LibreWolf Privacy Respecting Browser, 64 Bit

[Member ModdIt]

Librewolf: a modern browser based on Mozilla open source code. caveat 64 Bit only.
https://librewolf-community.gitlab.io/ Home and gives info as well as lead to download sites.
Features
Latest Firefox — LibreWolf is compiled directly from the latest build of Firefox Stable. You will have the the latest features, and security updates.
Independent Build — LibreWolf uses a build independent of Firefox and has its own settings, profile folder and installation path.
As a result, it can be installed alongside Firefox or any other browser.
No phoning home — Embedded server links and other calling home functions are removed. In other words, minimal background connections by default.
User settings updates
Extensions firewall: limit internet access for extensions.
Multi-platform
Community-Driven

Ublock origin is installed as default.
The project is very active, releases follow latest F Fox very closely.

Has a set of respectable search engines i.e. low or no tracking.
Does not send every search term to google, firefox does.
Does not follow the deceipt of Mozilla in that settings made by user are not always
changed in config. This is a privacy and trust issue.

is available for Bullseye only in appimage form so there are no automatic updates.

Watching the network while starting and using LibreWolf showed it to be very quiet.

Out of interest I wanted to take a look in the appimage. Nice is that it is a zipped archive,
just change from appimage to.zip and unpack, it will decompress in the containing directory

Package contents, as expected are very similar to the firefox it is based on.
It has the pingsender extension, I renamed it to pigsbender. Ping is disabled in config.
In Browser features there are several hidden extensions. The only one which I found
bothering was screenshot, in Firefox that can be remotely controlled according to dev
notes, that includes headless mode for debugging !. Convincing, no so deleted.

Firefox downloaded from mozilla and unpacked (it comes zipped) will usually start with a click
on the binary, usualy because mozilla has modified the start on occasion.

choices:
Use as appimage, make executable, click and go, how to make a starter, described many times in the forum.

Run uncompressed

Unpacked Librewolf has a start script
launch_librewolf.sh’ which I have only working when the wolf is in a directory in home called
Librewolf. After first start, for that I dragged the script title in to a shell window, the
next start is extremely fast, just a click on the script or a start icon that LibreWolf generates
needed. Nice. The start speed can be explained by no more need to unpack, no reporting engines and
ping machines active to slow down the machine.

Sound may be an issue for some, depends on user setup.

I no longer use a browser for media, we have better tools in antiX.

Looks good, works well. Fairly lightweight, does not generate gigabytes of cache as chromium and chromium based browsers do.

• This topic was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by ModdIt.
• This topic was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by Brian Masinick. Reason: Moved to Tips and Tricks

[Anonymous]

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Thanks for carrying the torch and pursuing the topic of best privacy-respecting web browser, Moddit. Currently I’m battling neck cancer and am out-of-touch with the online world, but six months ago I would have agreed that LibreWolf (along with Ungoogled Chromium) is the best available prospect. I do worry that both projects fail to “go far enough” though toward eradicating (selectively withholding from their custom compilations) unwanted bundled components (getpocket, experiments…) and unwanted / unneeded / worrisome “features” (topsites, activity stream, newtab embedded crud, screenshot capability, peerconnection aka webRTC…)

This detail continues to give me pause:

https://librewolf-community.gitlab.io/docs/

Other acknowledgements

@pyllyukko for compiling their user.js file

During past reviews, I have found disfavor with many of the recommended-by-pyllyukko preference values.

[Member ModdIt]

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Really sad to hear you are hit with cancer, even worse now as covid negatively affecting about every service,
health and hospitals especialy.

I agree that both LibreWolf and ungoogled Chromium can be improved. LibreWolf is perhaps the easiest to further tame,
especialy now I know how to run it unpacked and can remove the hidden extensions and kill pingsender.

For ungoogled Chromium I am a bit fed up of being hampered by extension policy, only on chrome store forced by google.

Looks like I will have to mess with an otherwise never used device logged in to an open network with chrome and a gmail
adress to get some extensions, seems not so difficult to sideload.

In ungoogled Chromium
about:about leads to chrome://about/ and gives more insight in to what is easy to change. Trouble is most users, that
includes my daughterr refuse to think about the implications of using google daily everywhere.

@pyllyukko user.js, really designed not to bother the user with need to change profile or browser for some sites rather
than for security or privacy.

Biggest bugbear is sites which twist our arms, one such left me using vivaldi today. Needed to send money to sweden and
that was the least evil (I hope) of my possible choices. Going to a bank and doing a paper transfer is highly involved
extremely expensive, and data from the transfer gets sent all around the world. Talk about money wash prevention, that
is only for the poor. The rich and influential just laugh and fly off with a private jet.

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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Skidoo wrote:
Currently I’m battling neck cancer and am out-of-touch with the online world…

Prayers for your comfort and healing.

--
Brian Masinick

[Member ModdIt]

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Installation rwevisited and Appimage updater, updating looks interesting but not yet tested,
maybe somebody smarter than me can figure out a privacy friendly way of notification that an update
is available.

For the rest of us shortly after a new FF version we can check for availability of an update.

