THIS MONTH THE DOCTOR TACKLES...

> Switch from Firef

> Batch app launch

> Best phone backup

Ditching Firefox

I thought supporting Firefox and Mozilla was the smart thing to do, privacy-wise, but Mozilla’s latest ‘feature’ giving advertisers information about user activity (the so-called Privacy Preserving Attribution feature) has left me unsure I can trust them, particularly as it’s been enabled by default. I’m aware of other browsers touting their privacy credentials, like Brave and DuckDuckGo, but what would you suggest— am I being overly sensitive about Mozilla, or should I be looking at yet another browser migration?

–Debra Pendergraft

THE DOCTOR RESPONDS: Unfortunately, Mozilla’s latest move to try to balance privacy with revenue generation through ads has left a sour taste in the mouth for many. The launch of Privacy Preserving Attribution came just weeks after acquiring Anonym, an ad-tech company specializing in so-called “privacy preserving digital advertising”, and users were opted in by default. This predictably has left many privacy experts crying foul as Mozilla appears to be caving into the growing trend for putting web advertisers ahead of users.

So, let’s assume this makes Firefox unpalatable going forward. What are your alternatives? The Doc assumes one of the attractions of choosing Firefox in the first place is that it’s one of the few browsers not using Google’s Blink web engine. Assuming you wish to stick with its own Gecko web engine, this rules out browsers from both Brave and DuckDuckGo.

Most Gecko-based browsers are forks of the main Firefox project, which means they’re built from the core Firefox code before diverging with their own customizations. Three examples stand out, starting with the Tor Browser (www.torproject. org). This offers the ultimate in privacy, not least when using its own Tor network, and is built from Firefox’s ESR (Extended Support Release) branch, which runs alongside the regular stable branch to provide less frequently updated features for large organizations.