LibreWolf is a Firefox fork built with one goal: give you a hardened, privacy-respecting browser without requiring you to manually configure dozens of about:config settings. It ships with sensible defaults that most Firefox users never get around to enabling, removes telemetry entirely, and bundles uBlock Origin out of the box. This guide covers what LibreWolf does differently, how to set it up, and which add-ons are worth adding.

LibreWolf vs Firefox: What’s Actually Different

Mozilla Firefox is a solid browser with good privacy potential, but its defaults leave a lot on the table. It sends telemetry to Mozilla, includes sponsored content in the new tab page, and connects to various third-party services unless you manually opt out. LibreWolf strips all of that out.

Here’s a quick comparison of defaults:

Feature	Firefox (default)	LibreWolf (default)
Telemetry	Enabled	Removed entirely
Sponsored new tab tiles	Enabled	Removed
DRM (Widevine)	Included	Excluded by default
uBlock Origin	Not included	Bundled
letterboxing (fingerprint resist)	Off	On
resistFingerprinting	Off	On
First-party isolation	Off	On
Cookies cleared on close	Off	On

letterboxing adds grey margins around the browser window to standardize the reported window size, reducing the uniqueness of your browser fingerprint. resistFingerprinting makes LibreWolf report generic values for canvas, WebGL, fonts, and other fingerprinting vectors. These settings would break things in vanilla Firefox unless you configured them yourself.

The tradeoff is that some sites behave unexpectedly. Cookies clearing on close means you log out of everything when you close the browser — by design, but potentially annoying. DRM content (Netflix, Spotify web player) will not work until you explicitly enable it.

Installing LibreWolf

LibreWolf is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux.

Windows: Download the installer from the official site at librewolf.net. An unofficial winget package also exists: winget install LibreWolf.LibreWolf. Note that LibreWolf updates are not automatic on Windows — check for new releases manually or use the bundled update checker.

macOS: A Homebrew cask is the easiest route:

brew install --cask librewolf

Linux:

For Debian/Ubuntu-based systems:

# Add the LibreWolf APT repository
sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y extrepo
sudo extrepo enable librewolf
sudo apt update && sudo apt install librewolf

For Arch Linux, LibreWolf is in the AUR:

paru -S librewolf-bin

For Fedora:

sudo dnf config-manager --add-repo https://rpm.librewolf.net/librewolf-repo.repo
sudo dnf install librewolf

First-Launch Configuration

When you open LibreWolf for the first time, several things are immediately different. The new tab page is minimal — no sponsored tiles, no news feed. Cookies will be cleared when you close the browser (you can relax this per-site).

Set a Default Search Engine

LibreWolf ships with DuckDuckGo as the default. You may prefer Brave Search, Startpage, or SearXNG. Go to Settings → Search to change it.

If you want to stay logged in to specific sites (your email, work tools), add them as exceptions. Go to Settings → Privacy & Security → Cookies and Site Data → Manage Exceptions. Type the site URL and allow it. This site’s cookies will survive browser restarts; all others are cleared.

Enable DRM If You Need It

Netflix and similar services require Widevine DRM. LibreWolf excludes this by default but lets you add it. Go to Settings → General and check Play DRM-controlled content. LibreWolf will download Widevine. Alternatively, keep a separate browser (plain Firefox or Chromium) solely for streaming.

Tweaking about:config

LibreWolf already applies a hardened user.js from the arkenfox project. You shouldn’t need to change much, but a few adjustments improve usability:

Open a new tab and type about:config, then search for:

privacy.resistFingerprinting.letterboxing — set to false if the grey margins bother you. You lose some fingerprint resistance but gain a normal viewing experience.

network.http.referer.XOriginPolicy — LibreWolf sets this to 2 (send referer only when the full host matches). Some sites break; drop it to 1 if needed.

webgl.disabled — true by default in LibreWolf. WebGL can be used for fingerprinting. Re-enable it only if a site you trust requires it.

media.peerconnection.enabled — set to false by default to prevent WebRTC IP leaks. Most users should leave this off unless you need video calling in the browser.

Recommended Add-ons

LibreWolf already bundles uBlock Origin and applies a good set of filter lists. You don’t need Privacy Badger, Ghostery, or any other content blocker on top.

These add-ons complement LibreWolf without redundancy:

LocalCDN — replaces requests to Google Fonts, jsDelivr, cdnjs, and other CDNs with local versions. Prevents tracking through CDN usage. Install from the Firefox Add-ons site; it’s fully compatible.

Skip Redirect — many links go through tracking redirects before reaching the destination. This add-on strips them out.

Temporary Containers — creates a fresh, isolated container for each new tab. Paired with LibreWolf’s cookie-clearing behavior, this is strong compartmentalization for casual browsing.

Bitwarden — if you use the Bitwarden password manager, the browser extension works perfectly in LibreWolf.

ClearURLs — removes tracking parameters from URLs (like ?utm_source=...). Some uBlock Origin filter lists already cover this, but ClearURLs is more comprehensive.

Avoid add-ons that connect to external servers for their features (cloud-sync extensions, online translation tools, etc.) — each one is a potential privacy leak.

Handling Common Breakage

LibreWolf’s hardened settings will break some sites. Here’s a quick troubleshooting guide:

Site asks you to disable ad blocker even though you have none: Some anti-adblock scripts detect fingerprint-resistance settings. Try temporarily toggling privacy.resistFingerprinting in about:config for that session.

Login sessions lost on every restart: Expected behavior. Add the site as a cookie exception (see above) or use Temporary Containers to keep containers alive between sessions.

Videos won’t play: May be DRM (enable Widevine) or WebGL (enable per-site). You can also right-click a video and check the source — some sites require WebRTC for live streams.

Captchas appear constantly: A side effect of looking identical to thousands of other LibreWolf users. Solve them once; some sites remember your IP even without cookies.

Who Should Use LibreWolf

LibreWolf is ideal for users who want Firefox’s extension ecosystem and rendering engine with meaningful privacy defaults applied out of the box. It’s especially good for people who find manual Firefox hardening (arkenfox, about:config tweaks) overwhelming.

It’s not the right tool if you heavily rely on DRM streaming in the browser, use Google or Microsoft SSO for everything, or need Chrome-specific enterprise features. In those cases, a compartmentalized approach — LibreWolf for private browsing, a secondary browser for compatibility — works well.

For privacy-conscious users willing to deal with occasional breakage, LibreWolf delivers a genuinely private browsing experience without requiring you to be a security researcher to set it up.