this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2025

56 points (93.8% liked)

Privacy

39087 readers

524 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
Don't promote proprietary software
Try to keep things on topic
If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
Be nice :)

Related communities

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

Looking for Privacy-Oriented Open-Source Android Browsers (lemmy.world)

submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) by happeningtofry99158@lemmy.world to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

66 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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/Thetimefarm@lemm.ee - 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- no longer maintained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.

top 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] Sarothazrom@lemmy.world 1 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Been using Fennec for about a year, love it

[–] happeningtofry99158@lemmy.world 1 points 11 hours ago

would you say it is better than iceraven in terms of resist fingerprint?

[–] relic4322@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 day ago

I would stay away from chromium forks in general. Google is doing some underhanded stuff using web manifest v3, not to mention all the bastard stuff they are doing in general.

I am very curious not only to hear the answer to your question regarding FF forks, but also why they get rated that way.

[–] Kazel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

firefox

[–] happeningtofry99158@lemmy.world 2 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

firefox on android does not enable resist fingerprint by default. To protect our browser fingerprint we have to tweak many settings and install several extensions (and I'm not sure those extensions supports android browser). That being said, firefox might not be privacy oriented

[–] relic4322@lemmy.ml 3 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

yeah, and extensions additionally work against you in fingerprinting. Though I'm totally interested in what extensions you are using.

[–] happeningtofry99158@lemmy.world 1 points 12 hours ago

I would recommend Chameleon

[–] relic4322@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I should mention that DuckDuckGo recently released an android browser and it is privacy focused. I cant tell you how well it does its job BUT the important thing is that it has an experimental feature that creates a virtual network interface that routes coms and blocks phone home attempts and tells you what app is doing what.

I have had it running for a few months and its crazy to see how much traffic is going on without your knowledge.

[–] happeningtofry99158@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Thanks! I will look into that

[–] MrSulu@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 day ago

I use Cromite and Brave (yeah yeah) plus IronFox via Accrescent.
Brave may well have undesireables like the CEO, cryptocurrency etc., but so easy to switch off. Use your device with RethinkDNS (with or without Wireguard configured) to remove further wrinkles.

[–] Cheradenine@sh.itjust.works 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Iceraven often lags behind on security updates. I know you specified privacy, but good to keep in mind.

I use Ironfox, because I previously used Mull (rip) with RethinkDNS, and Orbot

[–] happeningtofry99158@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

good to know!

[–] lennyuncle@sh.itjust.works -4 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Mull

[–] Undertaker@feddit.org 3 points 17 hours ago

No longer maitained since half a year ago. Please stop using and recommending it

[–] hellfire103@lemmy.ca 6 points 2 days ago (4 children)