Hey Lemmy, what browser do you use and why?
1y 24d ago by lemmy.dbzer0.com/u/Eyedust in asklemmy
I'm what's known as a chronic hopper. I'm always on the lookout for new software, especially when it comes to browsers and Linux distros, but I'm here to ask you about browsers specifically. I'm fairly sure I know most of them, but I want to really know why you run what you do. In return, I will give you my experiences with the browsers that I have tried and why I hopped from them if I did.
Don't feel the need to read the list. I'll be more than happy to just hear your answers!
- Firefox: One of the grand-daddy browsers. I honestly didn't hop from it due to anything specific, but more that I've used it so much that I needed a change.
- Chrome: I used this very little. Just being on it made my skin crawl. However, I still keep it around in a container because some sites straight up tell you that you have to use it to access their dashboards or application forms. While that is now much less these days (as most things will now ask for Chrome or Firefox now), it still does happen, especially on dated government sites that get updated like... once a decade...
- Opera GX: Yup, I fell into the hype. I think I used this for all of a month before recognizing it as over-engineered and needlessly bloated. It pulls you in with gimmicks and pretty lights and that's pretty much all it has. A browser that's literally built on smoke and mirrors and pushy advertising.
- Brave: There's been a lot of huff about Brave lately, but back when it launched and wasn't very mainstream it was the smoothest and a relatively more secure browser than the competition. There was a time when nearly everyone ran Brave. The problem started when they began to opt you into gimmicks and extra things you didn't need without your permission. That was a turnoff for me. I outed before things really went downhill. -Floorp: A random find from exploring Linux for the first time. I was running Pop!_OS and found it on the store. I've never experienced such a smooth Firefox fork before. It really is barebones, but has a lot of customization built in. Instead of the custom options piling on one another, most of them change how it works on a foundational level. The style of your UI and tabs, side tabs, fading URL bar buttons, and a lot more. At it's core, Floorp is a stripped down and security first FF fork developed in Japan. I took the time to translate the TOS pages, and most of it is promising that there is no data collection. It's fairly vetted and trusted from what I've researched.
- Vivaldi: Still one of my favorite browsers when I went back to Windows, but probably has the most bugs I've seen in any browser. It got better once they swapped to React portals, but Vivaldi (Windows version) would occasionally freeze my whole PC or else I'd BSOD. This was a combination of the browser's stability and making my own custom CSS for it, but overall it frustrated me more than other browsers.
- Qutebrowser: Still one of my favorites, and a must-have for me even if its not my main browser. I was diving into the Vimium extension for Firefox, which in turn led me to Neovim, which led me to Qutebrowser. There's a few main points as to why I don't use it as my go-to. First, its not very good at squashing first-party ads. Even though you can combo custom ad block lists, Brave adblock, and python-adblock, it just can't seem to get them all. Second, I rely on my history when browsing YouTube and if you want to get around ads, your best bet is to write a custom shortcut that opens links in MPV/VLC. There are Greasemonkey scripts that should increase ad speed to a fraction of a second and auto-skip, but none of them ever worked for me and most are ancient.
- Nyxt: My next logical step after Qutebrowser was Nyxt. However, I've never managed to figure out how to work it. I haven't really done any extensive bug testing, but when it opens its just a blank window and there's not much I could find for documentation on it. Part of me wonders if there's something that only trusted people know that gets it working, the other part wonders if I'm just missing some sort of library or dependency. From here I went back to Floorp for a while. -Zen: I was very excited when I found this browser. Another Firefox fork, it aims to be much like Arc browser, but adds a lot more on top of that. However, in recent months I find they've become a little too ambitious. If you asked me two months ago, I would tell you that Zen felt just as smooth as Floorp, but these days its much, much laggier. The scrolling is choppy, the pages load slow. I use the same exact extensions on Zen as I do Floorp and the difference now is night and day. I've also tested this on fresh, no-extras no-extension installations and the results are the same. Zen tends to change things and instead of letting the user opt into the additions or changes, they force the changes in their updates. That type of development model just isn't really for me. I don't want to have to re-figure out how to use my browser every few days.
So there it is. I hop a LOT. Honorable mention is Ladybird and I've tested it a little. It is extremely alpha, being just a portal with the basics you need for browsing, but I'm amazed at what they've done so far and very excited for it's release. For now I've returned to Floorp and am very happy with it. I'm very curious to know why you like what you do, whether its just because its what you've used for a long time or if there's something that you can't do without.
Also, please excuse me if this question has been asked before. I didn't want to necro an old post and I want to be able to reply and ask more questions! I've seen many posts discussing a single browser, but I want a more general view. I'm very interested, because the Lemmy community often values their privacy and their rights, which is a major factor in choosing software for me.
Edit: I feel like I'm answering very quickly, but want you to know that I'm not a bot nor using AI. I type at 110wpm in Dvorak. Typing is a huge hobby of mine and would never use AI to do something I love to do for me. I'm set on getting to 200wpm (100 was my first goal). That being said, I can't answer everyone, so I'm sorry if I missed your reply!
Librewolf. It does everything i need, and nothing i don't. It doesn't have bloatware or adware, and it respects my privacy. That's all I care about, besides that it can still do everything I need a browser to do.
I need to try Librewolf. I've seen the praises it gets here on Lemmy. I've been holding off, because I feel like Floorp is very similar. I may try Firedragon as well, but I feel like it may be rather bloated as far as FF forks go.
IIRC, Firedragon is Floorp with the best of Librewolf.
I was using it until a couple of months ago, when an update not only wiped all my open pages but also all the workspaces I'd created.
Ohhhh, okay. That would give me more of an incentive to try it. I always just assumed it was Garuda's browser to match its KDE Sweet theme aesthetic. Excuse me while I go download a fifth browser for this PC.
I've tried a good amount of Firefox forks and Librewolf is hands down my fav. God tier browser imo
There was a time when nearly everyone ran Brave
Wut
For real - I didn’t know what to make of such a completely false statement.
Lol, brief time and more in the general public. Very brief time, before it even had a mobile app. I was still on Reddit then, and it was the number one recommended everywhere. I'm foggy, but I believe it didn't even have the wallet at the time (though correct me if I'm wrong, because I may be).
I've been following browser trends since Netscape Navigator, and I catch the small shifts, no matter how brief. Though, admittedly, it may have just been the groups I ran in that used it. I can't speak for everyone, just what I saw at the time.
