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Do you use an alternative browser? Which one? Why?
The big players today are Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Edge. Then there are a load of alternative browsers from Vivaldi and Brave to EWW and elinks and w3m, and then things like Dillo and Netsurf. Do you use any of these alternative browsers? If yes, why, and why did you pick that particular one? I'd be interested to read why not, too.
I think you meant on desktop, but I use Firefox Focus on mobile. It’s like a private browser tab on steroids, including adblocking. When I see the tracking cookie opt-in message in Safari/Chrome I just tap share, choose FF Focus, and super privacy is achieved.
I just recently realized I could use FF Focus as a Safari ad blocker too. So that’s pretty swell. I think everyone should probably give it a shot on mobile.
Cool! I just use regular FF on mobile with private browser but this seems far better (and more private?). I'm going to give it a spin. Why use Safari/Chrome at all if you switch to FF Focus when there is a cookie opt-in?
How does this work?
Why use Safari/Chrome at all? Well, I do enjoy being signed into sites like Tildes automatically, for which I use Safari. I even do enjoy my signed-in and customized Google News profile, for which I use Chrome.
For Mozilla powered iOS Safari adblocking, install Focus, then go to iOS settings/Safari/General/Content Blockers and turn on FF Focus.
edit: clarity
For me Chrome just has the incredible convenience of having a lot of logins saved. for me, Firefox is also way slower compared to Chrome
Firefox has a tool to import passwords from chrome it can also sync stuff to your phone. About a year ago firefox quantum came out that made firefox massively faster to the point where everything is pretty much instant for me.
Firefox quantum is only for the PC though, right? I meant it's slow on my phone. But then again. At least I can block ads. (btw does that work on ios?)
It's worth mentioning that every browser on iOS is actually forced to use the built in WebKit-based rendering framework and not allowed to use their own (e.g. Gecko or Chromium). So in essence every browser on iOS is basically just a reskin of Safari, even iOS Chrome/Firefox, and so in theory their speed really shouldn't be all that different between them. But, yes, Firefox Focus adblocking works even on iOS.
p.s. iCab Mobile also has "filtering" which can be used for even more comprehensive adblocking than what Focus offers, as well as a ton of other really awesome features and UI customization. It's my personal iOS browser of choice for exactly that reason.
It was mobile too I'm fairly sure. I know exactly what you are talking about. I stopped using firefox on android because of that but I tried it again about 3 months ago and its been working perfect for me so they must have fixed it.
Second the Firefox Focus recommendation. I have it set as the default browser on my Android phone, and love (the privacy aspects of) it.
The only annoyance is having to log in to sites at times, which is surprisingly rare for me (I usually use an app or just a public/not logged in version of a site). Tildes is one of few exceptions :)
I keep my passwords in 1Password with fingerprint unlock so that's not as inconvenient as it sounds.
Have you tried Adguard? It's basically Ublock Origin for iOS, and the annoyances filters basically mean you don't even have to see any cookie popups.
I’m a bit hesitant to use non-open source ad blockers. It seems like any content filter has complete access to your browsing history, correct? I guess I trust Mozilla and the open source aspect of Focus more than proprietary solutions from god knows who.
Edit: that iOS app is proprietary, right?
Edit2: auto-misspelled
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by continent filters, but all content blockers on iOS work in basically the same way: they give Safari a list of resources and URLs to block, and Safari does all the blocking. The app never sees any browsing history.
And no, the app isn't proprietary.
Sorry about misspelling.. I mean “content filter” like ad-blocker.
Edit: and thanks, that’s cool that it’s open source.
I use Qutebrowser cos it has a vim philosophy as a fundamental design choice, not stuck on top of another browser. It's very nice to use because of this. It also has a really clean ui and is nicely configurable.
Unfortunately it's written in python and so is slow.
Chromium. It's pretty much like a separately installed open source Chrome, but depending on build it can have some Google ties cut. It's convenient to have one browser for professional content and one for personal content, and these two are the same in use, yet distinguishable by icon color.
I use lynx on my lfs. It's a fun blast from the past in 2018.
Look who’s a badass ;)
But seriously, interesting that Lynx as one of the first ever WWW browsers is still alive and kicking. I guess the graph in the Wikipedia article on the history of the web browser needs an update.
Why thank you c: It's good fun, but for anything beyond quick googling it's just... Well, it's from 1993.
There’s also Elinks(2) and W3m – haven’t tried any of them in some time though.
I use Brave since I care about privacy but Firefox is not well-tailored for me (can't assign keyboard shortcuts to extensions or to user profiles, have to go through hoops to add new search engines whose title you cannot modify, have to use a third party application to add zoom capability to the browser, cannot add a background image to the tabs and bookmarks section, etc). I'd love to switch to Firefox, but using it is such a pain in the ass (for me, personally, the issues I have with Firefox apparently no one else has).
