Hey everybody. I’m somewhat new to the field of privacy, but I am eager to learn. Right now I am wondering what mobile web browser to use for everyday activities. I’m running GrapheneOS. Options that often come to mind:
- Tor
- Firefox Focus (= Firefox Klar in German)
- IronFox (formerly Mull Browser)
- Cromite
- Vanadium
I feel like I simply don’t know enough about the underlaying mechanisms to elaborate which might be better and which might be worse. Feel free to teach me!
Why not Librefox? As far as I recall it’s basically hardened Firefox.
I think you meant librewolf ? And if so, I believe it is desktop only.
Yeh I meant that one, corrected, thanks!
There is LibreLynx Lite on F-Droid, but it is very bare bones. Do not recommend, especially while IronFox exists.
On my phone I currently have the standard eOS browser, IronFox and Fennec installed. Only Fennec came with a new tracker after install, so that is going out again. Have used IronFox for at least the last year until I recently bought a FairPhone with eOS, so can recommend that as a daily driver.
i’d just use ironfox with ublock origin
Considering that already. Do you experience any problems or limitations with that? Like being flagged as a bot, or sites returning errors?
Edit: thank you for the suggestion!
i haven’t really used ironfox, i use iceraven. i actually also use numatrix alongside ublock origin.
i do see more captchas compared to common browsers like google chrome.
Right now I use IronFox for browsing and Vanadium for websites I stay logged into. But the best one depends on your threat model.
Vanadium on grapheneOS and using a privacy-preserving VPN.
I also use Vanadium on GrapheneOS
The lack of nice ad-blocking has me favor things like Iceraven, but for pure privacy it can’t be beaten
What’s your threat vector? From whom do you want to be concealed?
Mostly big corporate, big tech, and the US gov’t and its intelligence services. I am already in the process of migrating my digital environment towards Linux + self-hosting, but browsing remains a challenge to me.
Basically: I don’t want my devices location, metadata and telemetry to be tracked by anyone.
You could use a VPN and then make sure that your fingerprint is common. But if the VPN is compromised you will reveal your browsing behaviour. You also stand out when you use it.
curl via Termux
Firefox Focus with AdGuard DNS
Use Vanadium. On android, any Firefox based is lacking either in the sandbox or fingerprinting mitigation, plus extentions make you more fingerprintable and can possibly track you. Even on desktop they’re behind. Chromium based is much more optimized and secure.
I saw on GrapheneOS forum Vanadium is the better option, with Brave a second alternative. Also tor browser on android is not officially from the tor project and suffers from firefox android implementation. Browsers are extremely complex, they’re made to run external code in the wild securely. Quite an endeavor.
Firefox mobile (so I can sync between my devices) with extensions installed like Privacy Badger and uBlock Origin.
Otherwise: Firefox Klar, Waterfox to sync all my work bookmarks between devices, Vanadium if I need anything google or chromium specific, and Tor.
I got tired of having two different profiles in GrapheneOS (a secondary with Google logged in), now I log in to my google account via Vanadium if I need to do anything like check GMail or Google Voice messages. I just live with never logging in to google maps, so I can’t save places or plan trips with friends in a streamlined manner. I work around it, screenshot the place in maps (logged out) or copypasta into an encrypted note taking app.
Search Portals: Searxng, 4Get, Qwant, Startpage, DuckDuckGo
Thanks for the advice, and thanks for the mentioning if 4Get. I just read about it. Awesome project.
IronFox and Vanadium.
I do like Fennec since it’s available on F-Droid and updated, ublock origin mandatory in any case.
I use Fennec becaue it was the only Firefox fork that played nice with all my extensions
Vivaldi has been a good middle ground for me. Privacy respecting but still has features I want. It’s not perfect, but nothing is.
