understand that setting up a config is probably beyond the scope of your average browser user, I rarely even see the alternative mentioned. Nor do I rarely see people mention the downsides of using a downstream branch - mostly security updates potentially being late.
If you use fennec on android, I think you can even just copy your config to your phone and have it working the same there.
if you install arkenfox yourself, likely you’ll never remember to update it. if you use librewolf or such, the maintainers will take care of it for you
If you use fennec on android, I think you can even just copy your config to your phone and have it working the same there.
and where do you copy it on your phone? I think it’s not that simple but maybe I missed something
if you install arkenfox yourself, likely you’ll never remember to update it. if you use librewolf or such, the maintainers will take care of it for you
I’m sure there are plugins that either check for updates for you, or remind you to do so (even though that can defeat the purpose some, of course). If not I’ll make one myself once I get around to setting arkenfox up. But yes, that’s largely what I meant by “While I understand that setting up a config is probably beyond the scope of your average browser user”.
and where do you copy it on your phone? I think it’s not that simple but maybe I missed something
Not sure, but considering you can mess around in about:config I’d assume the user.js is located in userspace somewhere. I haven’t looked into it much. If nothing else you can probably do it easily with a rooted phone.
all data of the firefox is located in /data/data/packgename, which is inaccessible without root permissions. a few android versions ago it was accessible through ADB, not anymore. I don’t think it’s possible anymore to install arkenfox on plain firefox android for most users.
even with a rooted phone its not that easy. granting termux root rights and running su, the per-package data folders are not visible, you have to switch to the correct mount namespace somehow. some file manager apps adapted to be able to do that
I use Fennec in Android and Librewolf in Linux.
Libre wolf needs a bit of tweaking at the begining but then works like charm.
Tweaking in what sense? Like just default search engines and such, or is it
about:configsettings?I’m just curious.
I had a thing that deleted everything every time I closed the browser… Like it reset i. I activated history and a few other normal stuff… Nothing in about:config.
Also, in Gnome, I had to activate a permission to access user files in flatseal to work with gnome extensions
Nothing special.
I am not them but I always reenable history keeping and turn on a few more ublock lists that are already there disabled
As a heads up, Librewolf last I checked had issues with media involving DRM. Ergo, streaming services will throw a fit if you try using them on it. Not an issue if you don’t use any of course, and there may be ways around it, but worth knowing that it doesn’t work out of the box at least.
Are there any plans to make a mobile browser?
Waterfox is available for Android.
Impressive how management can blindly ignore their own core pricipals.
Really hate how iOS has zero alternatives. Thanks apple for your stupid WebKit.
Could be worse, seriously. Safari is not a bad browser and WebKit is the only engine since years that can keep up with chromium. I get that it is annoying to have leas freedom on iOS, but I also appreciate the increased security[1] and quality of life that comes with it.
[1] yes, I am aware that open source software tends to be more secure, as it can be reviewed by all. However, Android by default is way less secure than iOS, unless you use GraphiteOS or similar.
I also appreciate the increased security
This hasn’t been true for a long, long time. Mac was only ever more secure than windows because not enough people used them to make them worthwhile attack vectors. Nowadays, iOS sees just as many vulnerabilities as every other popular OS.
Nowadays, iOS sees just as many vulnerabilities as every other popular OS.
I’m no Apple fanboy but Apple security is more than the OS. Since they also produce all of the hardware, it means they can do things at the hardware level and either make available or restrict things to the OS that Windows cannot do because Microsoft doesn’t control all the hardware makers.
I’m posting this in Asahi Linux on an M2 powered Macbook. Its been an interesting experience learning not only the benefits of this as a hardware platform, but also its limitations from the FOSS point of view.
Report after report finds iOS to be more secure than Android. Here’s just one example: https://www.rokform.com/blogs/rokform-blog/which-is-more-secure-iphone-or-android
Without taking a position on the claim itself, this is a bad citation. It makes a variety of claims that either don’t hold up to basic scrutiny, or aren’t evidence that iOS has a security advantage. Here are some examples:
Open-source platform increases vulnerability surface area
This is perhaps one of the most thoroughly debunked pieces of FUD in the entire tech industry.
[Various claims about inconsistency between devices]
These are mostly true but largely irrelevant. You’re not buying an aggregate of all Android devices that exist, but a specific device with specific traits. The Android phone you should actually buy will have a security chip and many years of updates just like an iPhone.
The rigorous app review process and mandatory App Store distribution (except in EU) virtually eliminate malicious app threats for average users.
This might be a benefit when the user has no clue how to use a computer, but I expect people posting in this community are past that stage. It’s a big disadvantage for those who want to use something like Firefox (real Firefox, not a skin on Safari) with potential security and privacy upsides.
