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
Firefox Spyware?
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.
AlphaElwedritsch A distribution should always deliver unmodified packages.
Solus already has modified home page linked to blog page.
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,.,
Thereβs now the zen browser too, is it any improvement on privacy at all?
Solarmass come on, setting a homepage is not really a modification
AlphaElwedritsch but it is
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 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
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 οΈ
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I believe all derivative forks of Firefox (waterfox, arkenfox, librewolf, zen) are dependent upstream on Mozilla for engine updates.
So, in a way, all the FF forks are still at the mercy of Mozilla.
The only independent browser written from scratch is Ladybird, with a planned stable release in 2028.
Early development appears to be promising.
There are 3 main browser engines right now :
- Chromium (Chrome, Vivaldi, Brave, Edge, Opera, Arc)
- Webkit (Safari, Orion)
- Gecko (Firefox)
Firefox reached its peak market share of 32% in 2009 (before Chrome became dominant).
Right now FF's market share is only at 2.5% as of early 2025.
In other words, Firefox lost almost 93% of its market within 16 years.
Out of these 3, Firefox has the lowest market share right now (it was not like this many years ago).
If the open-source community ditches it, then FF's market share will be almost negligible and Mozilla may be further dis-incentivised to develop it further.
Web-devs nowadays probably only test their websites against Chrome and maybe Safari, Firefox is probably an afterthought for them.
In the near future, 'heavy' websites requiring fanciful or custom user-input / output may cease to work properly on FF, already this has happened.
Zen is one of the most-starred open-source browser project on Github right now, with active development.
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snowee In other words, Firefox lost almost 93% of its market within 16 years.
thanks Mozilla for ruining Firefox
snowee There are 3 main browser engines right now : Chromium (Chrome, Vivaldi, Brave), Webkit (Safari), and Gecko (Firefox)
Firefox has still advantage of supporting MV2 extensions like uBO over other chromium browsers.