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Just the Browser: tools to remove AI and other bloatware from Chrome, Edge and Firefox
(justthebrowser.com)
this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2026
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Technology
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Just use Librewolf
Grumpy ken thinks "Just use Foo" meming is promoting mindless use and I think should therefore be discouraged. Even in jest I think this affects us subconsciously to feel more comfortable with not thinking deeper for ourselves. Even if X is the right one. "Use Foo already!" is nicer~!
If I may illustrate:
Use Konform Browser^1^ already!
^1^: Disclosures: Am dev; is LibreWolf fork
I really like the Zen browser. It's Firefox-based, open source and privacy focused with AI removed but it's also really pretty and is built around vertical tabs
Zen browser my beloved 🥰
I love zen browser and its workspaces. I just cannot use any other Firefox forks anymore without it. It's more than just containers in Firefox.
Ia this just desktop? No mobile?
For the time being yeah. I still use Firefox on mobile myself but I do hope they release a mobile version at some point
Ironfox on mobile of you'd like no telemetery and enhanced privacy.
You know what would be nice? If the group gets saved as bookmarks (maybe
Session/group-name) and you could just save/load such a session as a group.For those interested
https://librewolf.net/installation/
https://codeberg.org/librewolf/issues/issues/1919
Thanks to @acockworkorange@mander.xyz for the context below.
Also you can host your own search engine for even more privacy.
https://docs.searxng.org/index.html
The relevant bit from the second link:
Thanks for taking the time I didn't initially have to provide context.
Also if privacy is more of a goal you can self host a search engine with searxng
https://docs.searxng.org/index.html
As a libreworlf user, I'd have to advise some caution to regular users. A lot of sites are broken as images won't load and "fancier" web apps don't work super well either. Yes it's an easy fix, but expecting someone to go look in the config files to get an image to load is too much for a lot of people
That's why I recommend Waterfox instead to non technical users
I haven't experienced this behavior. Can you provide a URL for me to test against.
Same. No issues at all.
Open netflix. Even with a lot of features turned off and DRM enabled, it will regularly fail to load any content.
And, yes, the general user will want sites like netflix to work.
Weird, app.plex.tv, emby client, jellyfin client, netflix.com, and prime video at https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/ are all currently working for me. Can you share your LibreWolf config? Maybe I can help you fix it.
No need. It seem it got fixed along the way. But that's the point; I tried this a year ago, and it would not work, either under the default configuration with DRM enabled, or after disabling most of the privacy features, so I just gave up on it.
Firefox, for all the flaws regarding the direction Mozilla is taking, just worked out of the box. And for adoption, working out of the box immediately is kind of a requirement.
It would be helpful that when you report something is working or not, that you test a modern version, or you state when you last had the failure. Misinformation is not something we should be spreading. It can do far more harm than good.
Also hopefully the top comments config script works for you or you've found an alternative browser like WaterFox or others.
I’d recommend switching to something like Bitwarden for your passwords so you can take them with you and also switch your stuff around if you ever want to
You can, and they sync with your Mozilla account. I had your reasoning when using Microslop Edge and Microslop Authenticator. I set up Bitwarden now and while it's not perfect, I do prefer to have full control of my passwords.
YOU SHALL NOT PASSwizard!
I've been using Librewolf for some months now. You can migrate your Firefox profile into Librewolf, that's what I did and it retained my passwords. I'm not very tech savvy but it does have some kinks, my browser clock is off I've tried tinkering with it but gave up. And especially with the Resist Fingerprinting enabled it seems to not retain my 2 factor id for sites when I ask it to remember me.
Was about to say exactly this same thing....
LibreWolf here I come...
Your browser clock is not off. LibreWolf, Tor Browser, Mullvad Browser etc. set your browser's reported timezone to GMT to not reveal which timezone you're actually in.
And I don't understand what you're talking about in the last sentence.
Sounds like a cookie isn't being saved, so they have to enter their 2fa every time instead of having the site trust the browser
Librewolf by default clears cookies on close, which is kind of annoying for anything with a 2fa login. It can be changed on the settings, but you have to know that's an option and the root of the behavior, which most regular people won't.
your clock is off because you have resistfingerprinting turned on, so it puts you into utc+0 to prevent tracking.
and you have to explicitly allow to save cookies for specific domains to not get logged out (check out the padlock icon in the status bar, there's an option to keep data for the domain you're on)
The clock is part of their fingerprinting resistance strategy. It doesn't provide correct timezone info to sites.
So can librewolf… its got settings!
You can still use firefox sync as well
Well yeah, Librewolf is basically nothing but settings.
Firefox settings.
Confuses me no end when people rage against Mozilla and then recommend a product that cannot exist without Mozilla.
Whats confusing about it? People took something that was going bad and made it good again. Thats the benefit of open source. Even if Mozilla goes closed source the already existing forks can continue
Theoretically yes, practically no. Maintaining a secure modern web engine that's up to date with - and a part of - setting web standards is something that costs tens of millions per year. Sometimes this even spills into the hundreds of millions.
Random fork projects don't have the resources to do that.
A software has roughly three parts: core functionality, UI, default settings. Zen does the UI part and default settings different.
Try waterfox maybe?
Waterfox? Fennec-about-it!
You can switch to WaterFox and it seamlessly uses the FireFox sync to use all your passwords. Very easy drop in replacement.
I think even with Librewolf you need to open the about:config page and disable browser.ml settings.
afaik is that fixed by now - the team strongly opposes ai and stated that they want to keep it as clean as possible
Oh, glad to hear that. I still check out of privacy-guarding habit.
Fair and valid.
I switched from Firefox to Librewolf about a month ago and it's been wonderful. I can't imagine what it would take for me to switch back to Firefox. I'll probably ride Librewolf until the project dies or gets corrupted.
The defaults are bad and some options are either: fully protect fingerprinting OR no protection at all