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Just the Browser: tools to remove AI and other bloatware from Chrome, Edge and Firefox (justthebrowser.com)
submitted 9 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 108 points 9 months ago (49 children)

Just use Librewolf

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  • [–] 38 points 9 months ago (6 children)

    I really like the Zen browser. It's Firefox-based, open source and privacy focused with AI removed but it's also really pretty and is built around vertical tabs

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  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    Ia this just desktop? No mobile?

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  • [–] 26 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

    For those interested

    https://librewolf.net/installation/

    https://codeberg.org/librewolf/issues/issues/1919

    Thanks to @acockworkorange@mander.xyz for the context below.

    The settings that Mozilla packaged in were the main big ones, Claude, ChatGPT etc, it didn’t look like any of them were locally hosted or even if a locally hosted model could be chose. Local AI… where the model itself and all the token are processed on either your own machine or another machine controlled by you certainly isn’t violating privacy, but as I said the choices on offer were none of these.

    LibreWolf by default gets rid of anything that seeks to abuse your right to privacy, you won’t even find Google or Bing in your search engine. Naturally this will also apply to AI providers. Unfortunately, at the moment, we can’t trust Mozilla and by extension with AI items so these things were removed. That doesn’t mean you can’t install third party AI extensions.

    Also you can host your own search engine for even more privacy.

    https://docs.searxng.org/index.html

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    The relevant bit from the second link:

    The settings that Mozilla packaged in were the main big ones, Claude, ChatGPT etc, it didn't look like any of them were locally hosted or even if a locally hosted model could be chose. Local AI... where the model itself and all the token are processed on either your own machine or another machine controlled by you certainly isn't violating privacy, but as I said the choices on offer were none of these.

    LibreWolf by default gets rid of anything that seeks to abuse your right to privacy, you won't even find Google or Bing in your search engine. Naturally this will also apply to AI providers. Unfortunately, at the moment, we can't trust Mozilla and by extension with AI items so these things were removed. That doesn't mean you can't install third party AI extensions.

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  • [–] 12 points 9 months ago (7 children)

    As a libreworlf user, I'd have to advise some caution to regular users. A lot of sites are broken as images won't load and "fancier" web apps don't work super well either. Yes it's an easy fix, but expecting someone to go look in the config files to get an image to load is too much for a lot of people

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago (5 children)

    I haven't experienced this behavior. Can you provide a URL for me to test against.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    Open netflix. Even with a lot of features turned off and DRM enabled, it will regularly fail to load any content.

    And, yes, the general user will want sites like netflix to work.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

    Weird, app.plex.tv, emby client, jellyfin client, netflix.com, and prime video at https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/ are all currently working for me. Can you share your LibreWolf config? Maybe I can help you fix it.

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  • [–] 0 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    No need. It seem it got fixed along the way. But that's the point; I tried this a year ago, and it would not work, either under the default configuration with DRM enabled, or after disabling most of the privacy features, so I just gave up on it.

    Firefox, for all the flaws regarding the direction Mozilla is taking, just worked out of the box. And for adoption, working out of the box immediately is kind of a requirement.

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  • [–] 0 points 9 months ago

    It would be helpful that when you report something is working or not, that you test a modern version, or you state when you last had the failure. Misinformation is not something we should be spreading. It can do far more harm than good.

    Also hopefully the top comments config script works for you or you've found an alternative browser like WaterFox or others.

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  • [–] 8 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    I think even with Librewolf you need to open the about:config page and disable browser.ml settings.

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  • [–] 12 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    afaik is that fixed by now - the team strongly opposes ai and stated that they want to keep it as clean as possible

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  • [+] 12 points 9 months ago (22 children)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] 68 points 9 months ago (4 children)

    I’d recommend switching to something like Bitwarden for your passwords so you can take them with you and also switch your stuff around if you ever want to

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  • [+] 9 points 9 months ago (3 children)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] 9 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    You can, and they sync with your Mozilla account. I had your reasoning when using Microslop Edge and Microslop Authenticator. I set up Bitwarden now and while it's not perfect, I do prefer to have full control of my passwords.

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  • [–] 15 points 9 months ago (7 children)

    I've been using Librewolf for some months now. You can migrate your Firefox profile into Librewolf, that's what I did and it retained my passwords. I'm not very tech savvy but it does have some kinks, my browser clock is off I've tried tinkering with it but gave up. And especially with the Resist Fingerprinting enabled it seems to not retain my 2 factor id for sites when I ask it to remember me.

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  • [–] 5 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    Your browser clock is not off. LibreWolf, Tor Browser, Mullvad Browser etc. set your browser's reported timezone to GMT to not reveal which timezone you're actually in.

    And I don't understand what you're talking about in the last sentence.

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  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    Sounds like a cookie isn't being saved, so they have to enter their 2fa every time instead of having the site trust the browser

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago

    Librewolf by default clears cookies on close, which is kind of annoying for anything with a 2fa login. It can be changed on the settings, but you have to know that's an option and the root of the behavior, which most regular people won't.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago

    your clock is off because you have resistfingerprinting turned on, so it puts you into utc+0 to prevent tracking.

    and you have to explicitly allow to save cookies for specific domains to not get logged out (check out the padlock icon in the status bar, there's an option to keep data for the domain you're on)

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  • [–] 10 points 9 months ago* (4 children)

    So can librewolf… its got settings!

    You can still use firefox sync as well

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  • [–] 5 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    it's got settings

    Well yeah, Librewolf is basically nothing but settings.

    Firefox settings.

    Confuses me no end when people rage against Mozilla and then recommend a product that cannot exist without Mozilla.

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  • [–] 11 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    Whats confusing about it? People took something that was going bad and made it good again. Thats the benefit of open source. Even if Mozilla goes closed source the already existing forks can continue

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  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago

    Even if Mozilla goes closed source the already existing forks can continue

    Theoretically yes, practically no. Maintaining a secure modern web engine that's up to date with - and a part of - setting web standards is something that costs tens of millions per year. Sometimes this even spills into the hundreds of millions.

    Random fork projects don't have the resources to do that.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago*

    Grumpy ken thinks "Just use Foo" meming is promoting mindless use and I think should therefore be discouraged. Even in jest I think this affects us subconsciously to feel more comfortable with not thinking deeper for ourselves. Even if X is the right one. "Use Foo already!" is nicer~!

    If I may illustrate:

    Use Konform Browser^1^ already!

    ^1^: Disclosures: Am dev; is LibreWolf fork

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