The web browser LibreWolf 94 is now available, representing a fork of Firefox 94 with modifications aimed at enhancing security and privacy. The project is developed by a community of enthusiasts. Changes are published under the MPL 2.0 license (Mozilla Public License). Builds are available for Linux (Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, Ubuntu, Arch, Flatpak, AppImage), macOS, and Windows.
Main differences from Firefox include:
- Removal of code related to telemetry transmission, conducting experiments to enable test features for a subset of users, displaying advertising in recommendations when typing in the address bar, and outputting unnecessary announcements. All possible connections to Mozilla servers have been disabled, and background connections have been minimized. Built-in addons for update checks, crash report submissions, and integration with Pocket service have been removed.
- Default use of privacy-preserving search engines that do not track user preferences. Support is included for DuckDuckGo, Searx, and Qwant.
- Inclusion of the uBlock Origin ad blocker in the base package.
- Presence of a firewall for addons, limiting the potential for establishing network connections from those addons.
- Taking into account recommendations from the Arkenfox project to enhance privacy and security, and to block features that allow passive identification of the browser.
- Inclusion of optional settings that lead to improved performance.
- Rapid updates based on the main Firefox codebase (new releases of LibreWolf are built within a few days after the Firefox release).
- Proprietary components for viewing protected content (DRM - Digital Right Management) are disabled by default. To block indirect user identification methods, WebGL is disabled by default. Additionally, IPv6, WebRTC, Google Safe Browsing, OCSP, and Geo Location API are also disabled by default.
- The independent build system—unlike some similar projects—LibreWolf builds compilations on its own, without making alterations to the final Firefox builds or overriding settings. LibreWolf is not linked with the Firefox profile and installs into a separate directory, allowing it to be used alongside Firefox.
- Protection of important settings from changes. Security and privacy settings are locked in the librewolf.cfg and policies.json files, and cannot be modified by extensions, updates, or the browser itself. The only way to make changes is by directly editing the librewolf.cfg and policies.json files.
- A set of vetted extensions is optionally offered as LibreWolf-addons, which includes such extensions as NoScript, uMatrix, and Bitwarden (password manager).
Source: opennet.ru
