Firefox going AI, to the surprise of nobody

[Gemmaugr]

Add another voice for Waterfox as browser of last resort here. Until a year and a day ago, I had a friend who used LibreWolf, but I disliked it even before that friendship dramatically ruptured. LibreWolf discourages the user from adapting it to meet his needs, in the name of ‘privacy’. Until recently, it was even forbidden to change the browser’s locale or desired language to anything but US English. As we all know, only Yanks need or deserve privacy online. The rest of us are all terrorists, communists, ‘woke’ or whatever it is this week.

A slight correction here. Librewolf devs styles themselves with the two latter labels you mention. They've in fact gone so far as to ban a journalist that covered them, and anyone who mentions said journalist. Said stance and alignment is also prevalent in much of the rest of the world, where privacy is under threat. Various excuses, but through Digital ID and breaching correspondence trust.

[moonbat]

Why bother with Librewolf when it's just the same ugly bloated Firefox just without the tracking? It has all the limitations that modern Firefox has.Where Firefox based browsers go, Floorp is great.

[Mæstro]

A slight correction here. Librewolf devs styles themselves with the two latter labels you mention.

Communists insisting on US English for everybody? I knew nothing at all about the developers behind Librewolf when making my stupid joke, but I was not expecting that. Horseshoe theory proves correct once again.

Why bother with Librewolf when it's just the same ugly bloated Firefox just without the tracking? It has all the limitations that modern Firefox has.Where Firefox based browsers go, Floorp is great.

I think all of us here agree Librewolf should be summarily dismissed. Moonchild enjoys right of seniority to any combination of wolves and Firefox forks; Librewolf is a pretender. I know Night Wing also likes Floorp.

[Night Wing]

I do not know if this true or not, but I've heard "rumors" on the internet Floorp is experimenting with a compatibility layer so it can use Chrome extensions as well as Firefox extensions. Like I said, just rumors.

[Mæstro]

I finish editing my message to mention that Night Wing likes Floorp, and that very instant, he leaves his post about it! I am a wizard.

I do not know if this true or not, but I've heard "rumors" on the internet Floorp is experimenting with a compatibility layer so it can use Chrome extensions as well as Firefox extensions.

I am sceptical of this upon hearing it. Why would Floorp bother to do that when Chrome extensions have just been crippled?

[Night Wing]

I am sceptical of this upon hearing it.?

Sometimes "skeptical" can become "reality" even though it may not work as well as it should. In my opinion, there has to be lots of hard work before it becomes "reality'. Just an educated guess on my part because the Floorp team will have to deal with Manifest 2 "and" Manifest 3 in the Floorp browser. And it may not work out in the "end".

Look at "Commit d2c0deb" for the Floorp project at the link below.

https://github.com/Floorp-Projects/Floo ... 253308b2fd

[Mæstro]

I stand corrected! Thank you for bringing this to my attention. It is baffling that Floorp would bother doing this, but stranger things have happened in the world of non-XUL extensions.

[Octopuss]

Now I need a new secondary browser, that's just great. FML! Is there any unofficial, trusted Firefox variant with just shit features stripped down but otherwise no funky stuff? I could use that.

My backup browser to linux Pale Moon is linux Waterfox. Waterfox contains no AI "stuff". Waterfox is also available for the Windows operating system. You can find it on the pages at the links below.

https://www.waterfox.com/

https://www.waterfox.com/download/

lol Waterfox's website doesn't even render correctly in PM. But why am I surprised when I am actually looking for Firefox that's just a litttle less shit than the original?

[Night Wing]

@ LuftWafflePilot

Take Waterfox for a test drive. It just may be what you are looking for, for a Firefox replacement. Waterfox works very well for me when websites do not render properly in Pale Moon.

As an example.

Look at how Pale Moon renders the website ESPN and then see how Waterfox renders ESPN. You cannot surf the ESPN website with Pale Moon, but you can easily with Waterfox.

https://www.espn.com/

[jobbautista9]

Why would Floorp bother to do that when Chrome extensions have just been crippled?

I suppose it's because they can... Firefox extensions are as fundamentally limited as Chrome ones are anyway since the move to WebExtensions.

What I like about Floorp's recent addition of support for Chrome extensions is that it finally made cross-browser compatibility (as long as it doesn't use a vendor-specific feature lol) of the WebExtensions as it was conceived real to the user, instead of being a developer-only convenience. Mozilla will never do the next logical step themselves because it will break their walled garden that is the AMO. It's really funny that Chrome and Chromium-based browsers care less about where you install your extensions from than Firefox.

[UCyborg]

Isn't Floorp still problematic when it comes to calling home?

