Enough is enough with Firefox

Software
,
104

Yes, I can not disable Proton either.

105

This might help deal with some of the pain if youā€™ve updated to FF91 (I have not):

https://www.userchrome.org/firefox-89-styling-proton-ui.html

Iā€™m officially renaming FF91 to ā€œFFS91.ā€ (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/ffs)

106

And we all hope you and the other users in Greece* are safe from fires right now, @antonis. :worried:

*And in Italy, too.

107

Thank you @amarok Yes I am in safe distance. But some part of the family were in danger and evacuated their houses as the flames were approaching. They are now safe and back to their homes for repairs. This is why in another thread I wrote about emergence civil protection messages. They were notified by the European number 112 for this to evacuate. I hope L5 will soon get this capability to receive these messages. It is important.

I will check your links above to see if something can be done with ff.

1 Like
108

I fear you may want more than I can offer. I do not like Proton, but the only thing that really annoyed me to no end was the menu spacing. Here is what I used for it. (Unfortunately, I do not remember where I got this and cannot give proper credit. I am not a stylesheet guru.)

/* Tighten up drop-down/context/popup menu spacing */
menupopup > menuitem, menupopup > menu {
padding-block: 4px !important;
}
:root {
ā€“arrowpanel-menuitem-padding: 4px 8px !important;
}

I put this in chrome/userChrome.css.

109

By the way one thing I read is that before upgrading to 91, you need to make sure all the Proton stuff you might have disabled in about:config is enabled again, or else you will have some issues with the menus, checkboxes, etc.

110

At this point my main profile of Firefox is so customized for document reading that I might as well use a dedicated, feature-poor browser.

But that would leave without anything hardened for the odd time I need to enable javascript on something not entirely trustedā€¦

1 Like
111

Librewolf is a good thingā€¦

1 Like
112

I used to understand my .mozilla files - but in this latest update there are so many .jsons, .sqlites, .dbs! I used to know (or thought I knew) how to delete, for example, computer-stored logs of my activity but now am not so sure that what I delete will target that activity. Does anyone have any insight?

(I have modified all the about:configs that I know of to promote privacy and am aware that changing this may simultaneously make me more identifiable.)

113

Not an answer to your question, but:

  1. Create a fresh profile
  2. Configure it to taste
  3. Create a read-write snapshot of the fresh profile whenever you start the browser, and use the snapshot for the session
  4. Discard snapshot
3 Likes
114

I donā€™t know the Palemoon development community, but (I believe the following is mainstream wisdom by the way, not just me):

I really think Palemoon, of all the options Iā€™ve seen here (havenā€™t read every message), is the riskiest. Itā€™s firefox, so itā€™s mainstream code (hence popular target), but doesnā€™t have mainstream security attention. It also doesnā€™t have the sandboxing work that mozilla has been working on for years. Mainstream firefox is still not sandboxed like chrome/chromium is but itā€™s getting there. Also extension security has been tightened up in mainstream firefox, they forked before those big changes landed (in fact I have a feeling thatā€™s why this fork was created, to keep old extensions working?).

The web, hence firefox, has a huge API surface area to defend. I donā€™t believe any small team has a chance of doing that ā€“ at least not without major innovation, but thatā€™s not what the Palemoon project is about.

I wish things were different, but I think running Palemoon is very much like running an out-of-support operating system.

1 Like
115

Thanks.

I did get palemoon to work, although there are certain annoyances. Like once having opened a link from email and you open another one to the same site but a different page, it comes up with ā€œyou already have a subscription for this feedā€. (Like slashdot.)

Anyway make a different recommendation and Iā€™ll give it a shot.

116

If anybody wants more info on how Pale Moon is developed, secured, etc., thereā€™s this ā€œRumor Controlā€ FAQ from the lead developer:

https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=65&t=22399#p169753

https://www.palemoon.org/info.shtml

1 Like
117

Totally agree. If Iā€™m going to switch to a document-only browser, I have to find one that has a minimal attack surface, or a huge team behind it.

118

Thanks

Iā€™ve just read that and for what itā€™s worth it doesnā€™t change my understanding of how it works and is developed, so it doesnā€™t change my personal conclusions about using the browser.

119

I have not used them or tried to get a sense of how theyā€™re developed, but the projects others have posted like Librewolf and ungoogled-chromium are projects Iā€™d personally consider using. One question Iā€™d have is how long does it take for security fixes to propagate from mainline firefox/chrome to these projects.

120

Do you avoid using/reading most websites that donā€™t show text unless you enable JS? As a uMatrix user, Iā€™m aware that there are an awful lot of those. Hope somebody picks up uMatrix development!

121

I donā€™t actively avoid them, I just donā€™t bother. 90% of the time itā€™s not worth the time and the risk. I make an exception for gitlab repos.

When uMatrix stops working Iā€™m going to be very sad. And motivated.

1 Like
122

Thanks. Iā€™m just an end user in this regard, will try L/W.

123

Text browser? Like Lynx?