When I want to do something really privately, I use Firefox. When I want to watch YouTube on PiP, I use Opera. Otherwise, Brave.
On mobile, I alternate between Brave and Samsung Internet Beta browser. Firefox there is even worse than on desktop (like having a a button to add sites to your homepage, but not having a button to access your homepage; and awful tab management). There are other browsers that actually have a lot more functionality and customizability (lightning browser, via browser) but they don't make privacy a priority the way Brave does, so even though I like them better, I mostly don't use them.
I'm pretty sure you can just right click in the search field you want to add and select the add search engine option.
Is this what you're looking for?
Are you on the latest version? There is built-in zoom as far as I can tell. Just do ctrl+ or ctrl-.
For which I have to go to that page, select the search option, and do it over and over and over. I like using dictionaries and translators from the search bar. That means I already have the search url ready. On Opera, Brave, Chromium, Vivaldi... I can just go to the search engine options in settings, and add my search engine there. On the browser preferences. I don't have to go to the search engine page, or a third party page like the Mycroft project or the mozilla extensions page.
That fits my definition of going through hoops.
Nevermind that those two options, right clicking the search field and mycroft project aren't even mentioned in the settings. I mean, why are they a secret? something so basic for a browser. It took me months to discover it, and it was only through Reddit.
And there's also the fact that you for some mysterious reason cannot change the name of the search engine. I use Startpage as my primary search engine. Often when I see something I don't know or I want to know more about, I right click the word or sentence and choose “search on Startpage”. That is, unless I'm using Firefox, on Firefox you don't search on “Startpage”. You search on “Startpage.com - English”. Such a redundant name. On other browsers I can could change the name, but not on Firefox.
No, this is: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/use-themes-change-look-of-firefox
You have to submit an image and hope that they approve it, and of course you cannot violate copyright and all of that nonsense. Instead of just adding an image of your choosing to your particular Firefox installation without having to share it with the world.
What Firefox calls zoom, is just a re-sizing the css elements of the page, which breaks the page and is incredibly unpractical and unsightly.
When you zoom in on some pages, they change as if you were using a different device with a different display size. It jumbles elements up and is really annoying.
And mind you, if you want to do this god-awful scrolling with a trackpad pinch in/out gesture (like you can on any other browser not built on top of Firefox) you have to do this:
Go to about config and change these prefs:
browser.gesture.pinch.in -> cmd_fullZoomReduce
browser.gesture.pinch.in.shift -> cmd_fullZoomReset
browser.gesture.pinch.out -> cmd_fullZoomEnlarge
browser.gesture.pinch.out.shift -> cmd_fullZoomReset
browser.gesture.pinch.latched -> false
Again, having to jump through hoops to access basic functionality.
This is the extension I have to use: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-touch-zoom/
Imgur album with images: https://imgur.com/a/CXpmQL0
Fair enough.
I was just checking out Vivaldi, I hadn't heard of it before. It's a fork of Opera correct? I noticed it also supports Chrome extensions so is it Chromium based?
AFAIK it is a conceptual fork of Opera in that its ways of working is similar to it, but it is WebKit or Blink based, like other said.
I hope Firefox Quantum will become a base for this sort of browsers, eating into Chrome market share.
I believe it was created by some of the folks who were behind Opera, but the rendering engine is based on Webkit, not the original Opera.
Opera went to shit and one of its founder started Vivaldi. It's based on Blink and has some issues but it's the best browser out there imo.
On my desktop I usually use Firefox, but have Falkon (ex QupZilla) installed as well – I’m looking at it because it’s better integrated into the KDE desktop and is in general quite lean, while still providing out-of-the-box ad blocker and tree-style tabs.
What keeps me back on Firefox as the default – mostly the OneTab plugin, to be honest. My workflow got a bit too used to it. If I could find something in Falkon to replace it, I very much might make the switch.
Also, while I may think Mozilla has strayed a bit from their path in the past few years and made too many shitty compromises, I still trust them (much) more than Google.
At work, I also have Chromium as a backup browser, since …well, people are lazy and check only that it works in Chrome and while at home I may have principles, at work some of them have to take a back seat sometimes.
I tried for a while Iridium Browser.
https://iridiumbrowser.de/manifest
It is sand-boxed and apparently nice designed. Unfortunately the privacy policy is in german.
Also i would like to know which parts of google crappy surveillance code still in the core.
Now i use firejailed firefox with good privacy add-ons (to limit fingerprinting, ads, webrtc, etc...) and a good :config (exit telemetry and many stuff) . It suits my needs.
There is Ungoogled Chromium which is in the same vein, but seemingly better. You'd have to compile it yourself probably, though. That's why I can't test it, with my computer it is impractical to build it once, let aside building often.
Thanks . I'll check this out.
I normally use Safari on mobile, but Brave's new update is pretty good, making it as fast as chrome or firefox, but with script blocking and fingerprinting protection. Now it no longer crashes whenever I have more than five tabs open.