cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/12400033 (Thank you https://lemmy.ml/u/Kory !)
I first used Linux about 5 years ago (Ubuntu). Since then, I have tried quite a few distros:
Kali Linux (Use as a secondary)
Linux Mint (Used for a while)
Arch Linux (Could not install)
Tails (Use this often)
Qubes OS (Tried it twice, not ready yet)
Fedora (Current main)
For me, it has been incredibly difficult to find a properly privacy oriented Linux distro that also has ease of use. I really enjoy the GNOME desktop environment, and I am most familiar with Debian. My issue with Fedora is the lack of proper sandboxing, and it seems as though Qubes is the only one that really takes care in sandboxing apps.
Apologies if this is the wrong community for this question, I would be happy to move this post somewhere else. I've been anonymously viewing this community after the Rexodus, but this is my first time actually creating a post. Thank you!
UPDATE:
Thank you all so much for your feedback! The top recommended distro by far was SecureBlue, an atomic distro, so I will be trying that one. If that doesn't work, I may try other atomic distros such as Fedora Atomic or Fedora Silverblue (I may have made an error in my understanding of those two, please correct my if I did!). EndeavourOS was also highly recommended, so if I'm not a fan of atomic distros I will be using that. To @leraje@lemmy.blahaj.zone, your suggestion for Linux Mint Debian Edition with GNOME sounds like a dream, so I may use it as a secondary for my laptop. Thank you all again for your help and support, and I hope this helps someone else too!
Bubblejail allows to create different seccomp filters per app. This means you can allow the browsers to create namespaces, which fixes that problem. There are tons of problems though.
Yup needed some time to understand that zypak thing too. I think it boils down to that issue, they will be okay but less secure than possible, so... why not use something else?
Yeah there are a ton of hardening arguments. Currently I cant build that damn stuff anymore because somehow I have missing build deps that I have installed and added to my path 100%.
In this repo I collect my mozconfig, and if everything goes well I will use github builder to make RPMs. That would be lit, because I would have all of them hardened, but for v3 and v4 optimized. Put in a directory, do some rpm repo magic and I have my own repo.
Feel free to help me figure that stuff out. Librewolf has a nice build pipeline, I created a PR to just support replacing the malloc, that would be the easiest and best solution.
Then fedora firefox and librewolf would allow that, only flathub firefox missing really. Replacing the malloc is a very unsupported case for flatpak though, as the apps should be OS-unspecific.
That's very neat! Hopefully it comes through!
But even with the ability to replace malloc, isn't Firefox still vastly inferior compared to Chromium if security is desired? Or are they actually operating in close proximity of each other in terms of security features?
Arguable. Chromium is just horrible to use. No sync, that would require something NOT Brave or Vivaldi to step up. Floccus is overcomplicated, xbrowsersync unmaintained.
Firefox had core components rewritten in rust too.
@Pantherina @Throwaway1234
GrapheneOS authors stated that Firefox is less secure. The biggest issue is that Android is very reliant on WebView and so you inevitably have to increase your attack surface if you install a new browser.
We are talking about different platforms here.
Firefox on Android (fenix) has no process isolation at all. Same with all those tiny browsers that use the webview (every Browser with less than 50MB download size uses the webview, like Edge, DDG "privacy browser", the common FOSS browsers and likely more).
Currently for some reason 3rd party Browsers cant use the Chrome Trichrome library to use the full process isolation stuff, but need to ship it in their APK.
Then on Linux Firefox (gecko) has process isolation, which for some reason is supposed to be compatible with sandbox. I opened an issue about that, asking for an explanation as there is none afaik.
Only on Windows does Firefox have some form of advanced memory protection, which is unfortunate.
So on Android, full Chromium Browsers have sandboxing, fenix and webview wrappers (and every app) can only spawn a single process.
Also on Android there is a Webview based on Chromium, which most apps utilize, which can lead to the assumption (firefox on Android increases attack surface). Not though, that apps only connect to dedicated websites mostly. Also, this only makes a difference if hackers would target Firefox mobile, which has tiny marketshare.
Meanwhile it should be more likely they target Chromium on mobile, do not using Chromium could spare you of some attacks targeted at the most commonly used Browser on mobile.
Then to the usability issues
And the privacy problems