It’s 2022, and I believe it’s high time to ditch Chrome. It’s a boring, no-frills browser from Google that you wouldn’t have cared about, if the company didn’t install it by default on your Android phone or struck a deal with iOS to be iPhones’ default browser for billions of dollars.
This becomes evident once you set out of Google’s monopolistic grip on other browsers. In one example of how wild the competition is, Opera offers a gaming browser, and a crypto-browser (if that’s even a thing).
The point is, Chrome has alternatives that almost always offer something unique, which we don’t know due to its grip over the browser-wars. One, it won with pappa-G’s anti-competitive tactics. Take the case of one user who found out that Chrome let in about some eleven thousand tracking cookies into their device – ones that let sites know about you and your interests – in a week which Firefox blocked.
To be fair, Chrome has come a long way since then and now offers a setting to block third-party cookies. The thing is, as with all things privacy with Google, it’s turned off by default (unsurprising, given how Google manages both its ad business and users’ choices). If you’re a Chrome user, did you check the settings for turning it on? Exactly.
So, if you’re out for an alternate browser to replace Chrome, you might know of Firefox or Brave if you read up for privacy-focused browsers. Librewolf? Not unless you’re out hunting forums and sites cataloguing alternatives to widely-used apps. But it’s good and deserves to be talked about and considered as a daily browser.
I want to talk about it because it’s a browser that results from philosophies rather than technical might. My intent here is to shed light on making choices yourself with a good option (over comparing browser speed benchmarks and other metrics) instead of having big-tech decide it for you with billion-dollar deals.
You’re free to decide your browser, and it doesn’t have to be just Librewolf.
So, what’s Librewolf?
Librewolf is a browser based on code from Firefox (which allows anyone to make their own version of it) that builds up on Firefox’s way of protecting people’s privacy online. In short, a ‘hardened’ version of the fox, with important settings turned on by default.
It’s pretty frank about what it is – a project from a team of developers who want to improve Firefox’s privacy. It doesn’t earn money out of it and doesn’t accept donations either.
Take it from the people running it:
‘A fork of Firefox, focused on privacy, security and freedom.’
Why should you get it?
From a browser’s point of view, Firefox – which Librewolf is based on – is a competitive alternative to Google, with a source code of its own and similar performance. In addition to that, the degree of control over privacy settings, cookies and data collected are all strong points over Google, which misses out on any reliable degree of control over what data it lets sites know about you.
Expect a neat user interface that’s more adjustable than Chrome’s and a browser whose parent company (Mozilla) goes further than being a tech company. And my favourite part: You don’t need to sign in with your account to use it, something which Chrome does by default to link your online activity with your account to track users more.
Speaking of how the companies operate, while Chrome’s blog site is mostly about technical features rolled out, Mozilla goes on to talk about children’s safety online, shed light on marginalized content creators and dedicate a page on Privacy & Security. It’s a minor detail most users won’t bother about, but one which says a lot about the companies behind our browsers.
Librewolf takes from where Firefox leaves. It removes some of FF’s bloatware, like Pocket and some of the browser’s own data collecting stuff. And it also does away with setting Google as your search-engine, providing options for privacy-respecting ones like DuckDuckGo or Qwant.
Now, talking about the need for privacy deserves a column on its own, but for now the internet’s a surveillance network as it stands, with big-tech corporations such as Google and Meta (Facebook, rebranded) watching every click and site visited to target us with ads.
With Chrome, it’s not just us searching for stuff. It’s also about Google searching us, what we like and who we are.
And if you remotely care about not wanting to be a cash machine for big-tech (or just want ads out of the way), you will want Librewolf (or anything other than Chrome/Edge). Feature-wise, It comes with a whole new section of privacy-settings that aren’t normally available with Firefox, and reasoning for why settings are the way they are, from Librewolf’s developers.
Their FAQ is both no-nonsense and friendly to be useful if you’re unsure about a setting, and it’s adds on to the browser’s vibe of being made by a small team of humans with soul, rather than a billion-dollar corporation whose sole purpose is to keep us locked in their ecosystem of apps and surveillance. (The fact that I’m taking about an FAQ page, should mean something to you?)
