Is Firefox OK?

Mozilla’s privacy-heavy browser is flatlining but still crucial to future of the web.

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[Moodyz]

As a desktop Linux user, the thought of Firefox going away is frightening.

Putting aside Mozilla's own lack of direction, what really perplexes me is why there's so many projects dedicated to fluff like desktop environments but almost zero motivation for a good browser/fork. RedHat/IBM seem to only care about the cloud, so there's no hope for Epiphany anymore. Canonical is busy trying to snapify everything to ensure we turn geriatric while waiting for snap packages to load. System76 wants to build yet-another-gnome-alternative instead of doing something sensible like donating to the Librewolf project.

Seriously, if/when Firefox dies (they've started working with Satan/Meta, so it's pretty close I reckon), I'll probably just ditch desktop Linux for home use and move to iPadOS (personally not a fan of MacOS, which I use at work) and Safari or something, because the only alternatives on Linux at that point will be reskinned Chrome alternatives like Brave, ugh.

 

[Moodyz]

As a desktop Linux user, the thought of Firefox going away is frightening.

Putting aside Mozilla's own lack of direction, what really perplexes me is why there's so many projects dedicated to fluff like desktop environments but almost zero motivation for a good browser/fork. RedHat/IBM seem to only care about the cloud, so there's no hope for Epiphany anymore. Canonical is busy trying to snapify everything to ensure we turn geriatric while waiting for snap packages to load. System76 wants to build yet-another-gnome-alternative instead of doing sensible like donating to the Librewolf project.

Seriously, if/when Firefox dies (they've started working with Satan/Meta, so it's pretty close I reckon), I'll probably just ditch desktop Linux for home use and move to iPadOS (personally not a fan of MacOS, which I use at work) and Safari or something, because the only alternatives on Linux at that point will be reskinned Chrome alternatives like Brave, ugh.

Have you not tried Palemoon? I use that on Linux and Windows. It's pretty much Firefox from 10 years ago as far as the GUI is concerned.

I used it some years ago but something (can't remember what) broke and I ran back to FF. Nowadays I'm mostly on Librewolf (basically Firefox + Arkenfox.js). Currently taking a look at Palemoon's website. I do like that it offers a traditional repository install method instead of the new-age Snap/Flatpak nonsense. Some questions about the Linux version, if you don't mind;

How's Palemoon doing these days on the security front? Are they up-to-date with all the usual CVEs and whatnot?

What kind of browser-fingerprint does it leave, and can I spoof it?

Does uBlock Origin work? Currently looking at the Extensions section on Palemoon's site and it's listed as "Legacy".

Does it integrate with my GTK theme? Current Firefox/Librewolf doesn't either, but at least I can beat it into submission with CSS editing, unlike Brave or Chrome which just look like their Windows versions.

X11 or Wayland, or both? For X11, will the usual firejail sandboxing cause problems?

GPU acceleration?

 

[Moodyz]

I switched from Windows to Ubuntu and the biggest surprise for me is how much I like Firefox. While it's not perfect it feels like a upgrade over any of the current chromium-based web browsers. I'm happy to throw so money at them to keep Firefox going.

The problem is that there's no way to ensure your donations go to Firefox development. There was a big thread on /r/rust some years ago where developers were complaining about this. Same concerns were echoed on /r/firefox and hackernews (here's one example), and I don't think much has changed since then. Most of FF's funding comes from Search (ie; Google) while the money we give Mozilla might, for all we know, just go straight to that CEO's ever-increasing yearly bonus.