Basic camera app with support for flash, timer and video. Saving EXIF metadata is optional, as is adding GPS location to it. Doesnât have HDR, night sight or even panorama capability. Does OK in good lighting conditions. You can set the JPEG compression quality, which is nice, though even at 90% its images are slightly noisier than Googleâs camera app on the same phone. Presumably itâs doing less post-processing. Still good for snapshots or iNaturalist observations.
When you really want (or need) to stay private while using the web, Tor is the way to go.
Private windows in normal browsers only âhideâ your activity from other websites and your history. VPNs only hide your activity from whoeverâs providing your internet connection. Even blocking trackers (or all third party cookies) like LibreWolf and Brave or using Privacy Badger do only goes so far (though itâs certainly a good start). (Speaking of Brave, that browserâs âTor modeâ is less thorough than the real thing.)
Drawbacks
The privacy does come at a cost, though:
Tor bounces your activity around through multiple relays, kind of like chaining several VPNs together, to hide where youâre connecting from, which slows things down.
The browser removes features that can be used to âfingerprintâ your setup (even more than LibreWolf does), so sites that use those features or info for legit purposes canât.
While it supports Firefox extensions, they recommend not installing any in order to avoid adding more attack surface or (again) fingerprinting data.
Some websites block access from Tor because attackers also use it to hide who and where they are.
What itâs For
OK, so itâs inconvenient for everyday browsing or shopping. But if you need to hide your tracks from a stalker or abuser, a harassment campaign, an abusive company with network access, an oppressive government agency, or just a nosy sysadmin, Tor can help you do that.
Tor can also get around network-level censorship to some extent, both with regular websites that might be blocked and by connecting to âonionâ sites, websites hosted on the TOR network.
Even then, someone with access to your network traffic can still see that you are using TorâŠjust not what youâre doing with it. Snowflake and bridges are add-on layers designed to help disguise that further.
Using It
Itâs built on Firefox, so [most of that review applies] as far as actually using it goes, both on desktop and Android. The hardening approach makes the experience a bit more like LibreWolf or IronFox. Sometimes youâll get the wrong localization of a site depending on where the exit node ends up (like using a VPN, except with a VPN, youâre usually picking the exit yourself).
The browser is available on Windows, macOS, Linux (though not on ARM yet) and Android (you can add a repository to F-Droid). Thereâs no iOS version, but they recommend Onion Browser (iOS) and Orbot (not a browser, but proxies apps like a Tor VPN on both iOS and Android).
A privacy-hardened Firefox variation for Android, comparable to LibreWolf on desktops. It removes Mozilla tracking and services like Pocket, but keeps sync (which is end-to-end encrypted) and local translations (which happen on your device). Like LibreWolf, it disables or narrows some features that can leak data, but those changes can break some websites.
Using it is similar to using mobile Firefox, and virtually identical to using mobile Waterfox. Iâm trying both out on the same phone and I sometimes forget which one Iâm using. The biggest noticeable differences are that Waterfox doesnât currently support local translations, and IronFox doesnât support WebGL unless I dig through advanced settings to re-enable it.
Even then, Iâve still had trouble with a few sites failing to work correctly. The worst is when an error pops up at the end of a checkout process, and you canât be sure whether the order didnât get created, or the response didnât make it to your phone â and Iâve had both happen just in the past few days.
IronFoxâs web presence is minimal â mainly its Gitlab repository and mirrors. I imagine this is at least in part because itâs (sort of) a new project, picking up the Mull browser from DivestOS, which was discontinued in December. Itâs not on Google Play, but itâs on several alternative app stores, including F-Droid (you need to add their repo), Accrescent and Obtanium.
Firefox Sync works across all Firefox-based browsers Iâve tried so far, not just Firefox itself. OK, all except IceCat, which I think actually removes the code that connects to it.
Even the security-conscious LibreWolf and IronFoxrecommend using it, despite Mozillaâs AI shenanigans, because itâs encrypted end-to-end and itâs possible to host your own server. (I have not tried this.)
One nice consequence is that I can mix and match browsers, especially since there are some that are only built for the desktop and others that are only built for mobile. I can send a page from IronFox on my phone to Zen on my desktop. (I can also sync history between different browsers that Iâm trying out.)
Downsides: It doesnât work with Chromium-based or other browsers (at least not directly), and doesnât have an online web view. Thatâs why I turn off bookmarks in the Firefox Sync settings and use Floccus for those. Plus if you use several different browsers with it, settings from one can leak over to another if you donât turn that option off.
Lighter than most Le Guin Iâve read, Changing Planes is a Gulliverâs Travels for the present era, the social satire made possible through interdimensional travel. (When youâre stuck in a dismal airport between planes, well, youâre already between planes, right?)
Some chapters are told first person as the narrator explores a new reality (sometimes sticking to the tourist spots, sometimes going off the beaten path). Others read more like magazine articles or encyclopedia entries. Still others mix first- and second-hand accounts with the narratorâs reactions to them.
Thereâs a world that imported genetic engineering tech without first figuring out evolution and genetics, and proceeded to run amok with it. A world where people stop talking in adolescence, and tourists tend to project whatever they imagine onto the adultsâ inner lives. Another where the language is too complex for outsiders to learn or for the auto-translator to process. Worlds where war and battle are everyday things, but arenât used for domination. One where everyone is royalty, except for a couple of families of commoners (whom the royals are obsessed with). Another that was colonized and turned into a string of theme parks. Worlds where people migrate like birds, or fly, but the non-flyers consider the winged ones to be disabled.
Thereâs a lot of whimsy, humor and sarcasm. Itâs not particularly deep (especially compared to her major works), but it does give you a lot to think about.