I am FOSS-friendly? How can I do better?

Delete brave and tiktok

brave is FOSS

Yes but its still shit

I've never seen anyone actually prove that Brave is bad without saying something like "it has useless features" (even though those useless features are optional, like Brave Rewards, news, talk, etc.) or talking about the fact that (also optionally) you can choose to see their ads (which they overlay on others) to earn crypto. It really isn't ethical to do that, I agree with that part, but I don't enable that option; I just want to browse without seeing ads.
I also prefer not to comment on people who use an article from 2018 full of outdated information to try and prove that "Brave is spyware."

Tiktok 🤮

Any1 alternative?

Alternative to brain rot?

earn crypto

Telltale sign of a completely non-shady browser right there! AI and cryptobros never did anything to hurt FOSS or the world in general, so it's fine! Consume product!

You wanted to have suggestions about what to make better. Why do you use Brave instead of Firefox/Fennec? You can easily install uBlock Origin in the latter and also browse the web without ads and without shady side-features you don't use anyway.

Brave is a Chromium fork and Chromium is bad for browser diversity. Supporting another browser is "more FOSS friendly" I'd say. That was your initial question, wasn't it?

I found this article which explains really well why I personally wouldn't use Brave based on morals and "vibes": https://thelibre.news/no-really-dont-use-brave/

It's a philosophical question. If you don't see it that way and don't care, continue to use Brave. But why ask for other's opinions to then dunk on them? Why do we need to prove to you Brave is bad when you asked for our opinion? It's OK for you to have a different opinion.

Yeah

How can I do better?

Spread the foss to your friends and family!

You'll probably think the reason is stupid, but I'm not really down to use Firefox mainly because I think their interface is terrible. There's also the fact that most of the money Mozilla makes comes from Google, and I don't really feel good using a product from a company that's basically propped up by Google (yeah, I'm being a hypocrite, I use K9 mail). As for Fennec, I've heard of it, but I never really looked into it; can you tell me why it's a good option?

And sorry man, I'm not gonna bother checking out the link you sent. I understand and even admire you not using Brave for ethical and moral reasons, but in my opinion, the only people who are 100% ethical all the time are trust fund babies or fools (I'm not a trust fund baby and I'm not looking to be a fool).

And my bad if any of my comments came off as rude or like I was trying to offend anyone, that wasn't my intention.

Does anyone have a FOSS BROWSER recommendation?

Seriously, saying what they have is shit and providing no alternatives is counterproductive. I still use chromium on my device because firefox runs like buns. Y'all are saying Brave is not better, but again, do you have alternatives?

Thanks

• Lemmy with an alternate frontend.
• Touching grass

For me firefox, or rather fennec, runs really well. What issues do you have? Maybe open a bug report after checking if others have similar problems. Maybe your specific performance issues can be fixed by someone with programming socks?

I don't feel like Lemmy has been rotting my brain enough; no matter how much I refresh, the posts always show up in the exact same order, they only change the order once a day.

I've never had any issues with ff's performance personally, what is your specs?

Modified light phone 3

You’ll probably think the reason is stupid, but I’m not really down to use Firefox mainly because I think their interface is terrible.

No, that's fine. Probably a trade-off between usability and philosophy at this point. You actually nearly succeeded in having me try brave but it's not in F-Droid repositories, so I didn't.

There’s also the fact that most of the money Mozilla makes comes from Google, and I don’t really feel good using a product from a company that’s basically propped up by Google

Pretty sure Brave wouldn't exist without Google money either. They're not independent from Google if they didn't code their browser from scratch, IMHO.

Fennec

Basically FOSS build of mobile firefox. If you tried FF, no need to try Fennec.

the only people who are 100% ethical all the time are trust fund babies or fools

idk how one could be ethical as trust fund baby, who by definition gets funded by the patriarchy and capitalism.

Obviously I'm not operating 100% ethical either, but my goal isn't 100% but whatever percentage is more than what I did last year.

For example, in 2012 I had 70 Amazon orders. In 2021 I actually managed to get it down to 0. Recently I kinda relapsed but at least it's less than 20 for 2025, I'm striving to get back down to 0 again. Morally perfect? Certainly not. But I'm trying.

What I'm saying is, I'm doing this based on the browser's makers' vibes, and the article confirms that other people than myself have the same focus on the same issues as me. I just didn't wamt to list them all in a lemmy post.

And my bad if any of my comments came off as rude or like I was trying to offend anyone, that wasn’t my intention.

Thank you! Your clarification made me feel better interacting with you regardless of intention :)

but in my opinion, the only people who are 100% ethical all the time are trust fund babies or fools

So never be ethical then? Never try to do better when you have the opportunity?

