Awesome! There’s also a sweet browser add-on called libredirect that integrates really nicely that’ll automatically open YouTube links in freetube :D

For more of a focus on affordable used mini PC homelabs, I’d recommend Hardware Haven’s content instead.

From what I’ve gathered recently, the Mullvad browser left unmodified and combined with a VPN is one of the most private browsers you can use, short of using Tor.

It’s also possible to build a very effective and safe alcohol space heater with about $7 of parts, which can be kept on-hand in case of emergency.

I’m coming around to this conclusion, and updated the post to reflect that. For something as important as a browser, it’s a little concerning the Librewolf dev team is so short staffed, but they do seem to be holding their own. I hope they’re able to stick around long term.

That’s a well reasoned take, honestly.

As I investigate other options to LW, all of which also require a certain level of trust and/or diligence, ultimately I’m finding LW seems difficult to replace, as it does walk that line between ‘good enough’ security/privacy and convenience. The Phoenix project seems promising, but so far is only convenient on a few distros, leaving Windows users with LW, or perhaps Zen.

To clarify, the only relevancy PrivacyGuides has here is that their forum is where I found the link to the Arkenfox github issue, and how their arguments against Librewolf appeared to have been potentially validated by said github issue.

The main concern is that github issue, where one of the main developers of Arkenfox, from which Librefox is derived, claims:

LW since fxbrit left/died/who-knows has gone to shit - I worked with him behind the scenes to make the right choices and while he would do his own analysis, we always agreed, and his voice influenced them. Now they don’t know what they are doing, and in fact have compromised security and make really stupid decisions. Same goes for all the other forks - really dubious shit going

And directly after which a Librewolf team member then voices agreement that Librewolf’s quality control has degraded since the departure of fxbrit.

Now it could be that the Arkenfox dev is exaggerating, and tbh he comes off as a bit of a prick later in that github issue, but overall, I’d say it merits at least some concern (though perhaps less than I originally thought)

According to their intructions, it would seem it’s trivial to install and receive updates on the supported linux distros:

By default, Phoenix is installed & updated via your operating system’s package manager. This allows for fast, easy updates & fixes as needed, right with the rest of your system!

Windows isn’t support though, so it would be a far more manual process there.

Another user here mentioned the Phoenix project, which may be a good solution for us, as I share the same goals.

I haven’t looked into Zen, I’ll do a dive on that now.

Cheers for mentioning that, I hadn’t heard of Phoenix, but looks like an excellent alternative.

I haven’t given it any research since it’s chromium based, tbh.

Unfortunately, adding any addons to the Mullvad browser would defeat the purpose of using it somewhat, since it would defeat the anti-fingerprinting methods.

The Librewolf team member said they’re falling behind on keeping the arkenfox tweaks up to date even as they put out new releases. Perhaps they are able to keep up with Firefox security updates despite that, which I suppose would still make them a better option than vanilla Firefox, but it does give reason to keep a closer eye on them.

I believe Brave is better from a fingerprinting perspective, if only due to it being easier to blend in with compared to Cromite, though Cromite has far better security AFAIK.

I agree on Brave, and I also avoid it so as not to solidify the chromium browser dominance any further.

However, from all I have read, Firefox Mobile based browsers truly are less secure from a technological standpoint. I think for most people, Firefox Mobile is secure enough for it not to be enough of a deciding factor to use a chromium browser, but objectively it is worse. Mull was making the best of that despite the downsides, so hopefully the IronFox fork succeeds on mobile.

And despite their recommending Brave, I think the arguments against LibreWolf do have some merit.

Nice thing about Posteo, and which is AFAIK unique to them now, is they will never delete your account even if you stop paying. If you cease payments, they will let you log in and continue to receive email, but you cannot send emails until you pay again.

The only way your account gets deleted is if you manually delete it yourself.

Proton used to say your account would never be deleted from inactivity if you’d made at least one payment for premium service, but that policy was walked back last year I believe.

Disroot has an encrypted inbox available via an opt-in beta, so hopefully it becomes the default soon.

Wasn’t aware of that, thanks for the heads up.

FYI, Posteo will never delete your account, and will still let you log in and receive emails even if you stop paying (you won’t be able to send emails until you pay the $1 a month again).

They apparently will only recycle your address if you explicitly delete your account yourself.

Tuta and Mailbox.org allow custom domains.

Mailbox.org is another good one.

EDIT: Apparently they recycle addresses, so if you ever cancel your subscription with them, someone could eventually sign up with your old address and receive any mail from places you didn’t switch over to a new address, which is concerning.