Web Browsers: Tor Browser, Helium, Firefox, and More

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Nov 02, 2025

• LWN ☛ Tor Browser 15.0 released

  Version 15.0 of the Tor Browser has been released:

  This is our first stable release based on Firefox ESR 140, incorporating a year's worth of changes that have been shipped upstream in Firefox.

• It's FOSS ☛ Ultra Private Tor Browser's Last 32-bit Release

  Privacy-focused browser receives major updates while ending support for legacy platforms.

• Seth Michael Larson ☛ RSS feed for new Nintendo Classics games

  So here's something I created for mostly me, but maybe you too. I've created a small RSS feed for new games being added to the Nintendo Classics collection over time. Nintendo uses this collection as the drippiest-of-drip-feeds, so there's typically only a few new games per month. So instead of checking frequently I can follow this feed in my feed reader and be notified on new releases.

• Chromium

  • The best Chrome browser isn’t Chrome, it’s Helium

    Helium offers an alternative to Google Chrome for Mac, Windows, and Linux users who prefer not to have AI Mode and Gemini enabled in the browser and prioritize privacy over Google's data collection practices.

• Mozilla

  • Mozilla ☛ Mozilla Addons Blog: New Recommended Extensions arrived, thanks to our community curators

    Every so often we host community-driven curatorial projects to select new Firefox Recommended Extensions. By gathering a diverse group of community contributors who share a passion for the open web and add-ons, we aim to identify new Recommended Extensions that meet Mozilla’s “highest standards of security, functionality, and user experience.”

    Earlier this year we concluded yet another successful curatorial project spanning six months. We evaluated dozens of worthy nominations. Those that received highest marks for functionality and user experience were then put through a technical review process to ensure they adhere to Add-on Policies and our industry-leading security standards. A few candidates are still working their way through the final stages of review, but most of the new batch of Recommended Extensions are now live on AMO (addons.mozilla.org) and we wanted to share the news, so without further ado here are some exciting new additions to the program…

  • Mozilla ☛ Mozilla Privacy Blog: Pathways to a fairer digital world: Mozilla shares views on the EU Digital Fairness Act

    The Digital Fairness Act (DFA) is a defining opportunity to modernise Europe’s consumer protection framework for the digital age. Mozilla welcomes the European Commission’s ambition to ensure that digital environments are fair, open, and respecting of user autonomy.

    As online environments are increasingly shaped by manipulative design, pervasive personalization, and emerging Hey Hi (AI) systems, traditional transparency and consent mechanisms are no longer sufficient. The DFA must therefore address how digital systems are designed and operated – from interface choices to system-level defaults and AI-mediated decision-making.

    Mozilla believes the  DFA, if designed in a smart way, will complement existing legislation (such as GDPR, DSA, DMA, Hey Hi (AI) Act) by closing long-recognized legal and enforcement gaps. When properly scoped, the DFA can simplify the regulatory landscape, reduce fragmentation, and enhance legal certainty for innovators, while also enabling consumers to exercise their choices online and bolster overall consumer protection. Ensuring effective consumer choice is at the heart of contestable markets, encouraging innovation and new entry.

    Policy recommendations

  • Barry Kauler ☛ SeaMonkey run non-root, setup-client simplified

    To setup an application to run non-root, that is, as its own user, for example SeaMonkey to run as user "seamonkey", the script /usr/local/clients/setup-client is called. I have completely rewritten that script, reducing it from 1,171 lines down to just 303 lines.

  • Barry Kauler ☛ Emails popped off Gmail with SeaMonkey Mail

    I have wanted to do this for years. My main Gmail account had about 27,000 emails, from 2013. I don't know what the risk is with keeping my emails online, but I feel much better having removed them.
    

  • Mozilla ☛ Mozilla Privacy Blog: California’s Opt Me Out Act is a Win for Privacy

    It’s no secret that privacy and user empowerment have always been core to Mozilla’s mission.

  • University of Toronto ☛ Trying to understand Firefox's approaches to tracking cookie isolation

    As I learned recently, modern versions of Firefox have two different techniques that try to defeat (unknown) tracking cookies. As covered in the browser addon JavaScript API documentation, in Tracking protection, these are called first-party isolation and dynamic partitioning (or storage partitioning, the documentation seems to use both). Of these two, first party isolation is the easier to describe and understand. To quote the documentation: [...]