I doubt it ever, even for a single day, cracked the top 3 downloads for a browser. Maybe top 3 mobile browsers in terms of downloads over a brief stretch, but not in terms of market share overall
Oh, no I doubt that as well. Like I said, the communities I ran in were all praising it and recommending it at the time. I've seen the graph charts for browser downloads. The top 3 are monoliths. But Brave did stand out for a time.
This ia what they call an echo chamber. You took it at face value and didn't question it.
I don't disagree. I was young and stupid.
Firefox.
Because it's not Chromium based so it's not subject to any changes to the underlying code that might do something stupid like stop ad blockers from working.
I had been using FireFox since it's launch. The only reason I ever switch to Chrome originally was because, at the time, Firefox was crashing like every 10 minutes after an update it had. Chrome ended up being faster and, at that time, used less resources.
Switched back the moment news about Manifest V3 started being reported on a few years back.
That's a big one for me. It's why I mainly use Firefox forks. I'm feeling pretty anti-Google these days, anyway. Though there is a stripped down Chromium browser that's supposed to be de-Googled and I think still allows ad blockers. I think, I'm not 100% sure. It's just simply called Chromium. I used to run it on my Pi4, because it took the least amount of resources and was the smoothest experience.
Chromium is just the open-source component of the Chrome browser, so it will still come with any code changes that Chrome make to break ad blocking and so on.
You mention right at the top that there were no issues with FF. It might not be exciting, but it doesn’t prevent ad blockers or anything else for that matter. There’s a reason why it’s the first browser I recommend to anyone for anything.
No, I agree. I've had 0 problems with it and it will be my first recommendations to newer users, as well. I always tell people to be careful with extensions though, as Mozilla states that they do not review every extension and you could add something nefarious.
I mean, that could be the same for Chrome, but it's been so long since I've touched that browser that I don't even know what it looks like anymore, let alone what their addon policy is.
I use Firefox but I'm keeping my eye on Ladybird
Ladybird is the most exciting thing to happen to browsers. Madlads really doing it, building from the ground up. I have mad respect for them. I gotta see if they have a donation page and give them some support. I want this to work and blow everything else out of the water.
For sure! I only heard about it recently but it's so exciting and they've already made so much progress. I'll definitely be switching once it's deemed to be in a releasable state.
Same.
But we all know links2@lemmy.sdf.org is the best browser. And if you use piefed, you can use it :)
Firefox bc fuck chrome
Number one on the list of why you should use Firefox, lol. Fuck Chrome.
yea, fuck gogol, fuck krom
LibreWolf, I've been using Firefox ever since I switched from Mozilla browser, but nowadays with what Mozilla is doing I felt compelled to switch to LibreWolf and IronFox.
You're the first other user I've seen to mention IronFox. I have it as a backup. Its relatively new, isn't it? And it goes beyond to make sure it's privacy first. To the point where it won't even connect to third party apps for login purposes. Definitely my dark horse Android browser.
Iirc, you have to add the repository to F-Droid, which keeps it from being recognized more.
Ah that's why it doesn't show me the KeePassX logins, I was wondering if I broke something :D
Yeah, that's what I've noticed, anyway. There's a massive amount of settings to mess with, though, so I wouldn't be surprised if you could change it to work. But that would just make it like any other fork, so I mainly stick with Fennec.
Firefox because Ladybird isn't ready yet.
Zen, a heavily modified firefox. A different design paradigm than every other browser, which I personally like. Easy hot keys, runs on any OS, lots of customizability.
Needless to say I'm a big fan!
I keep Zen around for the same reason. However, right now its fairly laggy and buggy so I keep checking back after updates.
Yeah, I never thought I'd be a vertical tabs fan, but I am really loving it in combination with their compact mode. Really nice layout with the containers, pinned tabs and essential tabs! Also really digging the Glance feature and floating URL bar. I'm really looking forward to folder support!
Firefox. Because using even a slightly sketchy browser for shit like banking logins is insane.
Firefox, been using it forever. Nothing has got me to permanently switch.
I use lynx in the terminal sometimes for fun.
Firefox, since its an overall good browser. Added a custom user-script to it.
Vivaldi, for anything Google specific since its chromium base. Also in case something breaks in Firefox.
Like to keep my activities seperate. This is only for desktop.
I agree. I also like to separate all of my activities. Not just for privacy, but also for organization. Sometimes I overdo it... I have ton of unused apps and programs.
Fiiirefoooxx
Always been Firefox for its reliability and it has just the features I need and want from a Browser. Switched to Floorp for a few months because of its "tab spaces" but with Firefox's new tab grouping feature it has been my main again.
Vivaldi
- I love the UI and its customizability
- They are active participants in the Fediverse (@vivaldi@vivaldi.net) and they even have their own Mastodon instance for users (Vivaldi.social)
- Based in Europe
- Most importantly, they reject the crypto and AI hype trains
My backup is Firefox but I have also been trying out Librewolf.
Zen Browser keeps me from going back to Vivaldi (I do love Vivaldi, don't get me wrong). They added the best of Vivaldi to Firefox. Workspaces, essential tabs, tiled tab windows, and side toolbars. There's a mod that reorganizes the theming to work with Firefox themes, but you can also right click the tab bar and pick any color under the sun, even multicolor gradients (I think up to 5 colors).
I'm a big fan of Vivaldi as well for all the reason you mentioned, but also it's more lightweight than Chrome and still supports uBlock
https://www.privacyguides.org/en/desktop-browsers/
The default browser for any operating system that isn't created by Microsoft or Google is probably suitable for most people.
This looks like a good read. I'm sure many of the Firefox recommended settings can be applied to it's various forks, too. Thank you for this! I've got it bookmarked and will be checking it out soon.
This is the way.
Zen's UI is great, and it has better defaults for privacy than Firefox does, as well as having its own mods repository on top of all the standard Firefox webextensions. (Try "better find bar", "floating history" and "floating status bar" if you haven't already, they make the last few bits of the UI look consistent)
Firefox because ad block even though I run pi hole
Waterfox. Just the right spot between stock ff and modifications. I’ve tried zen and floorp but it’s waterfox for me.
Ahh... I finally found one. Another Waterfox user like me.
We are an elusive bunch.
Out of interest, Do you use the Treetabs ?
I do not. I find the classic tab layout more than enough for my browsing needs.
Firefox, I even go out of my way to install it on any company laptop I get. It's not Google owned, I can easily change the default search engine to Kagi or Ecosia.
Zen Browser. Based on Firefox but I prefer the UI
No one mentioned Floorp yet, so I guess it's on me.
It's Firefox, but with more customization options right out of the box. I also have an ungoogled Chromium on standby for those sites unwilling to work well with Firefox (and forks).