Librewolf is & feels like a browser made by a small team of humans with soul, and it’s a refreshing – and polar – opposite to Chrome.
? So, here’s what Librewolf gets you out of the box:
- Firefox’s Tracking Protection set to ‘Strict’ by default
- UBlock Origin (a tracker-blocking extension) installed by default
- Zero data collection or apps, like Firefox’s Pocket
- Easier access to fingerprinting protection
- DuckDuckGo, a private search engine as default (instead of Google in Firefox)
- Everything nice that Firefox does to improve privacy, like Total Cookie Isolation
What should you look out for?
Librewolf shares some of its drawbacks with Firefox. For one, it’s a beat slower than browsers than run on Chromium (the open-source code that Chrome runs on) while loading sites, by a second or so. And some sites don’t run well on Firefox and that goes for the ‘Wolf too, since most are optimized for Chrome, or Chromium based browsers.
Librewolf is strict about privacy. And that means some inconveniences on features. For example, the browser doesn’t come with a password manager (so no browser pop-ups asking you to save a site’s password); the team instead recommends you to get a dedicated password manager for more security, like Bitwarden or KeePassXC. If you have an extension for it already, you are missing out on nothing.
In my time with it, cranking privacy settings up breaks some sites like Canva or a video-calling site. Though these can be disabled to get back sites working as intended, the trip to settings can be frustrating for users who want a browser that just works with all sites.
Some of Librewolf’s privacy settings can break sites. Although this is the case with any privacy-oriented browser.
Then there’s the thing about updates. Librewolf updates need to wait for Firefox’s, and drop within a few days after they arrive. That said, they are consistent. The bigger point is, how there’s no option for automatic updates; one will have to check the repositories for the newest version and run its installer for each update. You can get around this with an extension that gets you the newest update, but this is an extra-step that one could do without.
Then there’s the device support. While it’s available for your PC or Mac, it doesn’t come for android. Here’s a snip from their too-honest FAQ on why:
? Here’s what Librewolf falls short on:
- Outright speed, especially when compared to Chrome
- Lack of automatic updates
- No in-built password manager
How do I get Librewolf?
Get an installation file from Librewolf’s site, choose your Operating System and you’re good to go, with a familiar set up process.
So… slam it, or stan it?
I find Librewolf as a great companion browser to go along with Firefox or Brave. Set cookies & history to auto-delete after sessions, and it quickly becomes a great tool to browse for the tracker-laden news sites if you’re doing research, or finding some sources to back up your YKA article. (That’s how I use it.)
The reason I love it is because the developers aren’t trying to sell you anything, unlike Chrome or even Firefox. They’re frank about its limitations, like the lack of automatic updates’ capability, and want you to take it or leave it. The best part is that Librewolf is not trying to sell you anything. You either take it, or leave it.
Firefox and Brave are solid alternatives, if you want something that doesn’t sacrifice on convenience and is available across devices. Librewolf is all about choices, even if it misses on some quality-of-life features. It’s rarity makes it feel like something made-for-you, and is a vibe hard to match with the browsers (tho this could be just me).
Vibe-checks aside, it does without the need to ‘harden’ (improving the privacy & security settings of a browser) Firefox to remove all of its telemetry and bloat. While sites like FF Profile make hardening Firefox easy, it helps to do without the effort.
Anyone using it is one willing to keep up with some compromises in favour of a strong focus on privacy, one they chose to use as opposed to letting an monopoly doing it for them, with a for-profit business model that, by nature is a compromise on privacy. For that reason alone, one concerned about privacy and freedom from the surveillance economy should stan it.
Anyone using Librewolf is one willing to keep up with some compromises in favour of a strong focus on privacy.
That said, in the end, it boils down to preferences. Would you want a browser that’s fast and convenient, is widely used, weak on privacy controls but easy to use; built by an for-profit advertising company? Or do you want to go all-opposite with something that can be privacy-respecting but slower, not nearly as popular; built by a handful of developers?
The choice is yours to make. Light.
If you want a (great) comic to get up to speed on Chrome’s – and by extension, Google’s – surveillance tactics, check out Leah Elliott’s Contra Chrome. It’s free, and an engaging read.
Note: Librewolf is not affiliated with Mozilla.