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Just the Browser: tools to remove AI and other bloatware from Chrome, Edge and Firefox

⁨534⁩ ⁨likes⁩

Submitted ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨dantheclamman@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.world⁩

https://justthebrowser.com/

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  • Dequei@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Just use Librewolf

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    • NotSteve_@piefed.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I really like the Zen browser. It’s Firefox-based, open source and privacy focused with AI removed but it’s also really pretty and is built around vertical tabs

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      • Anarki_@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Zen browser my beloved 🥰

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      • JayGray91@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        I love zen browser and its workspaces. I just cannot use any other Firefox forks anymore without it. It’s more than just containers in Firefox.

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      • akilou@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Ia this just desktop? No mobile?

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      • MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        You know what would be nice? If the group gets saved as bookmarks (maybe Session/session-name) and you could just save/load such a session as a group.

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    • in_my_honest_opinion@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      For those interested

      https://librewolf.net/installation/

      https://codeberg.org/librewolf/issues/issues/1919

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      • acockworkorange@mander.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        The relevant bit from the second link:

        The settings that Mozilla packaged in were the main big ones, Claude, ChatGPT etc, it didn’t look like any of them were locally hosted or even if a locally hosted model could be chose. Local AI… where the model itself and all the token are processed on either your own machine or another machine controlled by you certainly isn’t violating privacy, but as I said the choices on offer were none of these.

        LibreWolf by default gets rid of anything that seeks to abuse your right to privacy, you won’t even find Google or Bing in your search engine. Naturally this will also apply to AI providers. Unfortunately, at the moment, we can’t trust Mozilla and by extension with AI items so these things were removed. That doesn’t mean you can’t install third party AI extensions.

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    • FenderStratocaster@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I know I’ll get flak for this, but I am sticking with FireFox, because it saves my passwords.

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      • gustofwind@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        I’d recommend switching to something like Bitwarden for your passwords so you can take them with you and also switch your stuff around if you ever want to

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      • MunkyNutts@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        I’ve been using Librewolf for some months now. You can migrate your Firefox profile into Librewolf, that’s what I did and it retained my passwords. I’m not very tech savvy but it does have some kinks, my browser clock is off I’ve tried tinkering with it but gave up. And especially with the Resist Fingerprinting enabled it seems to not retain my 2 factor id for sites when I ask it to remember me.

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      • Nioxic@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        So can librewolf

        You can still use firefox sync as well

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      • the_riviera_kid@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Try waterfox maybe?

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      • albbi@piefed.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        You can switch to WaterFox and it seamlessly uses the FireFox sync to use all your passwords. Very easy drop in replacement.

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    • CheerfulPassionFruit@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      As a libreworlf user, I’d have to advise some caution to regular users. A lot of sites are broken as images won’t load and “fancier” web apps don’t work super well either. Yes it’s an easy fix, but expecting someone to go look in the config files to get an image to load is too much for a lot of people

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      • Dequei@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        That’s why I recommend Waterfox instead to non technical users

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      • in_my_honest_opinion@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        I haven’t experienced this behavior. Can you provide a URL for me to test against.

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    • PancakesCantKillMe@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I think even with Librewolf you need to open the about:config page and disable browser.ml settings.

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      • Kr4u7@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        afaik is that fixed by now - the team strongly opposes ai and stated that they want to keep it as clean as possible

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    • Electricd@lemmybefree.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      The defaults are bad and some options are either: fully protect fingerprinting OR no protection at all

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    • friend_of_satan@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I switched from Firefox to Librewoof about a month ago and it’s been wonderful. I can’t imagine what it would take for me to switch back to Firefox. I’ll probably ride Librewolf until the project dies.

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    • ken@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Grumpy ken thinks “Just use Foo” meming is promoting mindless use and I think should therefore be discouraged. Even in jest I think this affects us subconsciously to feel more comfortable with not thinking deeper for ourselves. Even if X is the right one. “Use Foo already!” is nicer~!

      If I may illustrate:

      Use Konform Browser already!

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    • edible_funk@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      What about mobile?

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      • Dequei@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Ironfox

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  • kali_fornication@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    given what “edge” means among the teens these days, microsoft really should go back to the old browser name…microsoft goon

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    • Goodlucksil@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I don’t get what was wrong with the name of Internet Explorer.

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      • Endymion_Mallorn@kbin.melroy.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        They don't want you exploring anymore. Exploration would take you away from their profitable walled garden.

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      • Vince@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Marketing sucks, IE was forever tainted. Like now, even if Copilot ran entirely on solar power and cured cancer, solved all hardest math problems, somehow achieved world peace and solved hunger, etc, people would still hate it.

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    • bytesonbike@discuss.online ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Microsoft should replace “content sharing” with their original idea from the Zune… Squirting.

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  • guywithoutaname@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    FYI if you want to edit the Firefox policies directly and save it in /etc/firefox/policies/policies.json, this is the file they are using

      "policies": {
    "DisableFirefoxStudies": true,
    "DisableTelemetry": true,
    "DontCheckDefaultBrowser": true,
    "FirefoxHome": {
      "SponsoredStories": false,
      "SponsoredTopSites": false,
      "Stories": false
    },
    "GenerativeAI": {
      "Enabled": false
    },
    "SearchEngines": {
      "Remove": [
        "Perplexity"
      ]
    }
  }
}```
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    • flying_sheep@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      This shows how unhinged the whole recent hate on Firefox is. Turning off GenAI is literally one single setting AND Mozilla is doing things infinitely better than others (e.g. the translation feature is completely local, and having a chatbot in the sidebar is opt-in)

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      • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        I get a lot of hate for it but some AI inclusions are genuinely good.