EDIT:
Oh, it's mentioned in the OP:
- Floorp: A random find from exploring Linux for the first time. I was running Pop!_OS and found it on the store. I’ve never experienced such a smooth Firefox fork before. It really is barebones, but has a lot of customization built in. Instead of the custom options piling on one another, most of them change how it works on a foundational level. The style of your UI and tabs, side tabs, fading URL bar buttons, and a lot more. At it’s core, Floorp is a stripped down and security first FF fork developed in Japan. I took the time to translate the TOS pages, and most of it is promising that there is no data collection. It’s fairly vetted and trusted from what I’ve researched.
I tried a bunch of Fireforks, and found bugs I couldn't live with in all of them - until I tried Floorp. It was last on my list because the name and icon are ugly so I assumed it wouldn't have as much polish as something like Waterfox. Turns out it's got sensible defaults and works very well, with better performance than vanilla Firefox, so I'm happy.
Oh, the name and the icon are probably the only things I am actually displeased with in Floorp. I wanted to change the icon for my system too (or just use a more generic "firefox fork browser" logo for it to contrast with my ungoogled Chromium one--but I abandoned it after finding it troublesome (skill issue on my end).
But hey, beyond the icon and the iffy name, it fits my needs, so it stays.
Yeah, Floorp is my go-to right now. Its incredibly lightweight and has a lot of customization for how smooth it is. I am liking Librewolf though, just from how completely stripped down it is. There's barely anything unneeded in the options, its crazy. I think I'll still mainly use Floorp, though.
Same with Floorp. Was using Zen for a short time but the ui was buggy as shit.
Zen is still buggy, unfortunately. It was great when it was hot off the press, but they slowly pushed UI changes. They'd give you options to roll back the changes, but I would have preferred if they made the changes and gave you the option to opt into them.
I checked it out again the other day, and the newest update caused compact mode to disable every time I restarted the browser. Now I just use Floorp with in-line tabs activated. I love having one hybrid URL and tab bar, but I've never been a 100 tabs kind of guy so I have the room. I don't save my previous tab sessions.
Oh hey. I just fixed some of the sluggish feeling of Zen. I thought about it overnight and had an idea. Turns out I was right. In about:config, Floorp has mousewheel.default.delta_multiplier_y set to 300. Zen only has it set to 200. Might be going back to Zen for a bit now, lol. I also disabled all mods and will be re-enabling them 1 by 1 to see if they had anything to add to the slow feeling.
I tried Zen for a while during the peak of its hype, and it's fine. It's too "Apple" for my taste though, with limited UI customization. It's opinionated, and I quite like the overall look, but it just felt off to me. It's nice to look at, but a bit off to use.
I actually had this trajectory: Vanilla Firefox -> (manually) hardened Firefox -> Librewolf -> Floorp
I wasn't actually displeased with Librewolf, but I found it a bit sparse when it comes to customization. I am aware that I'm trading customization with security when I made the last jump, but given my opsec situation, I don't think I am being careless with switching to Floorp, and it has some decent security defaults, so I stuck with it.
Everyone else's usecases may vary and even Floorp with its customization options isn't for everyone. That's the beauty of Firefox and its forks, if you ask me. There's likely something for everyone--and for some, Firefox might be it.
Browser is the one of the few softwares I'm picky about and won't change. I've used Firefox for so many years now, my entire workflow revolves around it.
Containers has been a game changer for me. The screenshot tool is also excellent.
On iPad, I use Orion since it supports Firefox/Chromium extensions.
On my Android phone, Firefox again.
Thanks for this. I will check it out on iPad.
Librewolf/firefox and Ironfox on Android because
- Customizable and very easy to config (you can change the firefox ui via Chrome css and the browser stuff in about:config)
- Privacy (Mainly Librewolf and ironfox)
- Modern and still has ublock origin and noscript (aka manifest v2)
But i may rarely use a chromium based browser (Cromite,Vivaldi for example) i might even use Orion if it comes to Linux and Android
I switched to Firefox from Chrome back when they were branding it as Firefox Quantum and honestly I have been happy with it. It has been just as fast as Chrome if not faster, it might use more memory but unused memory means your computer could be caching more.
I don't love the stuff Mozilla has been doing recently but it's not enough to make me switch. I think the brand redesign in 2024 was pretty horrible, moz://a was genius design compared to the P thing they have now. I think they have also been chasing AI stuff recently. Mozilla has done some pretty cool things in the past though like Rust, Servo and Fluent.
The Servo project has been revived BTW. It's still not usable as a main browser, but the devs are active.
Firefox.
I can personalize it as much as I want and it respects my privacy, or at least any part that doesn't can be easily turned off.
I used to dive deep into personalizing Firefox, myself. Have you seen the CSS store on github?
https://firefoxcss-store.github.io/
It's not as active as it used to be, but still has some interesting CSS.
Oh, cool! Yeah, I've seen that before, I think, it's awesome.
I use Firefox and Librewolf.
I've used Firefox for a long tine, and I strongly favour it as the only true independent browser engine left. Everything else is under Google or Apples control, and many of the various chrome forks are commercial and compromised. I dont trust Brave or Vivaldi in terms of privacy. And google has severely limited privacy options in chromium based browsers with its recent changes.
Mozilla is far from perfect and I'm disturbed by some of its actions but it remains the least bad option. Librewolf adds a layer of privacy and separation that I like although its not my main browser. I main Firefox with lots of privacy extensions.
I do have chromiun and chromium ungoogled installed and exclusively for streaming video. Not because Firefox isn't capable but because I have loads of extensions in Firefox so its easier just to contain all my subscribed streaming services in its own browser and not have to faff with DRM or ad block issues. I watch YouTube in Firefox, but use Chromium to watch BBC, Channel 4, and Netflix (when I had it). I use Jellyfin media player to stream my own content.
I've been meaning to check out Jellyfin. I've been dabbling in Stremio lately and did look into Kodi for a bit. I think Plex is now pulling some shady business? So my next stop is Jellyfin.
I think there was just a post on Lemmy (maybe SelfHosted) saying that Plex have just changed their terms to allow them to sell users' data to third parties.
Firefox. I've stuck with it for what, a decade now? I used Chrome before.
I use it simply because it's not Chromium and works. There's Firefox forks but they don't offer enough to pull me from Firefox. Yet.
On iOS/iPad I generally stick with Safari because of how non-native browsers were forced to be just skins. But I bounce between phones and ecosystems and I've been off Apple for more than a year.