Again, specific sources are more or less irrelevant, because all sources agree. Plus, the onus isn’t on me to provide a source which debunks the claim that Android and iOS are equal in terms of vulnerability, the onus is on OP to provide a source which supports their assertion.
Depends on whether you want to convince people of your position, or you’re just explaining your own choice. The latter is fine, but the former won’t happen without better sources.
Again, burden of proof is on the person making the claim. Whether or not you choose to believe them, when they have provided zero sources for their claim, is up to you.
I wouldn’t really call this a “report” when there aren’t any metrics in the reasoning other than price.
Even in their own article, it mentions how support and updates vary by manufacturer so it’s kind of meaningless to compare iPhone to the whole Android ecosystem. You’d need to choose one or more manufacturer in order to make an apples to apples comparison.
It was just the first one that came to hand. LOL at this source for another example: https://deepstrike.io/blog/Malware-Attacks-and-Infections-2025
That claims that Android devices are 50 times more likely to be compromised than iOS. Look at most reports from people like Kasperky & Malwarebytes and they don’t even bother to mention iOS in statistics and only occasionally mention the platform if there is a specific notable threat.
It can be argued that iOS isn’t as secure as Apple would like you to think or as a lot of Apple users do think, but it really can’t be argued that it’s equally as vulnerable as Android
There are some good iOS browsers.
At the moment, I use Orion (from Kagi) and Narrow32. Quiche Browser is good, DuckDuckGo is fine.
Discoverability on iOS is awful though. The store is just packed with SEO spam and corporate slop on top of all the passion projects or “benevolent” ones.
Zen ♥️
Been using it for awhile now and it’s getting better with each release!
I use Iceraven for my phone
Here is a github link for the android app https://github.com/fork-maintainers/iceraven-browser
Does librewolf or water fox have a mobile version that syncs tabs to desktop like official Firefox ?
All Geckos can sync if Mozilla Sync is enabled with an account. So you can sync say LibreWokf or WarwrFox on desktop to any mobile version, such as IronFoz. They do not have to “match”.
Oh cool, I didn’t know that and it was the main fear I had from swapping. I really should have just looked it up by now, but oh well.
Waterfox does, I use it.
Edit: On Android.
IronFox
And at some point someone will tell me what is so horrifying about these new features? Mozilla might be the only company trying to provide privacy first AI features. What exactly is so bad here? You can even disable these features if you do not like them at all.
You can even disable these features if you do not like them at all
As a smart person said:
BETTER IT NOT EXIST AT ALL
If I went to a restaurant, they placed a hot steaming stinky turd sandwich on my table and then went “oh, but you don’t have to have it”, I still wouldn’t fucking eat there.
Why should we be okay with the Turd Sandwich that is
crypto being served by BraveLLM features served by Mozilla being opt-in???I’m not particularly horrified about the availability of AI features, but I’d rather see Mozilla focus most of its resources on core competencies. Firefox lags behind Chrome in web standards feature support, e.g. the browser scores on https://caniuse.com/. It’s also prone to making my laptop fan spin more than Chromium browser do, and people often complain about speed.
They should make the core browser better, and maybe task a couple developers to build some LLM support as an extension.
Firefox is not the devil, but “ideologies aside”, the basic idea is:
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(Just like microsoft), They’ve could just decide to put it in one of the “many” variant of the product, name it FoxAI, let the users decide and call a day. Instead, they’ve chosen to force a very heavy component like that on the main version out of blue.
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Switched or not. Now, you will have ‘way’ more bloat on a browser, who should be focused on speed and performance.
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The whole thing about AI on free stuff is getting as much data as possible to train. You have to trust them to switch it off completely.
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Mozilla is still the only company maintaining an alternative to Chromium (there’s also webkit if you count Apple). Without Firefox you can’t have Librewolf or other alternatives.
Mozilla is not perfect but people really need to stop treating them in a purely binary fashion (you are either horrible or are perfect).
You can criticize Mozilla for the direction they are taking with Firefox, but also you can argue that being a hardcore privacy-centric browser will kill interest for Firefox even faster.
The problem is that they’re pushing it without any way for those of us who really don’t want that crap to strip it out of the browser. I don’t want all this ai garbage, never asked for it, and am harassed at every corner by every fucking company thinking it’s somehow going to change the world.
Sure, Mozilla allows you to turn off some of these features, but I’ve already had it reenabled in updates after previously disabling it. Further, many of the settings are buried in about:config, which is not a user-friendly way to make those changes. At best, these functionalities should be opt-in and presented as addons that can be installed, rather than being a core part of the browser that cannot be removed.
