Looking for Privacy-Oriented Open-Source Android Browsers
I’m looking for a privacy-focused, open-source Android browser. Here are some options I’ve found:
- IronFox
- recommended by LibreWolf
- Fennec
- no repo
- Waterfox
- Vanadium
- only available on GrapheneOS
- better security
- iceraven
- most stars
- https://lemmy.world/u/[email protected] - As far as I know ironfox supports any extensions normal firefox mobile does, but neither give you access to the full full extensions store. Iceraven is the only mobile browser I know of that lets you use all the extensions that you can on desktop firefox.
- bromite
- no longer maintained
- Bromite has a fingerprint randomization and Vanadium doesn’t. But Vanadium has better security if you use Graphene. So yeah, for privacy Bromite might be better
- cromite
- Bromite fork
- brave
- controversial
- duckduckgo
Is there any other browser out there that fits this criteria? Is there an even better choice? I’m particularly interested in ones that focus on privacy.
EDIT: in terms of popularity, privacy and functionality I guess the best choices are iceraven (based on firefox) as it has most stars on github and cromite (based on chromium) as brave is controversial
Solved Questions
I know that Brave is a bit controversial, but If Brave does something behind our backs wouldn’t we be able to know it since all the source code is out there? If it has some features we don’t like can’t we simply modify the source code?
@slackness
re: open source In theory: yes. In practice: maybe. It’ll probably eventually be caught by some researcher but unlike popular belief all open source code bases are not constantly being audited by the community. A random person can’t just read Brave source code for all platforms and accurately gauge if they’re doing something nefarious. It is very easy to hide stuff in code or misuse a protocol for evil purposes, etc.
You can modify the source code but as evident by the fact that there’s no Brave fork with crypto removed (there was one but their branding was too similar to Brave’s so they got sued), it’s not an easy feat to maintain that.
few questions
- What is the difference between IronFox, Fennec, Waterfox and iceraven?
As far as I know ironfox supports any extensions normal firefox mobile does, but neither give you access to the full full extensions store. Iceraven is the only mobile browser I know of that lets you use all the extensions that you can on desktop firefox.
I’m a bit confused. Its name has changed to Fenix?
No it’s Fennec: https://gitlab.com/relan/fennecbuild maybe you are confusing it with Fenix which was the official android Firefox browser: https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix but is not developed anymore.
Much appreciated!