AppImage
Download LibreWolf-94.0.2-2.x86_64.AppImageView all versions and release notes

Then run chmod +x LibreWolf-*.AppImage to make it executable. To install LibreWolf permanently via an AppImage, we recommend something like AppImageLauncher.

Updating
AppImage files are now released as gitlab packages as well at https://gitlab.com/librewolf-community/browser/appimage/-/packages. This allows having stable links (at https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/24386000/packages/generic/librewolf/latest/$FILE_NAME)` which can be used as update information for the AppImage releases.

This means that from this release onward, AppImage releases can be updated with AppImageUpdater.

A release downloaded as LibreWolf.x86_64.AppImage, for example, can be updated with ./AppImageUpdate-x86_64.AppImage -d ./LibreWolf.x86_64.AppImage.

[Anonymous]

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ModdIt wrote:

Out of interest I wanted to take a look in the appimage. Nice is that it is a zipped archive,
just change from appimage to.zip and unpack, it will decompress in the containing directory

Tried it. Unzip fails to open it (not recognized as a “zip” file seemingly…); only way is using File-roller.
Any ideas?

@skidoo:
Oh damn…
Hope you get better really soon.

[Member blur13]

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./LibreWolf-[version xx.x-x-].x86_64.AppImage –appimage-extract

[Member Girafenaine]

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Hello,

If you are interested in a script to keep LibreWolf AppImage up-to-date, I wrote a little script for this need (as it is my main browser) and shared it on MX forum :

https://forum.mxlinux.org/viewtopic.php?p=665637#p665637

I added this script in my “up” alias (up = apt update && apt list –upgradable && sudo apt full-upgrade && LWupdater). Seems to work well as far as I am concerned !

Girafenaine
----
Antix 19 - Fluxbox - Live USB stick and frugal / MX 19 - Fluxbox - Dell XPS 7590

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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Girafenaine wrote:

Hello,

If you are interested in a script to keep LibreWolf AppImage up-to-date, I wrote a little script for this need (as it is my main browser) and shared it on MX forum :

https://forum.mxlinux.org/viewtopic.php?p=665637#p665637

I added this script in my “up” alias (up = apt update && apt list –upgradable && sudo apt full-upgrade && LWupdater). Seems to work well as far as I am concerned !

In order for the “up” alias to work from a user account, it should read:

alias up=’sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get dist-upgrade’

or

alias up=’sudo apt update; sudo apt list –upgradable; sudo apt full-upgrade’

None of the apt commands can be performed from the user account, you have to either use sudo, login as root, or su to root.

I have a couple of similar alias definitions in my .bashrc:

alias ug=’sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get dist-upgrade’
alias ugb=’sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get dist-upgrade; sudo update-grub’
alias ur=’sudo apt-get autoremove’

--
Brian Masinick

[Member Girafenaine]

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Hello Brian,

You’re right, I have in my bashrc :

alias up='sudo apt update && apt list --upgradable && sudo apt full-upgrade && LWupdate'

I think apt list –upgradable doesn’t need sudo.

Girafenaine
----
Antix 19 - Fluxbox - Live USB stick and frugal / MX 19 - Fluxbox - Dell XPS 7590

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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@Girafenaine: re. apt list –upgradable

Right you are! If you issue an apt list command, the “list” parameter does not require elevated privileges.

--
Brian Masinick

[Member ModdIt]

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ctcx wrote

Tried it. Unzip fails to open it (not recognized as a “zip” file seemingly…); only way is using File-roller.
Any ideas?

Just downloaded latest version, renamed to .zip, it unpacked without issue.
So why it did not work for you, sorry no idea.
same goes for the command blur 13 gave ./LibreWolf-[version xx.x-x-].x86_64.AppImage –appimage-extract

Do put it in a fresh directory before unpacking, I forgot before testing, what a mess in downloads.

[Member Eismckwadraat19]

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Thanks for this post, very interesting.
I wonder how libreWolf compares to epic browser.
I don’t think Epic is available for linux, but in my test on windows I saw that it is quite aggressive…
Because of this, some websites do not work, is this also the case with LibreWolf?

-I find capitalism repugnant. It is filthy, it is gross, it is alienating... because it causes war, hypocrisy and competition-

Fidel Castro

[Member ModdIt]

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hi Eism* I do not know epic, what I read did not sound so convincing, will take a look.

libreWolf is setup for usability, what it removes is a lot of Mozilla sneaky stuff, i.e.
talk about their privacy but use other partners to breach it.

You have access to about:config, can use user.js userchrome CSS to tighten up LibreWolf
more if wanted. Or in config and prefs.js to see what has been done already.

As yet I have not had site breakage, famous last words maybe, there is always some site where
only the worst and most privacy invading browsers are accepted.

good reading.
http://www.danielnpaul.com/NativeAmericanDemocracy.html

[Member Eismckwadraat19]

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I have now downloaded LibreWolf.
Let’s see how it works in practice.
I’m also curious about the settings.
In these times when privacy is no longer worth anything, I highly recommend projects like libreWolf…

-I find capitalism repugnant. It is filthy, it is gross, it is alienating... because it causes war, hypocrisy and competition-

Fidel Castro

[Author]

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