this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2025
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Privacy
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Firefox is open-source. Certainly, you're out of options in terms of "name-brand" browsers, but there's a number of Firefox forks. On desktop, LibreWolf is the closest thing to mainline and on Android, IronFox is the equivalent.
If you want something more than just "Firefox minus the branding and tracking", some of the deeper forks are Zen Browser and Floorp.
Do any of these also have an Android equivalent? I liked being able to browse on my phone and continue on my desktop and vice versa.
There's no technical reason why you need to be using the same-named fork on desktop and Android; they will all communicate via Firefox Sync. e.g. I'm running LibreWolf (desktop) and IronFox (Android) with my data synced, but you could just as easily sync Zen Browser (desktop) and Fennec F-Droid (Android), etc.
That said, if you want to get both browsers from the same team/with the same branding, I think Waterfox is probably your best bet. It doesn't have quite as strong a privacy focus as LibreWolf/IronFox, which both ship with very strict privacy-focussed defaults, which many users will likely roll back. For example, the default setting in LibreWolf is to delete all history and cookies on exit. Even so, Waterfox is more privacy-focussed than upstream Firefox and has released a statement on the Mozilla license changes if you want to get a feel for their perspective.
Awesome,thank you for the info!
If they use Firefox sync, you are most likely only protected by the Firefox terms for anything synchronised
What happened to Fennec and PaleMoon? Are they no bueno these days?
I can't speak to PaleMoon, but I use Fennec on my phone. My understanding is that they try to track as closely as they can to Firefox main, but with enough changes to be a separate thing.
I've heard nothing negative about PaleMoon either, as far as privacy. I do think it's a bit tougher to recommend to the average user due to its single-process architecture.
The memory footprint is great, but everybody is kind of used to the performance and stability gains from multi-process browsers. I would feel weird recommending somebody coming off Firefox jump to PaleMoon.
I feel weird recommending any Firefox fork other than Iceweasel/Fennec (name change only, pretty much) or Tor/Mullvad Browser. Everything else runs a risk of poor maintenance, which could lead to security vulnerabilities.