It gets my goat that people think it’s a good option. There are plenty of articles explaining some of the many issues with it, but a few are:
- It’s run by anti-LGBTQ+ crypto bros.
- It has ads right out of the box.
- It collected donations towards people who never signed up for them - then held them to ransom in exchange for the kind of information you should never share on the Internet.
- They’re a for-profit advertising company. “Privacy-centric” my elbow.
Could someone please recommend an alternative? 😓 I used DuckDuckGo for a while but I NEED something that supports extensions…
I currently use Waterfox which is a fork of Firefox
Firefox forks like Librewolf (or Ironfox for mobile) are good.
Also Vivaldi if you don’t mind proprietary.
I’m a pretty happy Vivaldi user. They have a No AI policy, it is infinitely customizable (you can put tabs any fucking where), has native ad and tracking blockers, you can use extensions, has a notes function w/markdown capability (which I find handy for having quick copypasta ready to go), a built-in mail client and RSS reader, synchs across devices…
You know…stuff.
Vivaldi is the one chromium browser that keeps pulling me towards the dark side. I used it for years before switching to firefox and if it wasn’t for the danger of the chromium monopoly I’d probably switch back to it
Now add a kernel, a filesystem and a few more features and you have a full OS.
Dude, this is a browser. Anything beyond the notes feature is uneccessary bloat and can be outsourced to add-ons.
People keep reinventing Emacs.
I’ve been using vanilla Firefox
Please try Zen browser. I can’t go back to any other browser since I switched
What’s so great about zen?
Its pretty chill.
Its tab and session management tools are my favorite across all browsers.
I use vertical tabs with multiple layers of folders to basically keep everything I need to access frequently organized directly on the tab list instead of having to open it again whenever I need (also saves me from having to remember if I already opened something). For example I have a folder for each project I’m working on and I add to it everything related to that project. Project definition links, Github Pull Requests and so on. The PR links stay there while I wait for them to be reviewed or merged so I can quickly access them to see if they need any action. Once the task is done I remove them from the folder again.
There’s a new feature named Live Folders which automatically opens a tab for every item of an RSS or Github feed. I use it to auto open PRs that are waiting for my review. The feature is still quite limited but already pretty useful.
One of the projects I’m working on is a voice chat web app and the browser helps me by allowing me to open two different sessions of the web app side by side as a single app. Makes it so much easier to test things when I don’t have to be handling two different active windows like I used to have to with other browsers.
One other feature that I don’t use so much anymore is the ability to have completely separate tab lists for different contexts. It’s useful to separate work and personal stuff for example, but I already use separate devices for that.
It has a strong focus on workflow improvements. I love the way it handles pinned tabs where third party links open as a modal and you can reset the tab with a middle click. It also has very good workspace management and useful keybinds.
I tried Zen, didn’t really like it, the UI was too unfamiliar and felt a smidge too opinionated for my taste.
That’s fair, it was based on a similar browser called Arc that had ambitions to reinvent browsing. That one was chromium based though and maintenance stopped when they wanted to create another AI powered browser. Then the Zen people recreated Arc as an open source browser based on Firefox. I was already used to Arc so Zen was familiar.
I think there are a lot of benefits to the way the UI is laid out, give it a try you without changing any defaults for a week or so, you might get hooked.
How does Zen handle blocking adds? I peeked at them but didn’t see anything like uBlock in the mod list. No proton mods there either, which is a tough sell for me.Usability looks awesome though. I’m tempted for that alone.
Edit: I just realized it’s a fork like WaterFox so it will just work. I did also learn there are some weird check ins with Google on that browser though, so maybe not the more security focused browser I’m looking for.
You have access to Firefox addons, can install ublock just fine. As for proton I’m not sure
Zen’s not great on a multi-monitor setup, but I like it otherwise. Video playback has been improved a ton since I last tried it.
What is your issue with multi monitor setups? On my Mac and Linux machines I have no issues
Me too. Ironically I don’t like its default UI (supposedly its main feature), but after a few setting changes it is great.
Vivaldi is Chromium based but with a team that works towards reducing the privacy and usability impact of running something Chromium based. Retains support for adblockers etc, after Google severely limiting that functionality in Chrome itself. Supports Chrome extensions like usual - better than Chrome itself, now.
There is an inherent cost to internet freedom from using chromium browsers. It gives Google, which controls the back-end, leverage to redefine how the internet works. It’s not as though they haven’t already done it on multiple occasions.
People will say things like “some websites run better on Chrome” as though that’s a selling point and not a red flag.
I’m not saying no one should use it or develop on it, but you have to be okay with the real cost.
Especially with their mobile browser! They do a good job of actually keeping up with user feature requests and error reports.
If you want something privacy focused, then LibreWolf is a Firefox fork widely acclaimed for their work. Otherwise Waterfox is a very popular and high quality fork.
Currently using Fennec on mine and I gotta say, it’s what firefox could’ve been if they actually cared. Smooth, quick, loaded with extensions, and easy.
Waterfox with uBlock origin
The Mullvad browser is a good choice. It’s built on the TOR browser, which is built on firefox. As for extensions, they are a privacy liability and most privacy-conscious browsers warn you not to use them.