Like every Firefox also LibreWolf needs Addons. It’s a good idea to start with uMatrix, this allows to block everything and also to tune these blockings. For switching the Tor network on or off you can use Proxy Toggle. A good idea is also cutting the history after two days or so, use History Cleaner for that.
A speciality is that LibreWolf also doesn’t use Firefox’s or any own synchronization and update mechanisms for privacy reasons. Updates must be done manually (as known from Chromium) from time to time. If you want a synchronization between other browsers or machines you can install an Addon like xBrowserSync.
Ah, forgot to mention: LibreWolf is included in the Windows software repository behind the winget tool. You can install and update LibreWolf using winget on any Windows machine easily. winget should be installed, just open a terminal window and type
I’d say: Stay with Firefox but tweak it.
It is a good browser and the only important alternative to the Chrome universe.
The downside is that out of the box Firefox is tracking the user behaviour. But it is easy to be switched-off:
But let me refine my advice:
Stay with Firefox, tweak it and tell the makers of Firefox that you profoundly dislike user tracking.
For me, Vivaldi is the best solution. I know there are more privacy-friendly browsers, but for me it’s the perfect combination of privacy, ease-of-use, customizability, and helpful features.
On Win I am using Vivaldi too, nice features and customization options.
Does anybody follow the impervious.ai project?
Could be something, I am just not a tech guy to understand much…
If privacy is your concern, there is no other choice but a tweaked Firefox. That practically means read alot of stuff about about:config or use template user.js files. I’m only familiar with a german guide with user.js templates. Autotranslate might help, or you have a look at the template files yourself and decide, what you want.
If you are not willing to do that, choose Librewolf as they do some stuff for you, but not everything. You still have to look into some about:config changes. But be aware that you are at some security risk as Librewolf releases days after a new Firefox version.
No other browser can be configured for privacy as Firefox.
Un-Googled Chromium is a great option. You have to do a little tweaking on your own but very minimal. This is cross-platform as well, to include mobile.
@Sangokuss Thanks for sharing. I would hope most people would make some customizations to help address some of these issues. Librewolf already comes with some extensions out of the box, while UnGoogled Chromium does not. I am curious to know if these tests are ran using each browser’s default settings or after such changes in the settings have been made. Either way, a very informative website.
People should take an active role in adding to their privacy and security of their browser via extensions and settings. How many do that? How many even think about it?
Here are a few that tend to be very useful. They can only add to one’s toolbox.
Decentraleyes - Protects you against tracking through “free”, centralized, content delivery.
Privacy Badger is a browser extension that automatically learns to block invisible trackers.
Canvas Fingerprint Defender - Defending against canvas fingerprinting by reporting a fake value.
TrackerControl is an Android app that allows users to monitor and control the widespread, ongoing, hidden data collection in mobile apps about user behaviour (‘tracking’).
To detect tracking, TrackerControl combines the power of the Disconnect blocklist, used by Firefox, and our in-house blocklist is used, created from analysing ~2 000 000 apps! Additionally, TrackerControl supports custom blocklists and uses the signatures from ClassyShark3xodus/Exodus Privacy for the analysis of tracker libraries within app code.
Decentraleyes often gets outdated, LocalCDN is a good alternative to it. and Privacy Badger isn’t really needed anymore, especially when you set up uBlock Origin to block third party scripts by default. EFF is going to sunset it anyway.