If something needs Chromium to work (very rare), I open Vivaldi.
I stuck with it for a long time, too. Hell, I remember when it came out. Forks are fun and, if it's a concern for you, more secure. I didn't really need anything more secure, but I like to dabble into different stuff to keep things fresh and interesting.
I've been using Zen for a few months. It's based on Firefox, with some UI changes. I really like the workspace management, having separate "environments" for work and private use.
Zen Browser is very good. Been daily driving it for quite a while now. Combined with multi account containers, it is perfect for my workflow.
LibreWolf, because Mozilla makes bad decisions.
On laptop:
- Primary LibreWolf, as it does everything I need, and I don't 100% trust Mozilla anymore after recent incidents so I wanted a non-Mozilla fork of Firefox
- Secondary Chromium, when something refuses to run on Firefox and derivatives
On phone:
- Primary FOSS Browser, I think it might be some guy's passion project... It works so yeah
- Secondary Vanadium, basically GrapheneOS' in-house Chromium fork. For when the primary browser doesn't do the job, which happens more often because I have FOSS Browser set on blocking all JavaScript...
I've tried a few of the FOSS branded apps on F-Droid from the same dev, I believe. I like FOSS Calendar. It's just simple and does what I need. I don't need syncing or anything fancy.
Thanks for mentioning FOSS Browser, this looks nice
Waterfox because of the UI customizations and built-in vertical tree-style sidebar without needing to fiddle with userchrome.css everytime, as well as automatic Betterfox (Firefox config for speed and privacy) and the settings ToC
I almost forgot about Waterfox, which is strange because it was one of the first if not the first Firefox fork, if I'm remembering right.
Firefox, LibreWolf and Mullvad.
Firefox on pc, I've been using it for years and it has served me well. On the phone I use fennec.
For home: Firefox. I've tried the forks and I always hate something about them more than whatever good they offer.
Work: Chrome. I don't really have much of a choice.
Nothing wrong with that. Everyone has their own vision of what Firefox should be, and some just want the original experience.
Workplaces are the number one thing that keeps unpopular software afloat... at least you don't have to use it for anything personal. Chrome isn't unpopular, per se, but Google is definitely seeing a decline overall. I remember seeing an article that their search engine is actually losing % in numbers.
I’m a filthy causal… I use Safari on Mac and iOS. It’s fine. It works. I don’t really care that much about my browser. On Linux I like Firefox, but on my RaspberryPi’s I just use Chromium. It’s fine.
Ironfox on phone, Librewolf on computer.
I use Firefox because I have worked at both Google and MSFT and want as little to do as possible with their products.
From my top browsers, Librewolf and Brave Browser are probably in first place. Librewolf is, of course, better in terms of privacy, but I like Brave Browser because it performs better. I compared their performance on an old laptop, and Brave really works better. These are two open-source browsers, and there probably aren't any better ones, in principle.
I still occasionally check out Brave and it usually is quick and smooth every time. There was a time I solely used it for logins and personal applications.
Give Floorp a shot sometime, its so smooth and light if you're looking for something in the performance bracket.
I tried all the browsers on my old laptop, and the brave browser proved to be the best-it's my favorite in terms of performance.
I hear you. It really is that smooth. Some may disagree, but I don't think there's anything wrong in choosing Brave. Just be sure to go through your settings and make certain that there's nothing on that you don't want on. They have a tendency to do that to their users.
I believe there was an update a while back that even turned things on that had been turned off by the user previously, but they claim it was an accident. But with any browser you should always keep an eye on your settings after updating, anyway.
What exactly is confusing you? Is it the obsession with cryptocurrency? Yes, the Brave browser is filled with crypto stuff, but it still works quite well
Ah, no that's not it at all. I gotta see if I can look back to what happened. I think it was the Brave Rewards auto-contribute, though I'm seeing things like it accessing webcams without explicit permission. Ah, wait, it was the VPN. In 2023 they made an update that installed a paid VPN service on user's computers as well as turning on telemetry even for users that had turned it off. That caused a huge stir.
They also have a long loooong history of putting ads into their browser and their homepage and keeping the revenue, selling scraped data, and leaking DNS queries in their built in TOR browser from what I'm reading here.
Yeah, I did some research and you’re right, Brave has a questionable reputation. They don’t really care about security and privacy as much as they care about money. Well, we only have LibreWolf =) (and maybe floorp)
There's a good amount of Firefox forks to tide us over, plus you could always check out QTWebEngine browsers. I hear Falkon has a decent reputation, and as a Vim user I love Qutebrowser. I got curious and just tried Falkon. The integrated adblock is quite good and I got a greasemonkey script that at least silenced and blacked out ads (it did not skip them, though).
Yes, but the Firefox forks have synchronization, which is a big plus for me
Firefox. It was the default in Linux Mint when I first started using a computer, and I am used to it. (Yep, I started with Linux.)
On my phone, shamefully Opera. It's the best for desktop web experience. I don't like mobile websites.
I had a very brief stint with base Opera on mobile, too, but it was so brief that I didn't really dig into it. When I used it, it did have some QoL things I liked, but Firefox mobile caught up pretty quick and I ditched it. Before Opera, I was using Dolphin for a while.
Have you seen Fennec or Iceraven? Nice little Firefox forks for Android that prioritize privacy and add a few great tools. I would have mentioned Mull, too, but sadly it was abandoned recently.
Yep, I've got Fennec installed. But only Firefox nightly had... I don't remember what. Probably desktop-like tabs. I forgot.
But Firefox still has issues with scaling desktop sites which Opera does perfectly. Well, actually, Firefox does too in desktop mode. I think the only thing I am missing is permanent desktop mode. When I only changed UA, I had the scaling issues.
Well, I just checked since I updated Fennec yesterday because I had leftover data. The toggle seems to be there now. But the tabs don't show up desktop-style. I should re-check Firefox Nightly. I think that toggle was the only missing thing for me.
Weird. For me, I can't stop Fennec from switching back to desktop mode occassionally. I can't figure out if its a setting I have on or a bug, tbh, but its inconsistent, so I'm going to say its the latter. I'm fairly sure it can do it, though.
I used a browser that had this... lemme take a look at my phone, I might be able to figure which one. Ah! Fulguris. It's a pretty decent underdog browser, and even lets you customize how wide you want desktop pages to be per orientation, from what I'm seeing. I remember being able to get the tabs to view as desktop tabs, but it's been a while since I've used it.
