I’ve been using LW for the past week, and I have to say, it’s exactly what I expected: Stock Firefox but more private, and I really like it. However, I have concerns regarding the future of this project. Now, it’s pretty obvious that LW updates very fast with respect to stock FF right now, but do you guys think that will still be the case in 5, 6, 10 and maybe even 15 years? Using an outdated browser or one that is slow to update is surely a major risk regardless of the year. I’m asking this question because I don’t think there’s another Gecko browser as simply effective and balanced as LW and at the end of the day, it’s still a somewhat niche FOSS browser maintained by a small team.
Thanks in advance!
The way the tech industry and legislation is going, there’s no predicting what things will look like 5 years from now. Anyone trying to tell you anything else is just trying to sell you false hope. LibreWolf is here now, and it’s good. Unfortunately, tomorrow never knows. As long as there’s Open Source and privacy minded developers, I think there will be a privacy focused browser, whatever the tech ecosystem looks like. And of course, that browser will only be private in the context of governing laws and surrounding tech.
For now, if you’re really worried, you can work in the present to advance the cause of LibreWolf and other privacy focused tools like @Tiritibambix@lemmy.ml suggested.
You will get a lot of opinion in this thread but I think it will be slightly empty calories. Browsers are a messy segment. You cannot install once and then not worry about it if your idea of privacy is not like Google’s or Apple’s etc. I don’t think we can make any good predictions 10 years into the future regarding software while a wave of slop washes over the industry. So-called AI may improve the work of small teams like LW eventually but frankly I remain skeptical. Something might happen that washes incumbents like FF out of the market completely, hashtag Netscape. You just have to follow the news and decide if you need to switch.
I think it’s a good idea to have a second favourite. If your fav is Firefox based, find a Chromium based one as an alternative or vice versa. So when possible fecal matter hits the ventilator in the future, you have a plan B.
Honestly, I think you’re worrying about the wrong thing. LibreWolf isn’t really a “full” browser, it’s mostly a set of patches and privacy settings on top of Firefox, while Mozilla does all the heavy lifting on the engine. That’s why it updates so fast, and why a small team of volunteers can keep up at all. So the real long-term risk isn’t LibreWolf slowing down, it’s Mozilla itself. If Firefox ever dies, LW dies with it, there’s just no way a handful of people could maintain a browser engine on their own.
That said, the project has been around since 2020 and has never fallen behind so far, so I wouldn’t loose sleep over it. And even in the worst case, your profile and extensions are 100% Firefox-compatible, so switching back (or just hardening stock Firefox with a user.js like arkenfox) would be trivial. Worst case scenario, you lose nothing but a bit of convenience.
Also worth saying: if you like LW and want it to stick around, you can help the project in whatever way fits you thé best. Doesn’t have to be code, talking about it around you, reporting bugs, or any kind of support goes a long way for a small FOSS team like this one.
Adding to that, from my experience, these profiles are generally cross-compatible with forks too. So the user could even migrate to another, more independent fork if the idea of going to stock Firefox isn’t a pleasing one.
