I installed Firefox-ESR version 78 as recommended on these forums. For years I’ve used add-ons Privacy Badger and Decentraleyes. Are these add-ons trustworthy for privacy to be installed on PureOS? Is Firefox itself trustworthy? Do I compromise my privacy inside Firefox (e.g. keylogging anything I type into a website)?
Privacy Badger is made by Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), non-profit fighting for digital rights of the people. The EFF has 4 out of 4 stars rating by Charity Navigator. You can hardly find anything more trustworthy. It’s FLOSS also, of course. IMHO Firefox is the only reasonable choice for your privacy and freedom, since it’s FLOSS and independent from Google/Apple and relatively big. This is what I use.
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What the previous post said but also bear in mind that that version of Firefox is a long way off the pace. (I’m at FF 91.) So there is something of a trade-off involved in that choice.
That version of ESR is what is in many distributions, including Purism’s. (You may know this but ESR is not the same as the mainstream FF with the latest bells and whistles. “More stable” is not quite the right characterization, but…) Mozilla just synched up release version numbers–skipping ESR releases 79-90–so ESR 91.0 is new. It has not propagated yet from what I can tell.
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In a nutshell: Firefox-ESR gets all the security and performance updates. Firefox regular release gets all the security and performance updates…and rather frequent changes to the UI look and behavior, as well as new features.
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Or letting Mozilla say it in their own words:
Firefox ESR is an official version of Firefox developed for large organizations like universities and businesses that need to set up and maintain Firefox on a large scale. Firefox ESR does not come with the latest features but it has the latest security and stability fixes.
In other words … fewer updates but it has the important updates.
I don’t know whether it would necessarily have any performance updates, unless perhaps fixing a significant performance regression.
One additional consideration is the length of the pipeline between Mozilla and you (as measured in days). If an organisation has chosen Firefox ESR because they have made customisations then that is likely to introduce some extra delay in getting that 0-day fixed. Because of the forward deployment of the web browser in the ongoing battle with net nasties, you really want the absolute minimum delay.
Of course Purism’s official strategy is to have moved away from Firefox ESR. Right? That may conflict with “as recommended on these forums”.
So yes or no to Firefox on a brand new Librem14 laptop? As stated in a previous thread I am new to Purism.os. Do I even need another web browser? I’m sorry, I am so green
If you typically used Firefox before you got your brand new Librem 14 then you may find Firefox more comfortable to continue using. (Small steps, ease into it, don’t change everything at once.)
If you typically did not use Firefox before you got your brand new Librem 14 then maybe give Gnome Web (aka Epiphany) a go.
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Or just use two browsers to separate your browsing into, e.g., official and anonymous?
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I’m fairly new myself and right now I’m using the default Gnome Web, and Brave as well as trying out LibreWolf. Must say I am fairly happy with all three.
Personally I don’t like the firefox stance on believing in a need for more online censorship so for now I don’t use it. However many here do and it is still open source, with good options for privacy and security so it has its pluses.
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I don believe in censorship as well, and I don’t think that Firefox’s actions supported it in any noticeable way.
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Thank you very much! Epiphany it is. I am exploring Gnome Web now, mostly just reading the list of actions and how to perform them.
I’m not even finding the Gnome browser lol no browser whatsoever.
Never mind. I figured it out
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