Despite the sheer number of browsers on the market, look under the hood and you’ll find virtually all of them are powered by a single browser engine. The major exception is Mozilla’s Firefox, which is powered by its own Gecko browser engine, and has long been a favourite of privacy-first browser enthusiasts.

But what happens when Mozilla itself appears to be moving away from its privacy roots? If you’ve been fully invested in Firefox for several years and want the simplest way to tighten security and privacy even further, then the answer lies with LibreWolf.

LibreWolf is a custom fork that’s always built from the latest Firefox version – usually available within a few days or even hours of the main project’s release. It sports a virtually identical interface to the main Firefox project, so there’s little reorientation required. It can also be configured to work with existing Mozilla accounts, so bringing your settings across (and then keeping them in sync) is effortless too.

Under the hood, however, is where things get interesting. LibreWolf’s big selling points are all about privacy and security. It promises zero telemetry (so no experiments or adware), privacy conscious search providers and built-in content blocker courtesy of the renowned uBlock Origin plug-in. What will intrigue most users however is its Enhanced Privacy section.

Open Settings and you’ll find a dedicated LibreWolf section where you’ll find a range of settings designed to take privacy to the next level, the most visible of which is stronger protections against browser fingerprinting.

Crucially, everyday browsing is largely unaffected – when you come across websites that don’t work as they should, it’s a tell-tale that they’re indulging in potentially privacy-compromising behaviour. The most notable of these are HTML5 canvas access requests – look for an icon of a painting in your browser toolbar. Click this to review the request and grant access on a site-by-site basis if required.

It’s worth noting that LibreWolf is only available on desktop platforms, and it doesn’t automatically update like Firefox does. In the case of Windows, a separate LibreWolf WinUpdater package is offered during installation, so be sure to install this. It’ll then run automatically or you can open it to perform manual checks.