It seems there's a package for linux-libre.
Still, if you care about what GnewSense cares about (definition of the word
free, links to non-free stuff, removing non-free art, stuff like that). Then
that's at least the kind of work you'd need to do. Not that I don't care, but
I can live without that, provided I'm careful about what I install. But yeah,
that's not a great option.
Right now, Trisquel isn't the worst. With steady, reliable (security)
updates, it would be the best though.
But for my parents, I'd rather put them on (cleaned up) Debian, without a
doubt.
Those Mozilla browsers though... They seem to be a problem on any distro, one
way or another.
Except Tor. I could live with Abrowser in a sandbox for the bank website, or
for for streaming videos (no need for javascript).
I'll probably survive.
Lynx seems cool, though https doesn't seem to work for me, and I'd want to
enable images at least (and make youtube-dl work with it).
In a nutshell, debian for the family (more secure, and that's it), Trisquel
for me (for now).