Perfection is the enemy of good.

https://projectfennec.org/

Took me 10 seconds to find that link. They explain why fennec is better.

Clearly you don't really want to know or you would've done this search yourself, and spent the time reading it right from the source.

Not downvoting you, please get help and real hobbies. I quit Instagram and similar brainrot and it immensely helped my brain functions (focus, ability to form thoughts etc.), anxiety, and happiness levels.

Can't use apps that require google play services.

Trying fennec now. Seems much better than last time I had it installed.

I'm running a modified Light phone 3. It's a bit of a janky setup but it's definitely been an interesting tinkering project

dude, the only point of my comment was just to be funny hahaha lol lmao xd; I don't even watch tiktok videos, I only have them to keep the streak going with my friends

(note: a streak on tiktok is a number that goes up the more you talk, I know, it's pretty stupid)

sorry for wanting the person who recommended something to me to actually send me the link for it (???)

a streak on tiktok is a number that goes up the more you talk, I know, it’s pretty stupid

Whatever floats your boat. I care about the content of messages, not the number going up. Even more so, I prefer IRL interactions to digital ones.

I don't think I'd appreciate ranking my friends by number, but interesting food for thought – imagine a regular chat app telling you the frequency of messages per day, so you can be fair dividing your attention to all your friends 🤔

It actually makes sense, since Brave is based on Chromium, it's more of a fact than an opinion to say they aren't completely independent from Google.

I've actually heard good things about Firefox, and I like the idea of a lightweight browser, but the interface really put me off. I'm going to give Fennec a shot, and if I remember, I'll come back here to give my take on what I thought of it.

Look, you know, the human brain loves closure; I don't feel right mentally knowing I could lose a 27,392,919-day streak tomorrow if I don't reply to my friend Wallace. We've only been communicating through stickers for 3 years now—I don't even know where he is or what his face looks like anymore.

If you are talking about the Fennec browser (i.e. Firefox on android), this link is not pointing to that.

That's a benefit. It helps break the addiction.

Being hooked on short form video is literally fucking up your brain (until you stop).

A 75,000 year streak is worth keeping TikTok imo.

Funny how crypto is an amazing example of an entire infrastructure and service layer going FOSS and fully decentralized, and open source capitalist haters still despise it.

Aaaaahhh

set it to sorting by "new comments", it's what I did to make sure I see somewhat different things most of the time I refresh it

firefox based browsers for life!

'+ 1 for Fennec

on mobile WebLibre, waterfox
if you need a chromium based on desktop there's ungoogled chromium and brave, don't know what's available for chromium on mobile

The website says "The Light Phone III will never have [...] internet browsing"? Is this the 'modified'?

There are several apps that do the same

• Mullvad (the Browser?) and Brave
• K-9 Mail and Proton Mail
• Aegis, Aurora and F-Droid
• Brawl Allstar, Roblox and Tiktok

Think about deduplication.

Not fully Foss but I really like Vivaldi. Think the back end is foss

Aren't Aegis a 2fa app? Aurora and F-droid have different use cases? Or can you add F-droid (and other) repos to Aurora?

Ironfox

You are FOSS friendly ! Great list 😄

There's always Loops.

remove play store and other bloats with universal android debloater

Do you use a separate icon pack or is the one in the screenshot part of your Android skin ?

Yeah basically the 'light os' is just a launcher not a full operating system. It's running android 14 under the hood and if you know the work around you can get to the base layer and build up from there.

It's really a nifty device. I quite enjoy what it has to offer. The problem I have with it was that the company shipped it before the software could utilize all the features. It's got a fingerprint reader and front facing camera that aren't utilized out the box (selfies work but video calls, no). I liked it enough to tinker with it and make it 'smart'. The form factor and other constraints make it so it's much less intrusive than my other smart phones. Which has helped me stay focused. I won't lie there are still times that I find myself scrolling reddit on it but it's janky enough where it's not as bad as it could be. It has definitely highlighted how addictive these apps and sites are.

Still ironing out some details on my own but I look forward to what they do with their software updates in the future!

Have you tried microg to allow gapps to work? Or is that just not something you want to do?

none of the things you mentioned are the same
Mullvad: VPN
Brave: Browser
K-9 mail: email client, I use it to access my gmail without using the gmail app
Proton mail: the gmail app itself
Aegis: authenticator (I really have no idea where you got the idea that it has anything to do with email)
Brawl stars & Roblox: Games, but they are COMPLETELY different games
Tiktok: Entertainment (even though I don't use it for that)

My bad

I use SmartLauncher; it has an option to change all the app icons so they match the wallpaper.

I removed all the bloatware I found, but I can't uninstall the Play Store or my banking app will stop working.