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Which to choose: GNU IceCat or LibreWolf?
(lemmy.ca)
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this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2025
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I can't tell you much about the pros and cons for each, however, when I look at the number of active contributors for each project, I'm not thrilled by either of their staying power.
Icecat has only a few active contributors. LibreWolf has <20.
Just to compare, Waterfox has over 5000 contributors.
LibreWolf (and Waterfox) install extensions the way Firefox does, so it's very easy. Waterfox does give you the option to sync with Firefox, so that might be a major benefit if you want the functionality.
I am 100% certain that this count includes Firefox contributors, not direct contributors to Waterfox. None of the Firefox forks are massive projects with contributors into the thousands. I would expect Waterfox to have a similar number of dedicated contributors to the others.
IDK, but it looks like a lot of individuals.
I compared them all the same way.
Yeah, those are almost exclusively Firefox contributors. e.g. Emilio Cobos Álvarez is a Gecko engineer at Mozilla, moz-wptsync-bot is a bot Mozilla uses to sync web platforms tests, Ryan VanderMeulen is the Firefox release manager at Mozilla.
Since their commits show up in the Waterfox commit log, they are Waterfox contributors, but only because it's a fork and they contributed to the upstream project, Firefox.
LibreWolf and IceCat aren't on GitHub (officially), so I'm guessing it's just a difference in how different code trackers report contributors in forks or something.
Thank you for the info. I made assumptions for sure.
The silver lining is that the OP has more than two alternatives regardless 😀
You can also sync in LibreWolf, if you enable it in the settings.
I need to run my own sync server.
You can do that too. LibreWolf is not taking away any of Firefox functionality unless there's a specific reason for it. Some of its defaults are stricter, but those can be changed. All the configuration is totally available to you.
I get that. It's just your comment made me realize I should self host my sync server.
Hmm. I didn't see the option, but if true, that's great (if you use the option).
librewolf works just as well. waterfox is good too, but they have some questionable ui designs, though not as irrational as Firedragon
Didn't consider Waterfox. Will look into it.
I was leaning towards GNU IceCat because of it being backed by Debian.