I like waterfox. I felt librewolf was a little too paranoid with its security permissions for convenient use and waterfox strikes a good balance in my opinion between what firefox is doing and what librewolf is doing.
this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2026
48 points (88.7% liked)
Open Source
45410 readers
822 users here now
All about open source! Feel free to ask questions, and share news, and interesting stuff!
Useful Links
- Open Source Initiative
- Free Software Foundation
- Electronic Frontier Foundation
- Software Freedom Conservancy
- It's FOSS
- Android FOSS Apps Megathread
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to the open source ideology
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
- !libre_culture@lemmy.ml
- !libre_software@lemmy.ml
- !libre_hardware@lemmy.ml
- !linux@lemmy.ml
- !technology@lemmy.ml
Community icon from opensource.org, but we are not affiliated with them.
founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
Zen Browser, Firefox under the hood but soooo many incredibly nice features
I recommend Librewolf for logging in and using web apps, and Mullvad for one-time use. If security is your top priority, Trivalent is also a good option.
A lot of people saying Fennec is good on Android. The line at the bottom is a bit of a turn off, isn't it? 
Use IronFox (forked from DivestOS Mull Browser) if you want a private FOSS firefox-based browser on Android. Note that it still lacks per-site isolation like every other FF based browser on Android, but this seems to be the most harden option available.
Guys, instead of a popularity contest, it'd be more productive if we listed the reasons for choosing one or another.
I like that idea, it provides information and gives you something to research as well. IDK shit about shit though so I'm going to keep my mouth shut lol.
A browser fork is generally less secure, because they're slower to get security updates. Firefox gives you the option to remove all the AI and that's a better approach.
Alternatively you could switch to Firefox ESR, which is basically just better in every way.
At the moment I just stick with firefox, as long as I can disable all the ai and telemetry bs. However in a few years Ladybird could be an alternative. They're developing a whole new browser including the engine from scratch. Looks promising to me.
If you can ignore the creator's problematic views https://hyperborea.org/reviews/software/ladybird-inclusivity/
I've discarded it after their AI use to switch to Rust
- Computer: Librewolf + Helium
- Mobile: Ironfox + Cromite
Desktop - Librewolf
Android - Ironfox
LibreWolf. It works 😬
I use librewolf
LibreWolf my beloved browser
It's great. The only thing stopping my from using it full time is that no Firefox-based browsers work with the web office editor within my NextCloud instance.
I highly recommend Edge...bwahahaha...lightening the mood.
Waterfox on Mobile has been working well for me so far.
Librewolf, Librewolf all the way. It's a bit heavy-duty with the privacy, but that can be toned down in settings.
Desktop: librewolf. I've not found anything remotely comparable for Android.
I just use Fennec on android
What do you feel about IronFox?
Sorry I deleted my post because I was mistaken. I haven't tried it.
Worth a shot, recommended by several in the comments here as well.
On Linux, I use Waterfox. On Android, I use Fennec. Both much lighter than Firefox, and Waterfox specifically doesn't need to be installed on Linux (my biggest concern in Linux - most is installed to the system), and the dev seems to be slowly separating Waterfox from the Firefox base, instead of keeping it as a stripped down Firefox. On the privacy side of things, not knowledgeable enough myself to audit them, but haven't seen any scandals on either yet.
I just switched to Librewolf from Firefox, would you recommend moving to Waterfox instead ?
Haven't tested LibreWolf so can't compare them
Waterfox is a great all-around platform for desktop and mobile.
I use Zen on desktop, Fennec on Android. I also tried Librewolf/ Ironfox combo.
I've been using Waterfox. I've been meaning to look into Zen again.
I've been using Zen lately. It's good, but it's also pretty different. It takes some getting used to. I like it because the interface is minimal and out of the way. It keeps your browser mostly just showing the content on the web page, instead of wasting space with the taskbar that's only needed occasionally. It's still all available, just hidden away until needed.
@zenbrowser by far
Does Zen allow for extensions (mainly asking for ublock origin and something comparable to the multi containers on Firefox)
It's Firefox, so yes. All Firefox extensions works. It also has its own extension format for UI stuff too.
It does!
Librewolf for Linux Desktop and Fennec for AOSP
I've been using Waterfox for a year or so, after I got tired of the broken update process for Librewolf on MacOS. No regrets.
On desktop, I use the Mullvad Browser and I'm pretty comfortable with it, as it's at least on par with Librewolf (which is pretty good), privacy-wise, I think. On mobile, I use IronFox through the Accrescent store, and I used to use a hardened version of Fennec, as well.
seamonkey but it's not compatible with a lot of websites these days sadly. hopefully they'll catch up soon.
It's running Goanna. Any issues should be brought up either on their forum, the UXP forum, or the Pale Moon forum.
seamonkey is not related to palemoon's uxp/goanna stuff
I don't believe that is the case. I believe they have their own fork of Gecko that they maintain here.
Kinda depends on your preference. A lot of people are proponents for librewolf, but it hasn’t been great for me in the past. Privacy is probably top notch, but I have zen browser a try and I’m not hating it. Could also be a move for you.
I've been using Floorp for the past 6 months. No complaints.