Mozilla few month ago silently added ads tracking api in Firefox and before that they squired AD company. So enshittification happened before new terms of service.

so is it time for everyone to ditch Firefox, and move to Brave, Falkon, Valadi, or even Gnome Web, and maybe even make one of them the default browser in future releases for Solus?

I don't think so (and I am using Vivaldi as 2nd browser).

I would rather have Firefox default but with all telemetry, Firefox Data Collection and Use, Website Advertising Preferences disabled in Solus Firefox package.

    Solarmass I would rather have Firefox default but with all telemetry, Firefox Data Collection and Use, Website Advertising Preferences disabled in Solus Firefox package.

    that's called LibreWolf. 😉

        I think that's not the distribution's responsibility, but always the user's.
        A distribution should always deliver unmodified packages.
        The user should make what they want out of them.
        Only then can the distribution's neutrality be guaranteed.
        My 2 cents

          Lucien_Lachance solus should consider adding a sane config like this by default, one that doesent break anything but still ensures some basic privacy tweaks

          I'd further that and say Arkenfox profile but I felt I did better. Betterfox is better as well. Neither profile broke anything for me

            brent This is very true, but too bad it's not in the software center for easier install.

                CommodoreFan64 there came a time last year when I finally (after many years) said goodbye to Firefox for all internet duties. It was too many stunts like this they would pull. So I got Mullvad and Librewolf from flatpak and I never looked back.
                I would LOVE to have a solus-curated browser but it was not on the cards for me.

                PS I agree the profile directions for Arken etc look daunting. I searched til I found an article that made it Sesame Street level (I need Sesame Street level sometimes 🙂) on how to install. It's not as bad as you think. I didn't back nothing up. Just threw the new profile in the folder they told me to and that was it,.,

                  lf-araujo yeah, a firefox fork in Solus repo would be awesome. I tried Zen and like it.

                    May I ask how do I install Zen on Solus Budgie?

                    Is it available on Solus repo or I have to manually install from Zen Github repo?

                      snowee Use flatpak

                      flatpak install flathub app.zen_browser.zen

                        snowee and lf-araujo I explored Zen since it gets a lot of lip service. It's as pretty as Floorp that is for sure and gimmicky with creative tabs/colors etc. Real easy on the eyes like Floorp. Like Floorp, security is not really their concern, like Firefox. Not a word I could find in their Github or Zen page about it but like I said not a whole lot of time.
                        Vivaldi is to Chrome as Zen is to Firefox, imho: a prettier version of the same thing.

                        Ungoogled is fine for me. Brave sometimes as far as chromium variants.
                        But you are talking about Zen and FF.
                        These days it's just OOTB LibreWolf and Mullvad browsers for me as far as FF derivatives. Most of the dirty work of the internet is clamped down by them and neither ever broke anything.

                        experience and observation still make this 2 cents

                              brent

                              You've chosen LibreWolf and Mullvad as your daily web browser.
                              Why not only one of them ? 😉

                                  penny-farthing You've chosen LibreWolf and Mullvad as your daily web browser.
                                  Why not only one of them ? 😉

                                  actually I rotate 3 browsers daily. I'm superstitious about compartmentalization: only one browser is dedicated to work, one for banking and accts, one for surfing. My superstitions might be hogwash, I don't know 🙂

                                    It's totally fine to use several browsers in 2025 👍️