        Firefox’s local AI translation is infinitely better than scraping all the info and sending it to Google Translate servers, and nobody will convince me otherwise.

        The screen reader improvements that use AI are good as well. Has anybody here used screen readers for web pages? They are awful. It’s good that someone is willing to improve them. My sister is blind so this matters a lot to me.

        The (locally generated) AI assisted link previews aren’t for me as I imagine they’re unnecessarily taxing on older PCs, but they’re not exactly an evil inclusion. It’s an attempt at adding

        I’m not a fan of the LLM sidebar, but it’s opt-in and you can at least choose open models or even host your own, I guess.

        The hate is overblown.

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      • Baguette@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        That’s because the people who are fine or happy with firefox aren’t the type of people to talk about it, the vocal ones are the people that have complaints

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      • cley_faye@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        This shows how unhinged the whole recent hate on Firefox is. Turning off GenAI is literally one single setting

        We heard of that “kill switch” way, way after the general outrage. Also, other software and services have an “AI killswitch” that conveniently fails to work from time to time, and is fixed only when people notice it.

        It’s not unhinged to point finger at someone doing something that, from experience, as always turned bad. Also, if you think the hate (I use your word, I’d say distrust) for Firefox is only related to the recent “AI” push, you’re severely misinformed.

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    • MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I have my settings in /etc/firefox and a symlink to distro’s /usr/lib/firefox-esr/distribution. Easier to remember.

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  • Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Great move for those that don’t want to migrate, but I’d recommend just switching to Vivaldi if you like chromium browsers, librewolf if you are used to Firefox, and if you use edge you aren’t even reading this so whatever.

    Edit: I guess if you can get this to work on a work computer where edge is your only browser option perhaps, that would be nice.

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    • acockworkorange@mander.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Yeah, I snuck Firefox portable past the IT goons, I wouldn’t risk anything else.

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      • 123@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        You didn’t sneak anything in, they just don’t care enough. Even the most useless IT admin has a GUI to see any and all executables that any user runs. They even know if you use bat or sh scripts that you add an argument with a plain text password (which is considered amateurish since it leaves the credentials directly on the history).

        Also fair warning, most endpoint security software that companies are forced to use nowadays (if they want consideration to work with certain clients like state and federal) do SSL man in the middle with certificates they push to their hardware. Accessing personal data and websites using company resources is like handing out your password to them, and at least in the US, could open you up for litigation of you get on their bad side for how you use company resources.

        Above might not apply to startups, but as mentioned, if they want to work with certain clients, they have to run that kind of software to be considered for contracts. This means actions could have delayed consequences if a client has some audit request for any reason.

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  • RIotingPacifist@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Shopping features: coupon codes

    This feature doesn’t seem like the others.

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    • AmbitiousProcess@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      It kind of is. For example, Edge will automatically pop up in the corner at checkout and offer coupon codes, most of them will never work, then they’ll steal the affiliate revenue from whoever actually sent you to the site in the first place, or add an affiliate link where it didn’t previously exist, so that the site now has more expenses that are just… paying Microsoft for no reason, making everything you buy more expensive in the long run.

      It pops up whether you want it or not, it’s convoluted to disable, it slows down your browser when it’s running, it financially harms the shops you buy from, and it often just lies about having coupons to waste your time while pretending it’s helping you.

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    • dantheclamman@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      If you’re familiar with the controversy around the Honey coupon addon, there are a lot of parallels in terms of privacy, ethics etc.

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  • Suavevillain@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I switched to Watefox myself. It is comfy and no AI.

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    • ClydapusGotwald@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Same

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  • cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    or just download vivaldi or librewolf.

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    • TammyTobacco@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      These don’t have the tab organization and swiping gestures I like, which is a bummer.

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      • cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        not sure about swiping but vivaldi definitely does have tab stacking/grouping (customisable) and vertical tabs; librewolf either has it by default since they baked in tab groups into upstream or it’s able to be enabled in about:config! i just don’t know if it’s officially in yet since i mostly use nightly.

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  • Bwaz@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Or just use Waterfox.

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  • rando@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Would anyone know if this would work for all Firefox derivatives as well? Zen browser in my case. Also would it work for flatpak installations as well?

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    • Peruvian_Skies@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Does Zen Browser even include the AI shit from Mozilla? I know for a fact that neither Waterfox nor Librewolf do.

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      • rando@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        I see, at least initial read/reviews seem to mention Zen removes Firefox telemetry and AI so that’s good. (I also have waterfox installed but didn’t really use it as main browser)

        Now need to see if flatpak Firefox is supported by this script.

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  • Electricd@lemmybefree.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Don’t mind about the AI addition. The worse thing for me is that it doesn’t seem to support custom OpenAI compatible endpoints nor Ollama. Wtf?! This should be the norm for the more privacy conscious community

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    • rob_t_firefly@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Don’t mind about the AI addition.

      more privacy conscious

      Pick one.

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      • Electricd@lemmybefree.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Ever heard of self hosting, or no data usage and no log providers?

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  • AlexLost@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I learned how to turn off the AI search mode and chrome immediately logged me out and pretended not to know my device. C’mon bro, just give it up already, we do t want your shitty product shoved down our throats. Waterfox it is, and they easily let me transfer all my bookmarks and passwords.

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