So I just tried Firefox Nightly. Seems to work fine now. I actually had to disable automatic font scaling, otherwise it was funky (something too large, something too small). The desktop mode toggle is in Settings -> Site settings on top. "Always request desktop site" was on by default on my phone (possibly related to custom high DPI setting).
I've been using Zen for about a month now and I'm very happy with it. I like the design and feel of it, and it's actively being developed all the time. Don't think I've had any significant bugs (except a few very minor ones) or issues whilst using it yet.
Librewolf, although i tested zen browser for a while and since then i am running a vertical tab bar - it made me realize that this way the screen space is used much better! Had the same lag issues with zen, but i'll keep it installed and will check it out again later, because stuff like the sneak peek is great!
It took a long time to switch to Firefox, but it is now my main browser. I mean I really liked the Mozilla suite and Firefox just didn't seem ready for awhile, but eventually I made the move.
Firefox ever since.
Firefox, used to switch to edge to get hevc HDR to work from my jellyfin server. But now Firefox will pass it through AV1. So it my only browser now
I use fennec on mobile because it isn't chromium and isn't directly firefox. I use librewolf on desktop for the same reasons
Firefox (long term user) and my backup is Brave (in case something isn't displaying right) and my extra backup is Chrome which I hope to never use. And then there's IE that I used to download those.
lol Poor IE. In the user setting that's all its good for. Good thing they still get businesses to use it. A big reason I love Linux is that it doesn't have Edge stuck to it like a leech and I don't even need a browser to get a browser (though I think this can also be accomplished in Windows if you know how).
Firefox and Brave was my duo for a long time, too.
Mostly vivaldi, but I've been experimenting with Zen too, a Firefox fork. I really liked what I've seen so far. The layout is unique, workspaces and tab management is pretty nice.
I really love both of these browsers, I really do. They are amazing choices if you don't have the weird bugs and lag that I've unfortunately experienced. I still miss Vivaldi a lot.
I use it with arch (btw) , haven't had any problems in about 3 years, but I can't speak the windows side of things. I also keep it mostly stock no custom theme or anything
I'm on vanilla Arch as well (btw), but I had similar experiences on NixOS and CachyOS. I think its hardware related when it comes to Vivaldi. On Windows I'd BSOD and I had huge memory leak issues on NixOS.
I have to mess with Zen a bit more and see if its something I can fix. The lag isn't bad, its bog-standard for a browser, but after using Floorp and now Librewolf, I can definitely feel it.
Chrome for pages in Japanese I need to translate.
Chrome/Edge for certain Japanese govt websites that won't work in firefox (taxes and other such via the My Number program). I mostly use edge for this just so I can have the other pages of documentation open to translate in Chrome :/
Firefox for everything else.
Is the built-in Firefox translator bad for Japanese?
I ditched chromium a long time ago. Luckily any gov sites I need to use nowadays have FF variants support
Doesn't work at all on mobile yet and it's pretty bad for desktop. The first time I tried it, it couldn't even get the grammar of who was doing what to whom correct (it was about a court case and totally mixed up all the parties). Since I can read some and just rely on it for more legal/medical things, I need to have quite good accuracy. Legalese is at least as awful in Japanese as in English.
I'm curious as to see how Floorp would work on Japanese sites. Its developed in Japan, so it should work good. I understand that there are still too many sites that won't work without Chrome though, it's a major pain.
The government sites rely on being able to use Chrome extensions, sadly, so it seems we're out of luck there.
I saw that Mullvad had a browser now. It's one of my favorite VPNs. I'd still use it if I didn't need port forwarding. Now I'm on AirVPN (for better or for worse) and run it through Eddie on Arch.
Laptop is Fedora Workstation. Here I use Brave for logins and LibreWolf+UBO is my main "forgetful" browser.
Phone is GrapheneOS - I also use Brave for logins. Ironfox is my main browser which comes with UBO preinstalled plus a few extra blocklists which I did add to LibreWolf..
Librewolf and Ironfox are synced through a Mozilla account.
Cromite. A de-googled, hardened fork of Chromium. Not perfect by any means. But it gets the job done admirably.
Vivaldi as my main browser and Librewolf as my second. I love the tab management and workspaces on Vivaldi, there’s nothing else like it that I’ve found. I use librewolf for all my docker local host needs. I actually really quite like it and would probably switch over but the workspace/tab thing keeps me on Vivaldi.
The closest thing I've found to Vivaldi tab management without installing a bunch of custom CSS and extensions is Zen Browser. Zen would be my favorite browser if it was a little lighter, but it's worth checking out if you like Vivaldi, imo.
I tried Zen and while it was really nice looking it didn’t quite jive with me. One of my students suggested Floorp today, might mess around with it this weekend.
Zen and Floorp both have multiple UI designs you can change through the settings. I think Zen only has side-style tabs, though. Floorp is more malleable and has several UI variants plus many options to change how it works alongside integrated Tree Style Tabs support.
If you don't want all the customization and such, Librewolf would be the choice. It's a "just the basics" Firefox fork. No additives, no telemetry, nothing. The settings page is incredibly short, lol.
LibreWolf and Iron Fox
It looks like IronFox is getting more recognition than I thought. I'm glad, because its a great android browser. Is it on F-Droid's main repository yet? I remember having to add the IronFox repository manually.
Is it on F-Droid's main repository yet?
Still not
Over the last two and half years (since I quit Windows and Vivaldi and went FLOSS only), bouncing around between Firefox, Floorp, Zen, Firedragon and Falkon as my principal browser, while also checking out Pale Moon, Servo, Dillo, Netsurf, Agregore, Kristall. Also "special purpose browsers" like Station, Ferdium and FreeTube. (Is FreeTube a browser? I think it's an Electron app, which is basically a Blink/Chromium browser, used to browse just one website in this case.)
Currently on my laptop:
- Fully-loaded Zen (multiple extensions and a couple of Zen mods) as my main browser
- Fairly minimal Firefox (just uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger) for streaming music (e.g Spotify without ads)
- Ferdium for email and IM
- FreeTube for YouTube (LibRedirect extension in Zen sends YT links to FreeTube automatically)
- Ungoogled Chromium as a backup in case some site just won't work with a non-Blink browser. Haven't used it in months.
Qutebrowser and Firefox depending on what I'm browsing as qutebrowser is nicer but firefox has better adblock and addon support. Firefox with tridactyl is really good these days and very close to qutebrowser ux quality. Chromium for web development as chrome devtools are still unmatched unfortunately.
You've just changed my life with Tridactyl. It even has themes... This is what I'm missing. I can't wait to try this. I love Qutebrowser, but no matter what custom lists I add (even using all three list types), I can't get it it block everything. And I can't find a Greasemonkey youtube script that works.
