LibreWolf
LibreWolf is a community-maintained, privacy and performance-enhanced browser forked from Firefox, independent of Mozilla. It uses over 500 settings to limit telemetry, offers an Extensions Firewall, supports all major systems, and is developed free from corporate influence.
License model
- Free • Open Source
Application type
Country of Origin
- International
Platforms
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- AppImageHub
- Linux Mint
- Arch Linux
- Gentoo
- Flathub
- Fedora
- Ubuntu
- Debian
- OpenBSD
- Chocolatey
- Homebrew
Features
LibreWolf News & Activities
Recent News
Recent activities
Maoholguin added LibreWolf as alternative to Dia Browser
POX added LibreWolf as alternative to Opera Neon- braky updated LibreWolf
- jdakfkj333 reviewed LibreWolf
LibreWolf primarily just takes Firefox and tweaks it. It's better to just do the tweaking yourself, which only takes a couple hours and you're set. Or gradually tweak it so you know that nothing breaks and if it does, you can actually fix it.
You can do it even faster by modifying Arkenfox.js. Setting up Arkenfox user.js yourself on a fresh Firefox installation gives you complete transparency into what is configured and why.
LibreWolf often suffers from out-of-the-box breakage due to its...
- OleWels liked LibreWolf
Comments and Reviews
Firefox.... the way it should be.
Very privacy oriented, less useless features, works with Firefox extensions, not based on Chromium
LW is shipped WITHOUT an integrated updater!
There's an addon that alerts the latest update
@Ruyeex Recurring to an add-on/extension to not only not get the update but just to get notified: It is not a feature nor a positive perspective from the situation, specially where other browsers such as Floorp, support auto-update even on their portable version.
@ANON2025 Indeed which is quite a pain to set up unless it's big tech who doesn't want to update software. But I agree on that point which it should include it on default but let the users has control on their version despite the risks.
LibreWolf primarily just takes Firefox and tweaks it. It's better to just do the tweaking yourself, which only takes a couple hours and you're set. Or gradually tweak it so you know that nothing breaks and if it does, you can actually fix it.
You can do it even faster by modifying Arkenfox.js. Setting up Arkenfox user.js yourself on a fresh Firefox installation gives you complete transparency into what is configured and why.
LibreWolf often suffers from out-of-the-box breakage due to its extremely strict default configurations. I just experienced this today on an extension I use frequently, and you will see many of these complaints online.
LibreWolf includes not just configuration changes but also custom patches to Firefox source code, a separate update mechanism, and sometimes its own binaries or infrastructure. This adds complexity (i.e. large attack surface).
With Firefox you don't have to rely on a small group of people to make sure they update it correctly when Firefox pushes a security patch. You must also trust that each LibreWolf build is securely compiled, distributed, and signed. While you have to do that with Firefox, you are adding a second layer.
There is really no need for LibreWolf. It doesn't resist fingerprinting as well as Mullvad Browser (developed alongside Tor team), and it's not as usable as Firefox (which can be hardened just as well as LibreWolf yourself).
Can't recommend LibreWolf for the following reasons:
There's no auto-update unless you install it through a Package Manager. There's literally no excuse to not have a built-in updater and there are examples of this such as Ablaze's Floorp Browser that even their portable version has an auto-updater.
LibreWolf doesn't use Firefox ESR as a base, they use the Firefox standard-channel releases which makes point #1 worse as they push updates more frequently. Most people are on Windows & most Windows users don't use Package Managers, so they will more-likely do the updating manually.
This is probably the most controversial point so I'm going to be as objective as possible: There's not a single reason, even if you personally dislike a specific persona; to ban them from your support channels, specially if they just want answers for their questions, even worse; you don't ban them simply because "oh, look, it is this guy specifically". If you show us we can't trust you to answer simple questions, why should I trust your code running on my computer? Why should I even trust you at all? or let's take it from another perspective; Why would I want to support you if you endorse this kind of behaviour?
PS: I have no idea why the bullets aren't displaying correctly on the text, already tried editing text multiple times with the same result.
Differences from Firefox seem to mostly be in default settings, a pre-installed ad blocker, and fingerprint protection through disabling or altering features that can leak data.
Upside: Better privacy!
Downside: You may have to change settings or add exceptions to get some sites to work right. Though I've only really had trouble so far with Panoramax (needs WebGL) and uploading to Flickr (might be a Flatpak issue). My biggest annoyance with it has been, of all things, not auto-switching between light and dark mode.
Seems comparable to Brave in terms of website privacy, but without all the crypto, AI and advertising.
Compatible with Firefox extensions, syncs through
Firefox Sync (it's encrypted at the client end, so Mozilla can't read your bookmarks). Takes a little effort to connect it to 
KeePassXC
I appreciate that it runs on ARM Linux too.
Good Browser, the Community Manager sucks (It's very woke that it uses social justice as a way to guilt-trip, shame, or even bully others into conforming to their own ideologies)
LibreWolf is the best hardened browser for those who don't want the hassle of configuring Firefox manually. Mullvad is excellent too, but it doesn't give you the freedom to uninstall or disable the Mullvad, uBlock Origin and NoScript extensions. I love these extensions, I recommend and use uBlock Origin and NoScript, but the stance of forcing you to use them... I don't like it. The only thing missing for LibreWolf to be top is to release the Enhanced Tracking Protection configuration options so that I can disable cookie browsing.