• Firefox offers better privacy and security than Chrome, with upcoming support for 200 new add-ons. • While Chrome dominates, Firefox gains ground with user-friendly browsing experience and open-source model. • Mozilla’s focus on user privacy and transparency challenges Google’s ad-centric approach, making Firefox a viable alternative.

  • smegEnglish
    43·
    10 months ago

    Have they addressed the security issues with sandboxing and site isolation and added a web view on android yet? I’d love to use Firefox on my phone too, but those issues were big enough for GrapheneOS to recommend against gecko-based browsers (though fortunately they provide their own de-googled chromium-based browser Vanadium):

    Avoid Gecko-based browsers like Firefox as they’re currently much more vulnerable to exploitation and inherently add a huge amount of attack surface. Gecko doesn’t have a WebView implementation (GeckoView is not a WebView implementation), so it has to be used alongside the Chromium-based WebView rather than instead of Chromium, which means having the remote attack surface of two separate browser engines instead of only one. Firefox / Gecko also bypass or cripple a fair bit of the upstream and GrapheneOS hardening work for apps. Worst of all, Firefox does not have internal sandboxing on Android. This is despite the fact that Chromium semantic sandbox layer on Android is implemented via the OS isolatedProcess feature, which is a very easy to use boolean property for app service processes to provide strong isolation with only the ability to communicate with the app running them via the standard service API. Even in the desktop version, Firefox’s sandbox is still substantially weaker (especially on Linux) and lacks full support for isolating sites from each other rather than only containing content as a whole. The sandbox has been gradually improving on the desktop but it isn’t happening for their Android browser yet.

    https://grapheneos.org/usage#web-browsing

    • Free Palestine 🇵🇸@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      5·
      10 months ago

      I love GrapheneOS and they tried everything to make Chromium less shitty, but Vanadium still lacks fingerprinting protection as well as support for ad blocking. That’s why I use Mull, a hardened fork of Firefox, for everything except banking.

      • smegEnglish
        2·
        10 months ago

        Sadly there’s often a tradeoff between privacy and security (even though you often get one with the other), and GrapheneOS has always prioritised security

        • Free Palestine 🇵🇸@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          2·
          10 months ago

          I like Graphene as an OS, they also make great privacy improvements, e.g. they hide all unique device identifiers from apps in order to make you anonymous. You don’t have to use their pre-installed apps, I use Mull and Firefox Focus for everything except banking and other stuff that requires me to interact with payment processors, as they often flag or even suspend your account when using hardened Firefox.

    • vrighter@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      2·
      10 months ago

      I’m using jerboa, and any links open in a firefox webview, with an option to (ninstantly, without reloading) opening the page in the firefox app directly