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We finally dedicate a small article to LibreWolf, one of the Fork of Firefox most interesting ever and we will soon find out why! In fact, we realized that we talked very often about LibreWolf in the our articles but we have never dedicated a real complete article to it and we finally decided to do so for a particular reason.
How many of you have noticed some of the graphic changes we've made to the site in recent weeks? There are some small things such as the elimination of some bulky elements and greater minimalism because, as you know, we want to highlight the articles by removing everything that can distract: no "recommended articles" in the middle of the articles, no advertising or anything else. You might be thinking: what does all this have to do with LibreWolf? Well, the most attentive will surely have already discovered that on the homepage we have put a quick list of some quick alternatives to find for all those in a hurry.
The names in this list do not lead to the various official projects but to dedicated articles on our site and given that LibreWolf appears in that list as Browsers recommended for desktop it seemed only right to talk about it in a dedicated article!
LibreWolf, the alternative to Firefox which derives from Firefox
As mentioned, therefore, LibreWolf derives from Firefox and, unlike Mullvad Browsers you hate Tor Browsers, comes from the latest version of Firefox and not the versions ESR therefore also up LibreWolf you will find all the latest changes developed by Mozilla. This thing, for daily use, is certainly excellent news because new interesting and practical functions are often implemented (such as editing PDFs (Archive | Arweave) which take a long time before being adopted even in the ESR versions.
Firefox, as we already have could explain, it's excellent Browsers but it is designed for a general audience and to work as well as if not better than Chrome. It is therefore also for this reason in our opinion that you cannot allow too many particular settings which certainly protect privacy but which can disturb during daily navigation. One example above all, just to make us understand: up LibreWolf a local time is set by default which is not the true one of our computer but is the same for all those who use LibreWolf, this serves to increase its resistance to Fingerprinting but as you can imagine on some sites it can be annoying. It certainly can modify this functionality on a site-by-site basis but as we were saying it is a Browsers dedicated to those who actively want to protect privacy knowing that they may have some collateral annoyance and cannot be a change applied to anyone who wants to use a Browsers.
No DRM content
Another feature that isn't suitable for everyone is for example disabling the content with DRM so for example LibreWolf by default will not run this type of content so you wouldn't want it Netflix, in order to understand each other. This is not necessarily a bad thing but obviously for a person who is just looking for a Browsers different from Google Chrome this can be a big limitation. This option can also be easily activated in the settings but, as you may have understood, this is not the point.
Arkenfox
However, apart from this, LibreWolf it's really a Browsers excellent and perhaps it is really ideal for those who do not want a Browsers derived from Chromium (as Brave) and does not have the desire, time or simply is not capable of making certain changes independently. As we often say, however, everything always depends on you, what you need and what you are looking for. Firefox configured in this way it's an excellent compromise. Using LibreWolf is better even if it can lead to some small problems, often solvable with little.
LibreWolf, even if it doesn't seem to be written in the documentation, it takes a lot from Arkenfox, a very technical configuration with certain configurations to make your Firefox much more secure and private. Think for example that behind the scenes the Arkenfox developer worked (we don't know if he still does) together with the LibreWolf developers to make various improvements 1.
So we are talking about a project that is certainly not up in the air and with good preparation behind it. After all, just look at his results on the site PrivacyTests which literally make Firefox pale in default version and fights head on with Brave And Mullvad Browsers.
No telemetry, DuckDuckGo and uBlock Origin pre-installed
One of the often debated features is the total lack of telemetry. In fact, it was decided to eliminate it completely. This is a choice that we appreciate but which makes some people turn up their noses a bit because Mozilla would need this data to improve its Browsers.
Two other features that are highly appreciated and that immediately catch the eye are DuckDuckGo like Search engine default instead of Google And uBlock Origin which, as you well know, we also strongly recommend using on any Browsers (it's useless maybe only on Brave).
Problems on the sites
All these configurations can cause, as mentioned, some problems on some sites but generally they are all things that can be easily repaired by activating DRM or enabling the various necessary properties on a site-by-site basis. However, we can say that during standard browsing it has happened to us very few times that a site breaks down completely and almost always everything works perfectly.
The future of LibreWolf
Like all Browsers managed by the community even LibreWolf is not immune to the possible problems that often afflict the community Open source that is, to be, sooner or later, abandoned. If this happens, rest assured that you will also find out immediately from Le Alternative, which is why we always suggest you follow us. However, for now the updates have always been very quick, they always arrive in the order of 2-3 days.
In our opinion, the person who could hinder him in the future is Mullvad Browsers which, if he just changed a couple of settings, would make it almost useless the role of LibreWolf and even Arkenfox himself. We don't say it just to say it it is also a thought of the Arkenfox developer (PS: long term I am hoping we can retire arkenfox (I can't speak for LW) and just use MB – but they're just a little too divergent for now | Archive | Arweave).
Behind Mullvad Browsers there's the Tor team Browsers and of Mullvad and it's a Browsers exceptional albeit with some limitations. For example, the installation of extensions is strongly discouraged and the fact of always browsing in incognito can create some inconvenience during daily browsing.
So for now LibreWolf it's the almost perfect middle ground between Mullvad Browsers And Firefox.
How do you install and update LibreWolf?
We come to another small part that is slightly critical of LibreWolf. Its installation on Linux is quite classic (https://librewolf.net/installation/) while on Windows they completely failed to do anything completely user-friendly other than using the Windows Store.
It is in fact possible to install LibreWolf but to get the updates it is necessary to also install a second executable called LibreWolf WinUpdater which will put an automatic check for updates. Something you rarely see on Windows. However, for some time now they have also managed to put it on the Windows Store and this makes the automatic update process much simpler. There are also other methods to install it on Windows but they all always suffer from the same automatic update problem.
Even on macOS the story is not too happy and has the same problem as Windows: if you install it via the .dmg you will then have to apply the updates manually. Alternatively you will have to install it via the command console which however could cause some problems for users with Apple Silicon.
And on smartphones?
The developers of LibreWolf have never created anything for smartphones but if you want something really similar on Android you can use it Mull which is created by the developer of DivestOS and has many features in common with LibreWolf.
Conclusions
So here we are at the end of this article dedicated to LibreWolf. As you can see it comes out quite well, it can be said in short that it is the Browsers perfect for those who want privacy while sacrificing a very small part of comfort. We're not sure we would recommend it to anyone who asks us for a Browsers standard and simple to use instead of Google Chrome but we certainly recommend it to those who are a little more sailed.
As mentioned it is probably the best compromise between Firefox and Mullvad Browsers especially suitable for those who claim, even rightly, to use a Browsers not based on Chromium and therefore he doesn't look favorably on Brave or others either.
This tag @loyal alternatives is used to automatically send this post to Feddit and allow anyone on the fediverse to comment on it.
- What differentiates Mullvad Browsers from, for instance, arkenfox's user.js or Librewolf? | Archive | Arweave[↩]
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