Tridactyl is going to be so much fun. Thank you!!
Glad to expose it to more people - it's truly great!
I'm in love with Vim shortcuts as is. Having a bit of trouble figuring it out, though. Trying to track down the config folder. I have firefox-tridactyl added on Arch, but I also just installed it as an extension through Floorp. No idea where I'm supposed to find the configs for either. I'd like to make a theme using my custom astigmatism-friendly colors.
Well, I've been through the Arch sacred texts, so this won't be new to me. Time to get some reading in, lol.
Oh it's definitely possible. Its also just firefox so you can apply all firefox styling things like Chrome.css edits. I have mine setup so it's completely borderless like qutebroeser unless you press ctrl+l to open the location bar for extension gui controls etc. With local client extension it can also communicate between firefox windows so you have global tab list across just like qutebrowser too! It's very well made.
Including browser names in bold.
My strong preference is toward Pale Moon, but I have been using it less and less lately. Instead when I want to use a more standards-compliant (i.e non-Blink) rendering engine, I use SeaMonkey, which includes a browser, an email/newsgroup/RSS client, and an IRC client.
Lately though, I flip between Firefox, Waterfox, Librewolf, and Tor Browser - they're all just "Firefox, and this thing that could be an addon if addons still worked right". I truly despise the fact that they moved to Google WebExtensions, and have so many other Google shackles - so I'm glad that they're losing the money.
Oh, I also use Links in my terminal. It's a good alternative to curl.
I gotta check out some TUI browsers someday, I like the idea of being able to browse through my terminal. I've never heard of Pale Moon! I'm excited now and will be going to check it out ASAP.
Firefox but it's so slow on Android. I've just accepted there is no good browser. Just least annoying. And somehow that's Firefox even with all the useless crap and pop ups they keep adding
Librewolf. Firefox as a backup. Chrome as a backup-backup.
IronFox. Vanadium as a backup.
I'm up to my neck in privacy settings, systems, extensions, etc. LW does everything I need, with the exception of a couple different sites (glares at cpanel). I have been rocking it for a couple years now. IronFox is a fork of Mull, which is now defunct. Vanadium comes with GrapheneOS and cannot be removed, so it gets the backseat treatment (it's fine - but I need my extensions and deep settings, yeah yeah it's supposed to be more secure but safer isn't necessarily also more private).
Plus, LW is a fucking wolf browser. Hello. Wolves are #1, and this statement is absolutely not biased because I have a hybrid wolf fursona. Absolutely not. 0%.
(maybe like 5% okay wolves are awesome)
E: 🐺
lol! I just grabbed librewolf-bin after talking about it here (actually, I've almost got it. I lost track and forgot to accept the yay prompts, lol).
Have you looked into creating your own local hosted homepage dashboard for tracking your servers and such? Its something I'm very interested in doing, but I need to learn from the ground up. There's so many AI answers now, much of it incorrect, that its getting more difficult to learn things on my own these days.
I use uh, oh what's it called, Homearr? Yeah, that's the one. It makes it easy for me to access services when I can't remember the names (see above lol). It's only for server... services (at least for my setup), I haven't really personalized it. I use a tab group extension (name escapes me) and that way I have general stuff, local server, vps, etc etc and that helps keep thing from going nuclear, but I still have a lot of tabs - last time I checked I was nearing 1k. That's with FreshRSS and Linkding, in an attempt to curb the tab madness...
Holy. Its a good thing tabs can go inactive now, lol. I saw an extension that allowed you to convert tabs to lists so you didn't need them open and you could even port your tab lists to other devices without the need for syncing... I think it was called OneTab? Yeah, just checked.
I recommended it to a friend who is a similar tab user and he uses it quite a bit now.
Heimdall to host the links. SpeedDial is an in-browser alternative if self hosting is not an option.
Firefox. Little fuckery, and it's what I'm used to.
I use Vanadium/Trivalent (GrapheneOS fork of mobile Chromium and its desktop equivalent) for general internet use on a general-use system, and Firefox inside of specific qubes for specific purposes otherwise.
On a general-use system, the additional security of Vanadium and Trivalent give me a bit of peace of mind when using the same browser for admin work, sensitive stuff like banking, and general browsing.
With the Qubes model, everything is segmented and isolated anyway, so I can use Firefox, which despite its flaws has been my favorite since the Netscape days.
I have a Pixel 7 Pro I've been itching to put Graphene on. The fact that everything can be containerized in a stock environment is just too good. ROMs have come so far since the old days of Resurrection Remix. I remember flashing that on my old Moto X, specifically because I bought it secondhand and there was no connections at all, even after factory resetting.
LTE, 3g, Wifi, nothing worked. So I rooted it and made sure to install the drivers alongside Resurrection Remix (which were called the modem drivers, iirc) and was surprised that everything was working. The fact that we now can run whole systems in containers is an amazing win for technology.
Chrome, as a kid, then FF. Then to FF nightly. On mobile, I also used DDG (mainly for the tracker block thing), and Kiwi, until FF nightly supported browser extensions.
I've heard lots of good things about Kiwi, and I vaguely remember trying it. Never dug into FF Nightly. I'm a little wary of Mozilla right now, but part of me is also confident that they're not being malicious, despite what's been happening. I'm just more of an "err on the side of caution" person.
Does Nightly have anything that's radically different than stable? I'm curious.
Apart from rarely being the opposite of stable - randomly crashing -, I often find myself seeing news about "you can now try out feature XY in the newest firefox experiment/beta!" - and meanwhile I'm already using feature XY since months, without hiccups. Also, more power, similar to developer edition (eg. bypassing addon signing).
I may have to mess around with it a bit. I like writing custom CSS for browsers and having more power would be fun to play with.
Ironfox here, through Tor and ProtonVPN.
What about the Mullvad browser? Seems to work well and is very privacy focused. I'm surprised no one else has mentioned it yet...
Forefox, also Chromium occasioanly of I am in a hurry and some asshat makes it difficult to use Firefox.
Playing with Zen.
My OS is Linux Mint
Waterfox, privacy focused Firefox fork. Its awesome.
Vivaldi, hands down my favorite. I haven't had any bug issues of pc freezes or anything. And I have maaaany tabs open. Built-in stuff like ad blocker etc means less 3rd party extensions, I cannot live without mouse gestures, the multiple workspaces is perfect for me with all my tabs open (neatly sorted). Only downside imo is that it's chromium.
