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.
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Mozilla Firefox: Pocket integration, no ad-blocking without extensions.
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Brave: Everything related to crypto. Also its start page is horrible.
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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.
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
Just when I was getting used to car analogies, here’s candy analogies
No browser will ever tick ALL your boxes. You pick one and make it work.
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.
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.
Is it that hard to NOT include bloatware in your browser
I mean obviously it is, yes. If you want to build a good browser, that takes resources. How else would you monetize it? God knows no one is paying directly for a web browser…
don’t expect browsers to block ads out of the box
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.
I didn’t know about the Manifest v3 thing, and I found this article. Sharing in case anyone else is out of the loop.
Just install u block origin lmao.
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.
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.
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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
You can backup your profile folder. See here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/back-and-restore-information-firefox-profiles
Librewolf or one of the other Firefox forks
Mullvad Browser
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Nyxt includes a blocker, and has an appealing minimalistic interface, but I never tested.
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Qutebrowser has great, sensible defaults with no telemetry. 😊
Can confirm, I only configured some visual changes, font, minimal font size and alike.
Only problem I have with it is, an increasing number of webpages tell me, my browser is outdated and rarely some pages don’t work correctly.
I am thinking of moving to Epiphany (gnome-web) some day, but I may start missing the vim-like interaction with qutebrowser.
Have you updated Qutebrowser recently? It was running a pretty ancient version of Chromium under the hood before the 3.0 release (2 weeks ago), but it’s up-to-date now.
Thx for the reminder; I need to do that update.
you might be able to fix webpages telling you you’re outdated by changing your useragent string.
You should REALLY try Vivaldi.
Best browser for desktop and mobile. Privacy respecting and great onboarding, plus very versatile and powerful if you want that.
Or keep it simple. They let you choose.
Web browsers handle the most sensitive information about a user, so I would never trust a proprietary browser.
I have a little known browser which is released by DuckDuckGo. Hasn’t failed me yet.
True.
I wish someone can fork Brave on desktop and mobile and take out all the other stuff. And if someone could fork firefox for desktop and mobile and make it a hardened browser out of the box.
Firefox has librewolf for desktop.
But not for mobile, especially Android. I would like librewolf to maintain a hardened Android app with their own F-Droid repo.
On Android there’s Bromite
Man, not even devices come with a good out of box experience anymore, my phone and PC I have to add so many extensions that slow them down just to prevent ads and other crap they come with, half that nice expensive chip and ram is used up before I get use anything