I do not want the dev tools and neither the Extension framework, can I get rid of those? No? Being able to completely disable the features is not enough how? How does the code laying bare on your harddisk get in your way of using FX? They already promised a kill-switch. And you saying it turned on after an update is but an anecdote.
You asked, and I gave my opinion. All this AI bullshit has done and continues to do significant damage to the global economy and ecology, god forbid I have a problem with that or any company contributing to it.
I feel like you’re just here to piss into the wind.
Do you hear people screaming to disable the extension frame work or devtools?
No?
If you don’t want those features you can compile your own version of Firefox and remove them.
But lots of people are anti-AI. And there are people willing to provide a browser that keeps it out.
If you want it, have at it. But don’t piss on people just because they don’t.
I’ll try to give an out-of-the-loop answer to this, if that helps. Concerning “AI” tools, I think the chunk of people who don’t want it included in the browser on any level come in one or both of two forms. One is a moral opposition – for example, a pro-environmental or pro-artist stance. I don’t think those need much explanation, but feel free to say otherwise.
The other is in my opinion is in response to exhaustion. Pro-“AI” features have proven themselves to be untrustworthy at nearly every turn with thoughtless or downright irresponsible implementations. A worthwhile use-case is the exception rather than the norm and It’s tiring to have to constantly check if this time I want it on or not. As a result of opt-in-by-default changes to privacy policies or account settings, my trust in any site or app publishing an “AI” implementation has been broken and it’s nice to have options I don’t have to worry about wherever I can get them. I found it irritatingly tone-deaf that Mozilla wasn’t considering a kill-switch with their first swing at this.
If it seems unreasonable or hard-to-understand, I think taking a step back and looking at the broader software industry rather than just Mozilla will help.
These are all valid reasons. I’ll also add that I personally desire manual control over my computing experience. A huge part of the reason I run Linux is that it does exactly what I tell it to and nothing more. When you start introducing other agents to my user agent, it ceases to be a user agent. Something else is arranging my tabs. Something is popping info up into in my face that I didn’t ask to see (and which might be incorrect). I just want these things to go away so my browser can be my browser again and not be under the control of a random word guesser.
Yes, I have turned these features off, but I don’t even want them installed. They’ve been force-installed onto my system through software that didn’t used to do that. If I lose my config, I have to go turn it all back off again. I’d rather just not have the feature anywhere in the software. I’d rather Firefox just not smuggle AI features onto my PC at all.
I don’t know the others but for me, it’s the constant bugging with their users. I’ve used Firefox since the beginning, and they have made bad choices before, but this is the last straw. I’m tired of circumventing these choices, sometimes doing so is not even that transparent as a “kill switch” and users had to find strings in a cryptic about::config page, for example.
More important, I don’t want so-called AI in my life. I couldn’t care less about it. I won’t use it unless it helps me to find some scientific conclusion that advances our culture, and I’m not talking something huge, I’m not saying it shouldn’t be used at all. However, any use of AI for cotidian achievable tasks is morally unacceptable for me, and I’d ask for everyone a space for reflection on whether it is something filling a necessity in their lives. So, I guess it’s a rupture for me with Mozilla. I can’t use their product because I find it fundamentally wrong to support the massive use of technologies that barely do any good to society, and none to the planet. It’s not about another little discrepancy on features and settings, it’s about not giving people like me the platform to shout “fuck it, I don’t want it, stop it now”.
I’m still mad at them for forcing that useless Pocket icon in the toolbar.
Yeah, the AI- free Firefox browser is normal firefox with the AI slider set to “off”
A sports car is a van where you weld the back doors shut.
Very funny, but in what scenario does my proposed solution not work
The other day I watched this video and I think it makes a very good case. https://subscribeto.me/w/7qSsYEPM2aC3D6stdZ54nq (the website is the author’s peertube instance)
Mozilla might be the only company trying to provide privacy first AI features.
They are not. There are boatloads of privacy friendly “AI” implementations, they just aren’t very high profile.
But I do think people are over-reacting. This is a less bad approach. And if you can turn it off and leave it off, what’s the big deal?
The big deal is that development time is put into these… Uh… “features”.
I use Floorp on desktop. Since I got used to it, I just can’t live without that advanced sidebar. Being able to open the mobile versions of web pages right on the side is just too useful.
Any recommendations for iOS? I switched to Librewolf on my Linux pc and Fennec on my Android phone, but still have Firefox on my iPad. Looking for good alternatives.
All browsers on iPhone are reskinned Safari as far as I’m aware. I don’t think it matters much what you pick.
I could be wrong though.
You’re right, expect in the European Union where Apple is forced to let people install non-Safari browsers.
didn’t that change some time ago?
I think it’s only Europe that is looking into that.