I really love Vivaldi, but Zen took over for me. It has Workspaces and even tab tiling. It also has something called Essential Tabs, which tile as buttons at the top of your tab bar.
https://docs.zen-browser.app/user-manual/workspaces
There's also Glance Mode, which will open a whole page in a hovering preview over your current page. It really can do some crazy stuff with tabs.
When you lock a tab in Vivaldi it also becomes a button in the tab bar.
I'm going to check out Zen, thanks! Does it have mouse gestures? I cannot live without. I had Firefox as a second browser which would access the internet without a VPN just for streaming services, but it was aids as I keep on doing mouse gestures and nothing happens because it's not Vivaldi lol
I can't either. Use the Gesturefy Firefox extension. Even has custom user gestures if you need and can you can change existing gestures.
I've tried the others, but Gesturefy seems to work best and I've been using it for years.
You tell me now haha! I don't have Firefox anymore. Because I don't have streaming services anymore. It's all usenet now. One streaming service to see it all? I happily pay. Even 2, no problem. But now it's so much, with ads and poor quality for insane prices.... So, I'm a pirate again :)
If you want to have one streaming service to rule them all, that'd be Stremio. I don't know how specific I want to get in this community, but there's ways of turning it into a torrent streamer. I pay $3.75 a month for it using debrid and have access to everything, even obscure movies. However, I always seed what I watch to at least 5x.
Stremio has an app for Android, Samsung TV, Windows, and Linux. I think mac and iOS, too, but I don't run those at all so I'm not sure. You can use catalog plugins to mimic Netflix, Hulu, etc. But you can also use it with your Netflix, Prime and other such streaming accounts.
Edit: Also, with debrid, you don't need a VPN. It does all the anonymity for you. That's the only thing that you have to pay for.
I have usenet and a fully automated system for movies (radarr) and for series (sonarr) running 24/7 on my NAS. I pay 7 per month and twice 25 euros per year for indexers. Every movie and series I add is automatically downloaded, repaired, extracted, renamed, moved to the right folder. All series are stored in the folder "Series" under its own subfolder, with in it subfolders for the seasons. Each episode is named as "[series name] S01E01 [episode name]". Whenever a new episode airs, it is immedialty downloaded. As soon as I open Kodi I see what's new and in sonarr and radarr are calenders as well. I decide the quality I want. I can download subtitles in kodi through opensubtitles.
I have a 32TB NAS and I'm going to host my own free streaming service for close friends as soon as they finally install a fiberglass connection in my street (planned for 2 years now). My current upload speed sucks, so now people can only download single episodes every time. But 1gb/s upload with fiberglass connection would do the trick.
Because I pay for usenet I pay for privacy rights and I dont upload. So I everything I do which is illegal is downloading but that info isn't shared due to privacy. Next to that downloading isn't punished in my country. Uploaders are being hunted, and downloading with torrents also uploads to others. Next to that, many torrent streamers are cloned and contain malware, crypto miners, ads, other junk. I don't trust torrents anymore, there's so much harmful junk spread through torrents these days. The usenet indexers I use are all closed communities so all trusted data. I'm also a member of some closed torrent communities but I rarely use them. Only for video games, as triple A game devs create expensive but boring bug simulators so they don't deserve my money. But I still want to check it out sometimes, then to be disappointed after 2-3h as expected. I'd rather give my money to decent indie devs.
So legally I'm safe, I can watch anything I like and all I have to do for it is add it to my list, choose quality profile and what to download: everything, latest season, only future episodes, etc. I'm never switching to anything else anymore. I did when Netflix came, but now since everything is so fragmented, this is heaven so I dusted off my old pirate hat.
Whats also funny, because I don't have a streaming service, I never agreed to their user agreements, so as a pirate I have more rights (and freedom, better quality, no ads, more choice, no junk clutter) than a paying customer.
That's why I don't have any subscription services as well (aside from VPN and Debrid). I'm now less legally bound than those who use "legal" services (if you count extortion as legal).
Ngl, I'm going to bookmark this reply and see if I can get something similar set up. However, I will still have to look around for when communities open registration. The closest thing I was in back in the day was Demonoid when it first launched. I got in early through a friend who was a trusted member. Yes, it was torrents, but it was a completely private torrent economy.
That being said, torrents are still a security risk. I've just been using them for so long that I know the right channels and uploaders to go through in the public scene. I haven't had a single malicious file fot my last 8 years on Windows. Now that I'm on Linux, the risk is a bit less. There's still risk, but not as bad.
Send me a dm if you want, I can maybe help finding the right stuff, set it up, maybe have an invite here or there, go e advice. It was a lot of work, but with the help of a friend I fixed it all. If I can help someone else, I happily do :)
I started using Zen recently. I really like being able to get rid of all menus when I don't need them. I don't like it that much stock though and wish all of the customisation I did was easily transferable between devices, at the moment only some basic config is stored via Mozilla sync for some reason.
Heavily modified vivaldi. Vertical tabs on the left side. Side panels with often used tools. Autohiding UI, pop-out links. I cannot live without native mouse gestures and the Vivaldi speed dial. Opera also offers it, but that browser is unfortunately a shell of what it was.
Zen browser as a semi backup.
I tried using zen as my main browser for a month, but I ended up going back to Vivaldi. It's just so much better.
Firefox: Windows 10 desktop PC, Ubuntu old laptop, Ubuntu old Mini PC. Opera is my second option if some pages with Firefox addons doesnt work.
DuckDuckGo browser: iOS, I tried Brave also but heard that the owner is douchebag so deleted it. Duckduck’s delete all by single click button in top right corner is awesome. All browsers should have it by default. If they ever add adblock, I might start using on my desktop pc.
I checked out DuckDuckGo Browser a bit. The mobile version is definitely more polished than the desktop version. At least you can use the DuckPlayer to watch YouTube without ads. The main thing for me is that I need a browser that forces dark mode on sites and the last I checked the DDG Desktop browser doesn't have it, even though the mobile one does.
Yeah, DuckPlayer is also the reason why I love the mobile version. I use it daily.
Latest mobile update sadly made Duck way much worse. Everything is slow af and automated opt out from cookies doesn’t work.
Ironfox on mobile and qutebrowser on my computer.
I use Brave since some extensions I use don't work on Firefox and I prefer it as well. Once you turn off all of the crypto and other bloat - it's the best browser ever, at least for me.
Anyone remember MyIE2? AKA Maxthon? Miss those early days.
Yeah, I remember mouse gestures with Maxthon being awesome.
