Firefox 120 ships today with massive privacy improvements

Firefox release notes: we improved the privacy of our browser

Chrome release notes: fuck you and fuck your fucking adblock

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- Clarity is needed here. The California language that sparked all this is qualified with "about FakeSpot's products and services". Meaning it could simply be third-party services that they send their own emails through.
  After reading their privacy policy, nothing jumps out at me that contradicts this.
  To be clear, I'm not a fan of the extension's collection practices, but the down votes could be because this may be unwarranted fear.
- Use LibreWolf, it's Firefox without all the garbage like telemetry, Pocket or Sponsored Sites. It makes substantial privacy and security improvements and comes with uBlock Origin pre-installed.

No idea why people use Brave when Firefox exists

Well, it said right there in the article that until today, Brave was that only browser that would truncate tracker tags when copying a URL to clipboard.
Moar browsers == moar innovation.
- Interesting, in the past Brave injected their own affiliate links into URLs. That alone should tell you not to use it.
  https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/8/21283769/brave-browser-affiliate-links-crypto-privacy-ceo-apology
- Yeah but you can easily install clearURLs
- Why are you spelling more wrong?
Default Brave blocks ads more aggressively than default Firefox. Of course you can achieve that with Firefox + uBlock Origin, but add-ons are not available on iOS and iPad OS.
That's just my experience. I still use Firefox + Firefox Focus BTW. To block more aggressively, I also use VPN + Adguard Home.
- This. Only reason I use Brave is for my iPhone (which I am already planning to jump back to Android when it's time for a new phone) because I can listen to YouTube videos/music in the background and no ads when going through the browser (another reason I'm going back to Android is for Revanced). Everything else is FF
- Yep and for some people it's too hard to think about extensions so just having them install Brave is a perfect recommendation (for now anyway).
- Brave has superior fingerprint protection, they achieve this by randomizing the browsers fingerprint. Visit EFF's cover your tracks to test your browser.
  To achieve the same functionality that brave achieves out of the box with Firefox I need many extensions and then when I profile both browsers, Firefox is more resource intensive. Brave's blocking is native to the browser. I will give Firefox the W because I've read that uBlock is technically more capable. But as a long time Firefox/uBlock user who switched to brave - this has not been noticable.
  As for accessibility, I can configure brave to be really aggressive at ad blocking, tracking blocking, fingerprint blocking, and restricting JS even, and all those options I can set from one place instead of in different settings/extensions. When a website breaks, I click on the button next to the URL and immediately have options to granularly dial down the "protection" or add a website to my trusted list. In Firefox I was annoyed to having go through settings for the extension.
  Brave plans to continue supporting Manifest V2 after Google kills it. For Ungoogled Chromium, however, it's still undecided, likely depending on whether UG contributors are willing to maintain it.
Brave has superior fingerprint protection, they achieve this by randomizing the browsers fingerprint. Visit EFF's cover your tracks to test your browser.
To achieve the same functionality that brave achieves out of the box with Firefox I need many extensions and then when I profile both browsers, Firefox is more resource intensive. Brave's blocking is native to the browser. I will give Firefox the W because I've read that uBlock is technically more capable. But as a long time Firefox/uBlock user who switched to brave - this has not been noticable.
As for accessibility, I can configure brave to be really aggressive at ad blocking, tracking blocking, fingerprint blocking, and restricting JS even, and all those options I can set from one place instead of in different settings/extensions. When a website breaks, I click on the button next to the URL and immediately have options to granularly dial down the "protection" or add a website to my trusted list. In Firefox I was annoyed to having go through settings for the extension.
Brave plans to continue supporting Manifest V2 after Google kills it. For Ungoogled Chromium, however, it's still undecided, likely depending on whether UG contributors are willing to maintain it.
The only reason why I still have Brave installed is because some sites don't work with Firefox. Like Webflow's editor. At least they claim it's not supported yet.
- I use chromium for that, there are many better browsers (even chromium forks) than braves IMO.
- Did you try faking the user agent?
- Maybe try the testing branch (called 'Firefox for testers', or better yet, fennec)?
For me, the YouTube experience is better.
- How so?

oooh the Copy Link without Site Tracking feature looks like it would be pretty useful

Firefox's been killing it recently

Hopefully between Firefox's recent streak of good releases and Google majorly jumping the shark lately we'll see Chrome marketshare take a dive.
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Yeah!
Now hopefully they can enable HDR video playback within the next few years (bug open for 5 years at this point)

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Thanks for the comprehensive write-up. It convinced me to migrate back to Firefox.
I was on Firefox (8 years ago), moved to Chrome (I liked the non-admin/transparent update feature and Websites didn't break like they did with ff), then moved to brave (basically chrome + more privacy), and now I'll go back the Firefox (I hope I won't encounter too many non-FF websites)
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- If you want to non ff sites to work on ff you can just spoof tour user agent. 90% of non ff sites actually work. Some use web usb and bluetooth stuff that doesnt work on ff.
I always use do not track. If they fingerprint me with that, they are explicitly disregarding it. It obviously gives moral superiority.

It's a real shame industry doesn't embrace firefox. There's far too many things i rely on which only runs on chromium.

