390
Quick post about AI-free FireFox Based Browsers (Keep your Addons and avoid the Bloat)
(infosec.pub)
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<
Really hate how iOS has zero alternatives. Thanks apple for your stupid WebKit.
I bought an old Pixel 7a with (new) case for less than $179 USD and put Graphene OS on it. Definitely cheaper than buying youself a new iPhone, and installation is easy af.
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.
To be honest I don't use Firefox on android anyways because it's noticeably slower than chromium. Since I'm on graphene is I just stick to vanadium + DNS level adblocking.
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.
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
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.
Safari on iOS is especially tolerable since they allowed uBlock Origin Lite onto the App Store recently.
They whaaat? Finally!!
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.
At the moment, iOS doesn’t not allow any other browser engines. Every browser on iOS is just reskinned Safari.
That's kind of a blessing in disguise; otherwise basically all web traffic would be Chrome.
Apparenty this is softening some: https://www.techspot.com/news/108965-japan-gives-apple-december-deadline-drop-ios-browser.html
And Safari is quite performant on iOS.
Maybe I'm too cynical, but I wouldn't mind if that continues, just so there's some chunk of traffic that isn't Chrome and that web development doesn't turn into a complete monoculture. A smidge of Firefox and Safari alone isn't enough for that.
(EDIT: My assumption is that if Apple allows Chrome on iOS, you can bet they are going to funnel basically everyone into it).
That traffic only skews the graph like a false positive. While WebKit itself is oss, apple's tendency to just separate itself from the rest of the world makes it largely irrelevant. There are very few alternative browsers based on webkit for other platforms and the expected benefit of developers having to cater to apple's choices are thus negligible for the rest of us.
Still. I don't want to be on an internet where Chrome is basically the only develoment target, and for most sites to work properly you have to be on Google's browser. Safari's mere existance forces at least some generalization, but that disappears if Google pushes most of those users to Chrome anyway.
That's the internet where Google has even more total control.
I agree, my point is that safari's dominance on iOS is not the light at the end of the tunnel, it does very little to offer alternatives to chromium.
Yep. I really really want Waterfox on IOS but I've settled for Qwant. It's not bad.
Yeah but the problem with iOS is that all browsers must use the Safari rendering engine under the hood (except in the EU, but not many developers create a browser for just the EU)