Yes! You're damn right. 👍
Qutebrowser on desktop and Brave on mobile, mainly for adblocking. I see the adblocking on desktop as its own hobby (I'm a homelabber) so there's some enjoyment to be had from it.
Safari because fuck you that’s why.
lmao Fair enough. Have you tried the Orion Browser yet? I was curious about it.
I actually used Orion Browser I thought it was fantastic but I quickly got some weird bugs and had to go back to using safari. My Go to browsers and Zen, Vivaldi and Safari (because of how power efficient it is on my MacBook).
There's nothing wrong with Safari at all. I have my irks with Apple tech, but honestly they're probably one of the safer big corporations imo. I do love Airpods, though. I have a pair of Max and I can't get by with any other headphones now, lol. I just can't get used to mac and iOS, especially since I love open source android apps.
Makes sense about Orion. Its still brand new. Zen and Vivaldi are two of my absolute favorites, as well. I just switched back to Zen. I felt that Zen was weirdly more sluggish than Floorp for some reason. I mulled on it a bit and figured it out. mousewheel.default.delta_multiplier_y is set to 300 in Floorp and 200 in Zen. I set it to 300 and it feels so much better.
Safari is my daily driver but I also have Firefox and edge installed for other things. I was just anticipating getting shit on for actually liking safari.
Firefox is fast and useful for stubborn web pages that just refuse to cooperate. Edge is great for when I need a chromium browser for something since I refuse to install chrome on my hardware. Sometimes I need webserial and that’s just not going to happen in safari. Firefox is good for quick dives into I2P and other funkiness I want to play around with.
I usually try to opt for Vivaldi for anything I need for Chromium. I know Microsoft too well at this point (since Windows 3.14). Like, Swiftkey is my favorite android keyboard and I forced myself to learn how to use Thumbkey. That's how much I just can't trust them anymore.
I only use Chrome if I'm going to be doing web development. That being said, I have heard decent things about Edge's performance lately. I could have dealt with MS shoving AI down my throat, but pics of my screen and ads in my start bar was the last straw.
Too bad I enjoy Github and Minecraft... otherwise I'd avoid their software altogether.
I actually trust Apple's security. They make bank on high end devices for high prices, enough where they don't need to rely on collecting and selling user data. Iirc, the only thing that really collects your data is Apple Music and Apple TV, but every paid sub streaming platform does that.
Dont even get me started on software keyboards. Microsoft used to make one called word flow that I absolutely loved and they killed it. I cant handle big phones without it so I went back to smaller phones once it died.
Zen browser at the moment, it includes a lot of UI and UX tweaks that I was already trying to do via CSS and extensions in Firefox, but it does them a lot cleaner. Definitely an opinionated appearance though, won't be for everyone but so far I am enjoying it. My only gripe has been that I can't disable workspaces and keeping them active seems to keep a hidden tab open all the time, so closing a window always asks me to confirm "closing 2 tabs" even though I have 1 or none open.
I previously was using Librewolf to disable Mozilla's tracking, but after it wiped my browsing history and made some weird user agent change which broke almost every website I have given up on it. The extra bit of privacy wasn't worth the headache, and the TOR-like defaults exemplify that it's a more hardcore browser than I need. As far as I can Zen browser is about the same as vanilla Firefox for privacy issues, so not perfect but not as bad as Chrome.
I refuse to use anything Chromium anymore, but I tried out a bunch of those as well some years ago. Vivaldi was my favourite for it's features, but man whatever they did to tweak the UI resulted in a lot of bugs... I had weekly crashes on that browser over two different hardware setups.
I use IronFox, because it's supposed to be a privacy-focused browser. I also liked the Kiwi browser before they got bought out by Microsoft or whatever happened to them. If a site I trust isn't working in IronFox, I'll use either Firefox or Firefox Nightly as an alternative. I really enjoy Hermit as well, although often I'll forget I even have that app. It's very useful though.
You listed Chrome 4 times.
Lol, yes I did. I only dropped Chrome completely when they dropped adblock support. Curiosity would always get me and I'd try Chrome-based browsers against my better judgement.
Firefox, Floor and Brave (Brave to play DRM content)
Floorp and Firefox can play DRM, I think. There's a checkbox in the settings, at least. I've never tried it because I use third party apps to play DRM media.
I use multiple browsers for different things:
Vivaldi - for work or personal projects because the workspaces and tab stacking allows me to keep an "L1 cache" of all the sites relevant to parts of projects I'm working on. Then when I'm done with that work the useful ones get bookmarked for future use.
Firefox - personal browsing i.e. watching stuff, shopping, etc. because I wanted off chrome so I could continue to use adblockers.
Brave - research purposes.
Opera - for the occasional use of a VPN for getting around geoblocking.
There's many options for browsers that can sync with your phone. I used to love Brave until all the shifty moves they pulled. Installing paid propietary software without consent, switching the telemetry on without saying anything and claiming it was an accident...
And their ad block is like a leaking sieve compared to uBO/Ad-Nauseum. Not to mention useless when they've been known to put ads on the homescreen and in the browser itself. Then underneath all that you have Google lurking in the shadows, ready to take your data and sell you advertisements tailored to your interests.
I had had enough of both Brave and Reddit when my umpteenth Brave search was being advertised to me on Reddit.
Librewolf might not sync due to how pure and barebones it is, but you could check out Zen or Floorp or Firedragon. Any FF fork that lets you login with a Mozilla account will work. I never sync, myself, but from what I've seen you should be able to.
I do like the Brave browser itself, so I get it. But even plain old Firefox might be the lesser of two evils here. Just search up "brave browser drama" and check things out. It gets kind of nasty. The devs are not the most trustworthy people...
Sorry if this sounded pushy. I'm not trying to be. I got burned with Brave and it still stings a bit, lol.
I skimmed all the comments and it looks like I'll be the first: Chrome. Not Chromium, or any fork. Just Google Chrome. Even on my Ubuntu HTPC.
I've used it since it was new and blew everything else out of the water for smoothness. Over time I've gotten used to features like sync and profiles, and tab groups. Now my life is too busy to put ideology over convenience, and since uBlock Lite seems to work fine for me on Manifest v3, I really don't have a particularly strong reason to change.
My second browser is Firefox, but it's literally only for NSFW things. To try migrating over, they would have to implement profiles better so that this can coexist with my main usage.
Sometimes I also use Edge to keep different logins, although I could also achieve the same with profiles on Chrome now.
I'll give you an upvote for courage, lol. I just can't do it, myself. I'm not a fan of Google's moral ethics. Every time I open Chrome I feel vulnerable.