The best guide to using Firefox is to stop using Firefox. If you have to use it, use a derivative (TOR browser, Waterfox, Basilisk, Comodo IceDragon, etc.). Mozilla Mothership has crossed to the darkside:
https://digdeeper.neocities.org/ghost/mozilla.html
...and Firefox is becoming Chrome:
https://www.howtogeek.com/228131/firefox-is-about-to-become-an-almost-complete-copy-of-chrome/
Mozilla Mothership has crossed to the darkside
agreed, and i wrote about that here:
The best guide to using Firefox is to stop using Firefox
i disagree - you can easily use Firefox without supporting Mozilla, but several prefs have to be adjusted - the reason i recommend Firefox is because it seems to lend itself to privacy/security hardening better than any other browser at the moment - from ...
The small development teams for these 3rd party builds often lag far behind regarding security patches and they can be buggy and incompatible with the latest add-ons (Pale Moon doesn't support the newer Web Extensions at all). While some forks may be more privacy-centric out of the box, we can accomplish essentially the same degree of privacy or better with the official Mozilla release version.
The difference between Firefox and Chrome is not that much, and becoming less with each rendition, as more and more Chrome code is ported.
https://www.howtogeek.com/228131/firefox-is-about-to-become-an-almost-complete-copy-of-chrome/
....and ever more instances of Google URLs are included into 'about:config'...which is also being altered (and not for the better). I made numerous recommended changes in it to prevent auto-update, with no success. Upon going through about:config a second time, I found at least a quarter of the changes had been reset. Research indicates this now requires fiddling with user profiles or json files. As for: https://12bytes.org/articles/tech/firefox/firefoxgecko-configuration-guide-for-privacy-and-performance-buffs/#Getting_Firefox ...it's fine you can successfully deal with these complexities, but I suspect most cannot, and I would argue that no one should have to, especially when the end product is now worth minimal effort. Firefox has gone from an easy to use browser to one requiring the intervention of a technomage. The 'about:config' should be the most intricate adjustment needed. It should be obvious the developers have been busy trying to prevent user customization.
Frankly I have not liked Firefox for several years. I cannot say just how many times this poor excuse for a browser has froze, or given the 'Firefox has encountered a problem and needs to close', or failed to close when I close it. Way too many! I can say with certainty that absolutely zero improvement has been, and I'm now on version 52.9.0, while the public libraries were using whichever version was current as of early 2020. I stayed with Firefox only due to the addons. With their sabotage en masse, I have zero excuse to continue....the crappy web extensions are extra reason to ditch it. Not one compares favorably to the addon it is supposed to replace, let alone is in any may an improvement. The intended replacement for Self-Destructing Cookies is joke. As for security patches, I'm not impressed. Maybe because I have been using XP Pro for the last 3+ years, and despite M$ and its horde of Win 10 fanboys squealing about EOL/EOS, I have to date had zero malware....even with using the outdated Firefox, Mypal, and Centaury browsers.
The difference between Firefox and Chrome is not that much,...
there are major differences to the internals (the rendering engine for one) and some key differences with regard to privacy, and though i can't recall specifically what they are at the moment, one diff has to do with limitations to the Chrome WebExt API which doesn't exist with Firefox and which is important to privacy - there are at least a couple other important diffs regarding privacy, not to mention that Chrome is maintained by Google, a co. that has zero respect for privacy - and the forks, such as the ungoogled version, do not correct all of these problems
while the same can be said about FF at the corporate level regarding a lack of an interest in privacy, there are obviously some/many developers who have a very strong regard for privacy, hence the Tor Uplift Project which ported many of the changes in the Tor browser to Firefox (i believe this is where FPI - First Party Isolation - originated and this is a KEY privacy thing, along with RFP - resist fingerprinting)
....and ever more instances of Google URLs are included into 'about:config'.
all of which can be removed/changed whereas Chromes phoning home cannot be completely disabled from what i understand
I made numerous recommended changes in it to prevent auto-update, with no success.
because of security concerns, you should not prevent auto-updating of the browser - disabling this was made harder (for windows users anyway) for GOOD REASON - auto-updating of add-ons is a very different story - one should never update add-ons without reviewing the changes and privacy policies
Upon going through about:config a second time, I found at least a quarter of the changes had been reset.
all prefs which you are sure you want to persist across browser updates should go in a user.js prefs file, but once you do that it's on you to keep abreast of changes that may affect those prefs
The 'about:config' should be the most intricate adjustment needed.
other than dumping system add-ons it pretty much is and if you use the user.js, 409 (currently) of those prefs are taken care of for you, though they will need to be reviewed
It should be obvious the developers have been busy trying to prevent user customization.
to the UI, yes, but not to the internals - there are many hundreds (more than 500) of prefs that can be changed and that number seems to be growing with each release - from an inner workings perspective, i'd be surprised if there were any other browser that is nearly as configurable
Frankly I have not liked Firefox for several years. I cannot say just how many times this poor excuse for a browser has froze, or given the 'Firefox has encountered a problem and needs to close', or failed to close when I close it. Way too many! I can say with certainty that absolutely zero improvement has been, and I'm now on version 52.9.0,...
52? the current version is 83.x - why would anyone be messing with 52.x???
the crappy web extensions are extra reason to ditch it.
the WebExt API comes from Chrome and one of the reasons for it's limitations is security - another is stability
Not one compares favorably to the addon it is supposed to replace, let alone is in any may an improvement.
i wouldn't ENTIRELY disagree, but i think you need to look deeper - if you're looking for better extensions, let me know and maybe i can help
The intended replacement for Self-Destructing Cookies is joke.
covers more ground than SDC since the WebExt API has been updated (the API is not static) - i expect SDC will soon follow (if it hasn't already)
i think many people don't realize how important browser security is - our browsers are our main pipe to the www where all the nasties are waiting, thus it is vital to keep it updated - running something as old as v52 is not at all a good idea, nor is running any current fork of Firefox that i'm aware of, such as Waterfox or Pale Moon
Maybe because I have been using XP Pro for the last 3+ years, and despite M$ and its horde of Win 10 fanboys squealing about EOL/EOS, I have to date had zero malware....even with using the outdated Firefox, Mypal, and Centaury browsers.
while you might not want to hear this, and it's not my intention to insult you, but windows IS malware - you cannot use proprietary, closed source software and have any expectation of privacy, especially when the company making it has no regard for your privacy or OS security ... and that covers all MS OSs since at least win 95
keep in mind that everything i've said is coming from a human who , but that doesn't change what i personally think about Firefox being the best candidate for security and privacy hardening at this time
i think you and i both would like to see more players in the privacy respecting browser market, but there isn't much out there at the moment and if you have any understanding of the modern web browser, it's obvious why there's not much competition - a browser today can consume more lines of code than an entire OS
(post is archived)