The conceptual divide between Generations Y and Z, in my opinion, is whether one can clearly recall living in a world before smartphones became ubiquitous. I can, but friends just a few years younger than me cannot, one of the reasons I feel closer to my elders than my juniors the same absolute time apart. Smartphones have taken on the world in storm and are evidently warping culture, society and politics wherever they are found, making them a better milestone than events specific to a given country. (Historians centuries hence will only care about who was born in the second or third millennium AD. But this agrees with my boundary, in my experience.) It would seem the coronavirus left little long-term effect. Even the health ministry’s posters last year mentioned the coronavirus vaccine as an afterthought while encouraging the influenza one, and this year, the coronavirus has been omitted entirely. Because a generation tends to be 16–18 years, I think the boundary between Generations Z and A, once the dust has settled, will be whether one can recall living in a world before LLM and text-to-media software infested culture, just as smartphones did a generation before.

The memories are not as clear as clear sky, mostly due to my memory not being super reliable, but they're there. Even the dreams, the few I recall in recent times, are more of a blur. I also recall serious winters back then.

I exist in my own little bubble, watching as a spectator. Maybe I would feel the influence more strongly if I was more involved with the society.

[Mæstro]

I exist in my own little bubble, watching as a spectator. Maybe I would feel the influence more strongly if I was more involved with the society.

This is how I feel also. Friends have lovingly likened my outlook to that of Tokugawa Japan. Shutting out LLM and text-to-media software has not presented any special challenge that abstaining from smartphones, DRM or advertising generally did not. (The same can be said of other novelties without redeeming value like GMO, which I also manage to avoid even when in the USA.) Here I sit, surrounded by the garden I have lovingly organised according to the virtues I think proper. Beyond are dogs, but here, I cannot even hear them howl.

[Gemmaugr]

Isn't Floorp still problematic when it comes to calling home?

Very true. https://sizeof.cat/post/web-browser-tel ... #pale-moon (Had to link this one Floorps is just in sight, below PM's entry).

[Night Wing]

Floorp is at version 12.9.1 as of Dec 19th. They had problems with 12.9.0 and it was never released so the link below is the Release Notes for (12.9.1).

https://blog.floorp.app/en/release/12.9.0/

[Mæstro]

https://sizeof.cat/post/web-browser-tel ... #pale-moon (Had to link this one )

Can we make this our official, one-stop answer whenever someone brings up that foolish Neocities site, Spyware Watchdog?
Edit: This is a magnificent site, a scrapbook with lovely comments gathered. Splitting the Web ties in well with what I had said in my last post. What goes on in the mainstream web is alien, unrecognisable to me. When I hear about it, I am amused as I would be by tales of faraway countries.

[moonbat]

Can we make this our official, one-stop answer whenever someone brings up that foolish Neocities site, Spyware Watchdog?

The clown behind that even calls TCP spyware

[Octopuss]

@ LuftWafflePilot

Take Waterfox for a test drive. It just may be what you are looking for, for a Firefox replacement. Waterfox works very well for me when websites do not render properly in Pale Moon.

As an example.

Look at how Pale Moon renders the website ESPN and then see how Waterfox renders ESPN. You cannot surf the ESPN website with Pale Moon, but you can easily with Waterfox.

https://www.espn.com/

I will when I feel like experimenting.
Does it come with certain features stripped off at the code level btw, or is it just kind of reconfigured FF?

[Night Wing]

I will when I feel like experimenting.
Does it come with certain features stripped off at the code level btw, or is it just kind of reconfigured FF?

Yes, it does. Most notably, no AI "crap" in Waterfox where as Firefox does have AI "crap". You will just have to look at the Settings to see what you want to keep or not by checking and unchecking items. This is what I do.

Just one example.

I do not let Waterfox store passwords or store credit card numbers since they are checked by default. I uncheck those boxes. Just customize Watefox to your liking.

[Octopuss]

This is nothing short of hillarious.
I successfully moved over to Waterfox (aleady liking it if nothing else then for subtle GUI differences), went ahead and uninstalled Firefox, and at the end was given the option to tell Mozilla why was I doing it. I thought about some juicy "fuck you to eternity and back", but when I clicked next, the setup closed, and Microsoft Store opened on Edge page. Lmao. You can't make that up.
FF didn't even give a shit there is a default browser installed and couldn't bother to (presumably?) try to open a link in that

[Night Wing]

@LuftWafflePilot

I keep Firefox since it is the installed browser in the MX Linux and Debian linux distros. Sometimes I have both Waterfox and Firefox open at the same time. Since they look almost the same with my customization for them, I use colored themes to keep me on track since Watefox can install and run Firefox extensions.

For Waterfox I use the "just solid blue" theme and I use the "LightOrange" theme for Firefox. The extensions for each are below.

Waterfox:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... olid-blue/

Firefox:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... ghtorange/

And the screenshots (attachments) for both browsers are below. First one is Waterfox and the second one is Firefox.