I feel like there is no web browser with a sane default configuration that I can recommend to other people. All browsers are preconfigured in a way that harms the privacy of their users or include services that no one wants such as Pocket and BAT.

Here are my problems with some popular browsers.

  • Mozilla Firefox: Pocket integration, no ad-blocking without extensions.

  • Brave: Everything related to crypto. Also its start page is horrible.

  • Chromium: No ad-blocking without extensions and soon Manifest v3 will cripple all content blockers.

Now, these suboptimal defaults wouldn’t be such a big problem if the configuration files were easy to backup and restore and respected the XDG base directory specification.

  • @[email protected]
    106•1 year ago

    Ad blocking shouldn’t be tied to the browser, anyway. ublock is superb, imagine if firefox devs should have to develop it along with the browser (that nowadays is a herculean task).

    Anyway, extensions give user freedom to chose how they use their browser.

    Pocket take 2 seconds to disable.

    • @marlowe221English
      8•1 year ago

      It’s kinda the same with Brave. Just take 2 seconds to turn off the crypto thing and forget it was ever there.

      I’m primarily a Firefox user but keep Brave around for Chromium-based browser testing.

      Just turn it off, folks!

        • @[email protected]English
          14•1 year ago

          Yeah, and there’s definitely some pay-offs going on with their reviews. Almost every one of them says something close to “This browser pays you just for browsing the internet!,” most of them don’t mention that it’s crypto, and none of them mention that it has nothing to do with browsing, but is instead for clicking integrated ads.

            • @[email protected]English
              0•1 year ago

              Brainlet response.

              Getting popup ads is a far cry from “just browsing,” and despite claims otherwise, I always noticed a fairly stark difference from month to month that seemed to coincide with whether or not I was clicking the ads. 🤔

              My favorite part of all these mad shilling comments in getting as how not a single one of them addresses the carbon copy “BRowSeR tHAT PaYS YoU!!!” reviews, they just all go “Hmm, but it says you don’t have to click, haha, you fool, you liar! You are discredited!”

                • @[email protected]English
                  0•1 year ago

                  You’re not a shill for “genuinely liking a product” or “correcting disinformation” (which, btw, are both obvious b.s.), you’re a shill for denying any lying about genuine issues.

                  You’re a shill for your staunch refusal to accept that there’s a difference between “using a browser” and “receiving advertisements that pop up over your content or in your notification bar.”

                  You’re a shill for responding to mention of the half-truths they (and people like you) propagate with the dismissive “Wait you actually clicked the ads?”

                  You’re a shill because you willingly admit that you don’t care about the shady shit they do, and you clearly don’t want other people to care.

                  You’re a shill for implying that anyone who would point out the shady shit they do is simply dumber or less informed than you.

        • @Potatos_are_not_friends
          10•1 year ago

          Been seeing a lot of people talk positively about Brave like it’s some hail corporate shit

          • @[email protected]English
            2•1 year ago

            They were definitely astroturfing for a while, especially around the time of that Firefox Megabar stuff on the Firefox subreddit. I can understand not liking the Megabar but there were so many people acting like the sky was falling and saying they were going to abandon Firefox after 15 years or so… for Brave.

            A few years later and almost none of those accounts look like real users. A bunch of them were active on Brave subreddits well before the Megabar.

            The impotent r/Firefox more missed all this of course, and let a bunch of trolls go rampant and unchecked.

        • @vector_zero
          -1•1 year ago

          Is it not open source? You can literally audit the code and point out any shadiness yourself.

      • @[email protected]
        6•1 year ago

        though brave has 2 issues you can’t turn off:

        • it’s chromium-based, and strenghtens the browser engine monopoly
        • the company behind it seems quite shady, and afaik the ceo/leader/founder/… is homophobic
        • @marlowe221English
          2•1 year ago

          Yeah, obviously not great. Hence why I only use it for testing.

          I would love to ignore Chromium based browsers completely I’m a web developer, so I can’t.

          I wish there were a Chromium browser I could have the warm fuzzies about, but I’m not aware of one.