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Firefox browser falls to AI. What do we do now? (pivot-to-ai.com)
submitted 9 months ago by [M] to c/techtakes@awful.systems
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where ‘absolutely not’ means ‘maybe later’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c40irxnC_qM&list=UU9rJrMVgcXTfa8xuMnbhAEA - video
https://pivottoai.libsyn.com/20251223-firefox-browser-falls-to-ai-what-do-we-do-now - podcast

time: 9 min 39 sec

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[–] 8 points 9 months ago (8 children)

how are the defaults for librewolf? I’m considering switching but I’m hearing mixed things about the defaults occasionally breaking sites. waterfox seems pretty good too, but I don’t see it packaged as frequently as librewolf.

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  • [–] 14 points 9 months ago

    My only difficulty with LibreWolf on Ubuntu was getting it to be the default browser (it didn't show up in the list of options). Turns out xdg-settings set default-web-browser librewolf.desktop on the command line did the trick.

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  • [–] 14 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    i'll go against the grain here: Librewolfs's defaults are firmly "meh" for me. still an improvement over the "what the fuck" that's happening in Firefox.

    pros: nixs the annoying Pocket / AI / "suggested" nonsense by default. no annoying extras.

    neutrals: Firefox Sync is off, but one click and a restart to turn back on. reasonable for a non-Mozilla project. no cookies saved by default might be annoying for some, but you can add exceptions right from the URL bar and i only have a dozen or so of those set for various sites. gods, cohost is still in that list...

    cons: ResistFingerprinting is IMHO way overkill and breaks nice things like automatic dark modes just for preserving privacy in the 0.001% of cases where browser fingerprinting matters. same as WebGL being off by default -- i just don't need that kind of protection

    i still recommend it. Disable ResistFingerprinting, enable WebGL, enable Firefox Sync, and decide for yourself if you want auto-clearing cookies or not. i also always enable vertical tabs because my horizontal space is a lot less constricted than my vertical. (it's a FF feature!)

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

    If you are on Linux I think you will find interest in Konform Browser, which started as a fork of LibreWolf addressing some of your pains. Am dev so please allow me to shill for a bit.

    Specifically to your comment:

    ResistFingerprinting is IMHO way overkill and breaks nice things like automatic dark modes just for preserving privacy in the 0.001% of cases where browser fingerprinting matters

    Konform can respect user theming preferences and dark mode even under Private Mode / RFP.

    Firefox Sync,

    While Konform still keeps it off by default, it allows configuring endpoints for a self-hosted or third-party Sync server from the Preferences without having to dive into about:config.

    Besides that, it goes even further than LW in disabling built-in remote connections, snoopware, and AI integrations.

    I hope you might consider it <3

    fedi thread

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  • [–] 11 points 9 months ago

    The defaults are pretty strict, but most of the page-breaking stuff can be changed in the LibreWolf settings and each one has a description which usually contains a link to a wiki article detailing why you'd want to change it or think twice before changing it.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago

    started switching and testing options last week. Librewolf's default are awful, but undoing that has been better than having to look at the ugly Waterfox logo, in my opinion. If the logo is a non issue for you, WF had better default settings. I'm overly particular

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