Change your user-agent string and what do you know they magically all work in Firefox, wow
- How do you do that?
- No idea how MS Teams go these days, but at some point they did do something silly that would break in Firefox, no free pass. Knowing that it doesn't do anything fancy and that it worked before, it made us very suspicious that this was a targeted move.
Like what?
Like what?
Use Vivialdi then at least.
I call bullshit, take the time to readjust and you'll find replacements. Maybe not as good, but we gotta start somewhere. And this is me hoping you're talking about some arbitrary devtools.
- Yeah, sure, go work in any corporate environment that have to work with outsiders, or even just a slightly large structure, and just tell people "take time to readjust, and you'll find replacements".
  I'm in a very small structure, and even getting people to ditch Outlook in favor of Thunderbird is impossible because "they can't work with it". I know what they do with Outlook, I know they can do it with Thunderbird, but that does not make people magically accept change. We setup a whole ecosystem of tools, self-hosted, that performs adequately and can handle everything we do. This did not stop management from getting more Teams license.
  Wishful thinking is nice as long as you live in a vacuum or are omnipotent. Back in the real, non frictionless world, this takes time, careful preparation, and the slightest bump will throw all efforts out the window.
- What are you on about. You literally got ZERO clue how much chromium holds monopoly on browser drivers. Go on, try to get anything from a third party to work with HID webhooks. I don't even use Chrome, but that's how little you know. "Not as good"? My god, you have a lot to learn if you ever want to work in any specialised field. No, we don't have to start somewhere. Business needs to keep running and unless industry as a whole improves, you won't see any meaningful adoption in a professional setting.

Thank you old friend. Sorry I've been gone for so long.

TFW sense of superiority knowing I started using firefox since late 2000s and never once abandoned it.

Is still on the ship. Will arrive shortly at your destination.

Firefox needs to chill on the version numbers

Blame Chrome for ruining versioning
- Honestly I think this is more on Apple for using “os x” for two decades
Ok yeah it’s much easier to get my dad to tell me he’s on “v2.12.6.001-build7F2023n12-kb0A hotfix”
who gives a shit my dude? “Oh my god, 120? How ludicrous! There’s not even a decimal point or a hyphen! I run arch btw”
- Ok yeah it’s much easier to get my dad to tell me he’s on “v2.12.6.001-build7F2023n12-kb0A hotfix”
  That's a false dichotomy. Firefox version numbering was never like that. It used the scheme major_version.minor_version.patch_release like almost every piece of software except browsers still uses.
  The advantage of this system is that the numbers are meaningful: they tell you how significant a release is, whereas with straight versioning the version number gives you no clue about what the "119 to 120 upgrade" contains. It might be simple bugfixes, it might add some new functionality or it might be a complete overhaul that breaks everything.
  The reason why browsers switched to a straight versioning scheme was never to make it easier for users to identify which release they're on. The reason was artificial version inflation (i.e. "my version is bigger than yours"), and to force users into an incessant upgrade treadmill. In the past users could for example hold back on a major release upgrade until all the kinks were worked out while still receiving maintenance for their older major release.
Version numbers are almost meaningless for end-user software anyway. Add 1 every time it changes is about the best you can do.
no, I'm looking forward to firefox 420 in 2048
Nvidia needs to chill on the version numbers, their graphics driver is currently at version 537 lol
- I remember using Nvidia drivers in the 70s years ago. I also remember thinking it was crazy when they rolled over 100. 😂
I think it's alright, sure it's not conventional but you get the point after all and non techy people also get the point. bigger number = highest update

We need the TL;DR bot

I know this won't affect LibreWolf immediately but can anyone speculate as to how or when the Firefox updates would affect LibreWolf, if at all?

I switched from FF to LW recently so I'm just curious what the relationship(s) might be.

ETA: Another question: How do I update LW without the LW updater? Uninstall and reinstall? Thanks!

- Cool, thanks.
  Interesting that it happens so quickly. I was not expecting that.
I use LibreWolf on Debian and just got the update. It doesn't take that much time.

waiting mozilla release its gecko webview and site isolation on mobile browser

Mozilla Foundation fronts Mozilla Corporation which is for-profit and brings in nearly a Billion in revenue.

Don't donate, do harden it.

To be fair, a lot of that money comes from google that pays to have google as search engine
- Can you share some proof/links about this? I am aware of Google paying for companies like Apple, but Mozilla?
Or just use LibreWolf

Firefox is good privacy wise, but does not have sensible default. Also there have been times when mozilla have made not so promising statements.

For true privacy enthusiasts see See

Agree, I recently checked further after seeing "sponsored" icons in my new tab page. Had to turn that off. I understand why it's on by default, it's just not congruent with privacy.
- I'd say thats less a matter of privacy since it doesn't reveal anything to the "sponsors". More like bloat? Honestly can't find the exact for rn
But...does it sync?
- Yes
Love Librewolf, its default privacy settings are the best I have seen.
Or, you know, arkenfox and its wiki: https://github.com/arkenfox/user.js/
Ehat defaults arent sensible? Oh no the bar is on the bottom(its more logical on large phones and its the first and only setting you need to change to make it work like chrome). On pc its just better than chrome in any way.