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.

  • kariboka@bolha.forum
    1093·
    2 年前

    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
      157·
      2 年前

      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!

        • Ganbat@lemmyonline.comEnglish
          184·
          2 年前

          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.

            • Ganbat@lemmyonline.comEnglish
              22·
              2 年前

              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!”

                • Ganbat@lemmyonline.comEnglish
                  22·
                  2 年前

                  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.

          • stillwater@lemm.eeEnglish
            31·
            2 年前

            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
          45·
          2 年前

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

      • yukijoou@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        93·
        2 年前

        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·
          2 年前

          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.

  • stillwater@lemm.eeEnglish
    61·
    2 年前

    This list looks like:

    Firefox: comes with different candy than I like but will get me the candy I want if I ask

    Brave: has candy, but stares at me uncomfortably and asks me to lick everything slowly

    Chromium: comes with candy I don’t like and I’m pretty sure is going to kill me

  • hottari@lemmy.ml
    442·
    2 年前

    No browser will ever tick ALL your boxes. You pick one and make it work.

    • the_crab_manOPEnglish
      27·
      2 年前

      No browser will ever tick ALL your boxes.

      Why not? Is it that hard to NOT include bloatware in your browser and respect XDG Base Directory? As for content blocking, the code is already there because extensions make use of it, just integrate it into the browser UI and use uBlock Origin’s block lists.

      • hottari@lemmy.ml
        81·
        2 年前

        Sure. Then one of the project’s lead members will publicly donate to some homophobic group and that will have you second-guessing your browser of choice.

  • VitabytesDev@feddit.nl
    39·
    2 年前

    Just use Librewolf. It’s a fork of Firefox, with Pocket disabled, Ublock Origin preinstalled, and privacy settings enabled by default.

  • lefixxxEnglish
    351·
    2 年前

    don’t expect browsers to block ads out of the box

  • words_number@programming.dev
    396·
    2 年前

    What’s wrong with pocket integration?Nobody forces you to use it. Apart from that it stores user data e2e encrypted, mozilla has no access to your data (as opposed to chromes sync functionality). Imho, a browser should not block some content by default. But ad-blocking must be easy to enable/install. All of that’s the case in FF so I see no reason not to recommend it.

  • InverseParallaxEnglish
    271·
    2 年前

    You’re going to be spending a lot of time with your browser, make it a 2 way dialog, customize.

    Firefox has an extremely vibrant extension ecosystem and seems to overall be doing well, but see what works for you.

  • TheMadnessKing@lemdro.idEnglish
    23·
    2 年前

    What’s the problem with using uBlock on FF. Gets rids of ads, has ton of features to custom add filters and more.

    Also, I kinda like Pocket Integration on FF. Found some interesting articles that way.

    • Sir_Simon_Spamalot
      32·
      2 年前

      The problem with Pocket is: most of us don’t want it, and cannot get rid of it like you do with extension.

        • Sir_Simon_Spamalot
          13·
          2 年前

          Disabling it (even “completely”) is not the same as removing it. The code is still there. Mozilla don’t even provide a method to exclude it when building from source code.

          • Yoru@lemmy.ml
            6·
            2 年前

            idk what you want theb, disabling it is pretty much the same as completely removing it. It simply doesn’t do anything. Doesn’t send data no nothing

          • TheMadnessKing@lemdro.idEnglish
            1·
            2 年前

            IMO that logic is really absurd. If you can disable it so that it doesn’t bother you, nor steal your data, then it’s completely fine. They are giving you the option to opt-out.

      • bobman@unilem.org
        2·
        2 年前

        I have no idea what pocket was, so I looked it up.

        Pocket is a free service from Mozilla that makes it easy to discover great content that’s personalized to your interests

        Looks like some bullshit just to shove as much crap in my face as possible. Seems like a waste of resources from mozilla to even bother supporting such a thing.

    • the_crab_manOPEnglish
      216·
      2 年前

      And I’d have to do that manually for every computer on which I install the browser. I can’t just tell someone to install a browser and use it as is, there are always several additional steps required after install to have a decent experience. This is especially a problem for people who are not tech savvy.

      • deong
        20·
        2 年前

        Or just use their built in sync and sign in one time, and all your addons will be installed and enabled for you.

        If your argument boils down to “none of the browsers are exactly pre-configured for me, one of the 7 billion not special people on the planet”, I’m not sure there’s a productive conversation to be had here.

      • flashgnash@lemm.ee
        5·
        2 年前

        Use NixOS, nix package manager or home manager, declaratively add all the extensions and config you want, boom same browser every time

        People who are not tech savvy can handle installing a browser extension manually the one or two times they have to set one up